Ever take a chance? Try something new, maybe with some risks to it? But, if you had to risk your life for a role of 6 or better on two dice – does that sound worth it?

I’ve been training in the martial arts for a very long time (over a quarter century), but when I was a new green belt I helped out with a women’s self defense demonstration. The demonstration was led jointly by one of our black belt women, and with the local rape crisis shelters. In that demonstration I heard a shocking statistic – at the time the FBI figured that about 30% of women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. That fact is both horrifying and heart wrenching. That’s a high number. Today, in Colorado studies figure that about twenty five percent of women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Twenty five percent is a high number, it had an impact on me, and it became something I wanted to help out with. Twenty five percent is about what a roll of 5 or less is on two dice.

So years later, when I took over leading the martial arts school that I had trained in -- in Utah I wanted to continue these self defense seminars with the rape crisis shelter and we started doing that, over seven years we did dozens of seminars mostly to young college age women. I got to hear not only statistics but also the stories of survivors. I heard from Bev who was raped when she was 16, became pregnant and gave the child up for adoption. I heard from Deana who was raped at gunpoint by her husband and kidnapped to Mexico. It cemented in my mind the need to deal with the issue and give whatever help we could.  But, another thing happened as well.

When I first started doing these seminars one of my incentives was to get more students in our martial arts classes. So at first we had a bent towards highlighting the martial arts, but quickly found that women didn’t believe that if I could do something – that they could. I also remember participants asking questions that really were ridiculous to expect an answer from. I’ve been studying the martial arts for years and they wanted a quick answer in a few minutes asking – “If I’m held at knife point, and he has a gun, and a nuclear missile – what should I do”? I figured this was born more out of watching movies and TV than anything else. But, as we continued to do seminar’s I found that many women weren’t talking about experiences on TV – they were talking about things that happened to them – personally.  As I was working closer with the women from the rape crisis shelter I also found them taking my advice. And one of my reactions was “Man they actually listen to me - am I telling them the right things?”

So I made an effort to do research on actual rapes, and the methods that were found to be effective. What I found was that the strategies of: running away, screaming, and physically fighting worked half the time, while: crying, or pleading almost never worked. So we made sure to incorporate real stories from real women that had survived attacks and talked about what they did. Working closely with the counselors from the rape crisis shelter we worked together reading the same books and finding materials and ways of presenting that worked well. When I moved to Colorado I didn’t drop this work completely but have worked with the local rape crisis agency here MESA (Moving to End Sexual Assault, see http://www.movingtoendsexualassault.org) on similar seminars here.

We all read reports about sexual perpetrators and sexual assault all the time.  On a Korean martial arts email list I’m a part of I see reports at least monthly about instructors that sexually assault their students. Recently the church I attend had a former youth councilor from 10 years ago arrested for sexual assault on minors.  It brought back to my mind the need for all of us to face this issue and work at preventing these types of crimes. As martial artists we can help teach people techniques to fight off an assault, but also gain the mental toughness that helps in being a survivor of an assault. But, those of us that are men – need to step up and do something further. Since, men perpetrate sexual assaults, almost exclusively, we also need to step up and help prevent the attitudes, stereotypes, and culture that create an atmosphere for violence against women.  Let’s all work together as men and women to lower the odds of the dice roll of sexual assault for our community here, as well as well as help those who are victimized to seek the help and support they need to move on in their lives. Rolling, snake eyes, on dice at the crap table is bad enough – but rolling the same for sexual assault on the dice of life is just not something we want anyone to have to experience.