An Interview with a participant from Strike Back! The Course with the Padded Attacker

Kim Manchester is a teacher at PCC Sylvania. She is a gold sash in the art of Poekoelan Tjimindie Tulen and has trained at One With Heart for a little over a year. Kim wanted to learn skills to handle real-life situations. Last October she participated in Strike Back! The Course with the Padded Attacker.

Why did you decide to take Strike Back!?
I felt like I needed to practice confronting that fear that comes up when things happen ourside of class. I wanted to practice keeping my center when incidents occur.

How would you describe your experience while taking the course?
At first I was more nervous than I thought I would be. Then I felt the community we built and saw everyone's strength. This got me through the initial nervousness. I was so amazed at the progress of the women around me. The most inspiring thing was seeing the potential that all women have to fight back.

What is an example of something you learned that you apply to your life?
I use so many things in my life that I learned in this course. I learned to use my awareness, my gut feeling, to read and direct situations. This has been so useful in my work as a teacher. Now that I use my awareness I work at a higher professional level with my students. Also, every morning, when I walk to the bus, I have confidence in my ability to defend myself. And I know I don’t have to always be nice. If someone makes me uncomfortable I can do what I need to do without hesitation.

Would you recommend this course to a friend or loved one? Why?
Absolutely. I think we all need permission to respect the awareness we have that tells us what to do. We are socialized not to offend anyone. This course gives women permission and skills to protect ourselves. Today I know how to handle a situation before anything happens.

Did you feel that having the opportunity to train with the padded attackers improved the experience of your self defense training?
Yes. The padded attackers provide two elements that I think are essential for the transformative process. They provide an element of unpredictability. You don’t know what they are going to say or do, so the emotions you feel are similar to what you might feel in real life situations. They also provide a very satisfying and realistic idea of how effective the physical defense techniques are. They are not going to pretend that you are effective. You know, when they fall, it’s all you. It is very powerful to experience that.