Students and IU Campus Recreational Sports staff members learned how to free themselves from attacks such as these through the use of pressure points and simple body mechanics.
About a dozen women had the chance to practice these and other self-defense techniques in a free workshop put on by IU Campus Recreational Sports and the IU Police Department on Thursday evening at the Wildermuth Intramural Center.
The seminar combined physical training aspects of self-defense and personal safety tips.
Sponsored by the Jill Behrman 5K Student Committee, the seminar began with a word from Jill’s mother.
Marilyn Behrman encouraged the group to tell others when and where they leave alone and to avoid being out late at night.
“You need to take care of yourselves and take care of each other,” Behrman said. “And learn also what it is to be a responsible bystander so if something is going wrong, maybe you step in and help.”
IUPD Lt. David Rhodes led the seminar with an emphasis on personal safety and encouraged the women at the seminar to not feel guilty for taking action.
He encouraged them instead to be confident.
“You have to be able to stand up for yourself,” Rhodes said. “When you walk into a room, you own it.”
Rhodes has taught personal safety for years. He was first asked to lead a women’s self-defense class early in his law enforcement career.
He said he was drawn to empowering women through the seminars and has continued to teach self-defense ever since.
“Every woman, every person on campus should be actually able to walk anywhere they want at any time of night without fear,” Rhodes said. “Unfortunately, of course, that’s not the reality of the situation.”
Rhodes emphasized mobility and safety, as he taught the women to find their balance and push away their potential attackers.
“Think of a house,” Rhodes said. “You have to have a good foundation.”
Shelby LeFevre, who works in member services for IU Campus Recreational Sports, said she was drawn to attend the seminar because of recent attacks reported on campus.
“You hear all of the stories on campus lately, and it just makes you feel a little bit safer if you know how to defend yourself,” LeFevre said.
In the class, the women paired up and learned to find pressure points near the ankle, throat and back of the leg that could be used to stun and disable an attacker.
Rhodes said these tactics are used to impair a person long enough to run away and call for help.
“I do try to keep everyone engaged, keep things moving so that it’s actually a good learning experience,” Rhodes said. “So that when they leave they feel like it was worth their time and that they learned something.”
Practicing with their partners, the participants learned mental strength techniques, like it is better to shout, not scream in the event of an attack to draw more attention from bystanders.
Rhodes also taught participants to avoid targeting the well-known areas of attack — the groin, neck and eyes — that an attacker would easily think to defend against.
Rhodes concluded the class by telling the women not to feel afraid to fight back and they have every right to defend themselves, telling the women to remember the acronym “BITCH” or “Boys, I’m Taking Charge Here.”
“If someone is squeezing your arm so hard that it hurts, you don’t have to stand for that,” Rhodes said. “We get busy. We stay busy. We hit them hard, we hit fast, and we hit often.”
