Throw HER a Personal Safety Life Vest…

I was a student with the immediate understanding of the S.P.E.A.R. system prior to becoming a P.D.R. certified instructor with Blauer Tactical Systems. I believed as a student and firmly believe as an instructor that the S.P.E.A.R. system is by far the most realistic and automatic personal safety/self-defense system to learn. Personal safety/self-defense is NOT martial arts or a sport – it is entirely about protecting and defending yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually and ultimately physically realistically.

An excerpt from Tony Blauer:
RESEARCH
The core of P.D.R.™ (Personal Defense Readiness) is based on the S.P.E.A.R. SYSTEM™ (Spontaneous Protection Enabling Accelerated Response) which is the first genetically & behaviorally inspired self-defense course of it’s kind. It is the only self-defense method that fully integrates the body’s reflexive responses and instinctive survival mechanisms making the S.P.E.A.R. SYSTEM the easiest, most natural way to protect yourself. Our program also includes unique and patented learning models but most importantly, we have pioneered research on how to manage and overcome fear.

Strategically & tactically speaking, our courses are based on how real confrontations actually occur! We have been leading the scenario/behavioral approach to training for over 20 years. Our curriculum is based on a ‘3-Dimensional’ theory that creates confidence on emotional, psychological and physical levels.

OUR TEACHING DOCTRINE
We only teach realistic self-defense skills that are street applicable. Students are exposed to aggressive as well as defensive role-playing to simulate encounters and to prepare them to react ethically as well as decisively to real-life aggression. Our curriculum covers verbal defusing tactics, choice speech principles and a host of other behaviorally researched strategies.

OTHER BENEFITS
Training in our system engenders personal evolution: Our breakthrough research on fear management is the foundation of our program and understanding and directing fear is the key to overcoming any obstacle in life. We’ve had many individuals participate in the program and experience transcendent applications in their professional life and in intra-personal relationships.

Our system fosters respect for yourself and others by developing virtues like self-discipline, humility, assertiveness and character. Since our program is so focused around the managing of one’s fears, it directly works the ‘esteem’ and ‘ego’ centers of anyone sincerely studying the system, ultimately leading to greater self-knowledge and personal evolution.

Training events are now being scheduled for Fall 2010, email me for your Organizer packet; give yourself, family, friends – the gift of life.

Take care and STAY SAFE!

Anny

What Makes Tony Blauer's P.D.R. Self-Defense System Different?

I was a student with the immediate understanding of the S.P.E.A.R. system prior to becoming a P.D.R. certified instructor with Blauer Tactical Systems. I believed as a student and firmly believe as an instructor that the S.P.E.A.R. system is by far the most realistic and automatic personal safety/self-defense system to learn. Personal safety/self-defense is NOT martial arts or a sport - it is entirely about protecting and defending yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually and ultimately physically.

An excerpt from Tony Blauer:
RESEARCH
The core of P.D.R.™ (Personal Defense Readiness) is based on the S.P.E.A.R. SYSTEM™ (Spontaneous Protection Enabling Accelerated Response) which is the first genetically & behaviorally inspired self-defense course of it’s kind. It is the only self-defense method that fully integrates the body’s reflexive responses and instinctive survival mechanisms making the S.P.E.A.R. SYSTEM the easiest, most natural way to protect yourself. Our program also includes unique and patented learning models but most importantly, we have pioneered research on how to manage and overcome fear.

Strategically & tactically speaking, our courses are based on how real confrontations actually occur! We have been leading the scenario/behavioral approach to training for over 20 years. Our curriculum is based on a ‘3-Dimensional’ theory that creates confidence on emotional, psychological and physical levels.

OUR TEACHING DOCTRINE
We only teach realistic self-defense skills that are street applicable. Students are exposed to aggressive as well as defensive role-playing to simulate encounters and to prepare them to react ethically as well as decisively to real-life aggression. Our curriculum covers verbal defusing tactics, choice speech principles and a host of other behaviorally researched strategies.

OTHER BENEFITS
Training in our system engenders personal evolution: Our breakthrough research on fear management is the foundation of our program and understanding and directing fear is the key to overcoming any obstacle in life. We’ve had many individuals participate in the program and experience transcendent applications in their professional life and in intra-personal relationships.

Our system fosters respect for yourself and others by developing virtues like self-discipline, humility, assertiveness and character. Since our program is so focused around the managing of one’s fears, it directly works the ‘esteem’ and ‘ego’ centers of anyone sincerely studying the system, ultimately leading to greater self-knowledge and personal evolution.

Please take a moment to watch the video to the right to enhance your understanding of P.D.R. and the S.P.E.A.R. system.

Take care and STAY SAFE!

Anny

DATING ABUSE FOR TEENS-loveisrespect.org

DATING ABUSE

Image by adria.richards via FlickDating Abuse

National Domestic Hotline

The following blog entry was written by Emily Toothman. She graduated from The University of Texas in 2005. She is now 26 years old, working as a Program Specialist at The National Domestic Violence Hotline. In February of 2007, she had the honor of answering the first call to the loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline.

I was 19, a student in my second year at college, when I met the man of my dreams in one of my classes. He was tall, blonde, blue-eyed, and All-American — with a smooth demeanor and a knack for saying all the right things. He treated me like a princess. Gifts, surprise visits to my dorm room and classes, frequent phone calls to see where I was and how I was doing. He told me he loved me within the first month of our relationship, and he wanted to be near me all the time. On our first anniversary, he surprised me with a candlelit dinner in a house overlooking the lake. I was living the fairy tale that every little girl is taught to dream.

But then, two weeks after our first anniversary, I found him in bed with an ex-girlfriend. I immediately broke up with him. It was only then that I began to truly see his controlling nature.

I started to see him everywhere I went. He showed up to my classes and sat two rows behind me. I caught glimpses of him walking a couple paces behind me on campus. Pretty soon, he started calling my cell phone constantly, leaving up to twenty voice messages a day begging me to reconsider our relationship. When I started hanging out with other guys, he would follow me and leave threatening notes under the windshield wipers on my car. My professors started to confide in me that “my boyfriend” had told them about my “drug problem.”

I returned home one evening after going to a meeting on campus, and he was on my doorstep. He was drunk, and he was angry. As his anger escalated, he began to shove me around and pin me by my neck against my front door, smashing empty beer bottles against the corner of the building and holding the shattered glass up to my face. He had simply snapped. I escaped to a friend’s house an hour later with a broken rib, a sprained wrist, a black eye, and bruises from head to toe.

Following the first attack, I took some self-defense lessons from a friend of mine who was a black-belt in karate. I stayed with some friends so that I didn’t have to go back to my apartment alone. I felt like everyone was looking at me, even though I had carefully caked on make-up to cover the bruises. It took me days to build up the courage to leave the apartment to go to class. I was terrified, and I felt more alone than ever. Though I have always been close to my parents, I refused to tell them. I felt that they would be hurt, worried – or worse – disappointed in how I’d handled the situation. My friends, though they tried to be supportive, had a hard time even believing what was happening.

A week later, he confronted me again. This time, he was sober, and it was in broad daylight in the center of campus. He once again pinned me to the wall, but this time he threatened me with a butterfly knife to my jugular. Students would walk by and stare, but not one interfered. I struggled with him for close to a quarter of an hour, and finally, I managed to kick his knee backwards. It broke. As he was writhing on the ground, I used my cell phone to call the police. A week later, he would break bail and leave the country. I would never see him again.

The experience did change me - sometimes for the worse, but (I hope) mostly for the better. I had to struggle with fear, anger, depression, insomnia, and even nausea. I had to mend the breach of trust that my parents felt when they found out about my situation after the fact. I’ve had to fight to break down my defensive walls, so that I could be less guarded in my romantic relationships and less cautious in my friendships. It has not been easy.

But — to be completely honest with you - I wouldn’t change a moment of my experience for anything in the world. It shook me to the core. It created a passion in me for justice and peace, and it led me down a path that I would have never expected. It led me here, to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. I will always remember, with the highest gratitude, the role that my experience has allowed me to play in reaching out to survivors.

Dating abuse is a reality for many, many teens across this country — a terrifying, overwhelming reality that is largely hidden and ignored. I wish that I had known at the time what I know now, thanks to the work of the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the loveisrespect, National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline: I am not alone. I am not the only one to have experienced what I experienced, and I am not the only one who has decided to turn those experiences into positive changes for others like me. I am very honored to be a part of such an amazing generation of young people who will start the conversation about dating abuse, and who will change the realities of young people across the nation.

By Emily Toothman

Please visit loveisrespect.org for resources on teen dating abuse or to chat with a peer advocate. If chat is unavailable, call 1-866-331-9474 or 1-866-331-8453 TTY. loveisrespect has recently been called on for its expert guidance by the popular soap opera General Hospital for a teen dating abuse storyline. The storyline will air today, Friday July 17th a PSA aired directly following the program.


Take care and STAY SAFE!
Anny Jacoby
A Success Survivor
"Raising female awareness and skills to reduce susceptibility in response to violence."
www.annyjacoby.com
www.realisticfemaleselfdefense.com



If you are in an abusive relationship, you need a plan.
Moving Out, Moving On; authored by Susan Murphy-Milano will guide you through the necessary steps of ending a relationship safely.
You can purchase your copy HERE.

For scheduling training, appearances or speaking engagements for Anny, please contact ImaginePublicity.

contact@imaginepublicity.com

STOP BEING SO PASSIVE, PROJECT AN AIR OF CONFIDENCE

Success in life is achieved by recognizing different challenges and adapting and responding to them appropriately. Realistic female personal safety relies on the same abilities. Each assailant and each victim is an individual, the circumstances of an assault will always be different; a guaranteed defense or strategy against a specific attack does not exist. However, if you educate yourself about the nature of the interaction between women and their assailants, you will be better equipped and prepared to stop potential assailants and to respond more effectively to every aspect of a potential attack.

In our training courses all students are simply amazed by how clearly they can protect and defend themselves while under an attack. Some females initially believe that they will not be able to think during the simulated attack (final class exercise that the student uses what she has learned mentally and physically-techniques against a male instructor wearing protective High Gear). Thinking, strategizing and adapting to situations as they change are as important as the physical defense skills. "Self-defense" means sending the right body and verbal signals before the assault/attack. During an assault it means empowering yourself by making decisions, not giving up and know that you can think your way through the experience. You can respond to an assault effectively.

There are two phases of an attack, "targeting" and "testing". The "targeting" stage the assailant searches for his victim. During this phase it is critical for females to possess confident and relaxed body language. Body language communicates how comfortable you feel about yourself. In personal safety/self-defense, effective body language conveys a sense of confidence. If you doubt that body language works, think about it from the assailant's perspective. If you were a man who attacks women, whom would you go after? A woman appearing weak, afraid or powerless or a confident woman? An assailant does not want to pick the confident woman because he attacks to demonstrate power and control. This man is insecure to begin with, he must search for a female whose behavior and/or actions would satisfy his needs. An assailant does not assault females who present a possible challenge. He picks a sure bet. If you convince him that you are not that woman, he will look elsewhere. Unfortunately, he can find a female who will fit his criteria.

Body language clearly communicates two things: first, the female is exhausted and/or too tired to protect herself; second, the female staring at the ground is afraid to look anyone in the eye or she is not aware of her surroundings. Either way she is an easy target.

Females have been raised to be entirely too passive. You have to possess a dare attitude, not cocky but confident. Eliminate the "I'm a victim" and "I'm a wimp" look. Think about how you portray yourself - how you carry yourself. It does not have to give the outward expression of negativity; you can give off an air of confidence. The physical and mental signals that you want to send to everyone, especially a potential assailant is......"Don't even think about it. I am not something to be messed with."

There are ways to walk more safely. Keep your head up, look ahead, drop your shoulders (no hunching). Walk with a relaxed step (not too long or too short) and keep your hands out of your pockets. In your mind compare a female looking down at the ground and the one just described. Who is the easier target? Who appears more vulnerable? These changes in your outward expression may be trivial or minor but they make an enormous difference.

Assailants choose their victims similar to how predators choose their prey. They always go after the sick, isolated, young or old because they are an easy kill. Consider potential assailants as animals that will prey on you if given the opportunity. If you look strong, alert and healthy you have a much better chance of being left alone.




Take care and STAY SAFE!
Anny Jacoby
A Success Survivor
The Realistic Female Self-Defense Company
"Raising female awareness and skills to reduce susceptibility in response to violence."
www.annyjacoby.com
www.realisticfemaleselfdefense.com


If you are in an abusive relationship, you need a plan.
Moving Out, Moving On; authored by Susan Murphy-Milano will guide you through the necessary steps of ending a relationship safely.
You can purchase your copy HERE.

For scheduling training, appearances or speaking engagements for Anny, please contact ImaginePublicity.

contact@imaginepublicity.com

FEAR IS NORMAL BUT UNDERSTAND IT , Myths=Excuses/Facts=Reality

Often I hear from my students that they would be so scared that they would probably "freeze" if assaulted or attacked; thus a concern that their FEAR would make their personal safety/self-defense techniques learned impossible. You must realize that FEAR is "normal". Thinking that fear - to any degree should "not" be experienced as a reaction to any threatening or intimidation circumstance or situation is totally foolish and naive.

Fear is natural.
Fear is expected.

It is imperative for us to understand psychological fear which leads to doubt and hesitation. Unchecked it can result in anxiety and panic. When you begin to doubt yourself you start to think, "What if I lose?", "What if it hurts?", "What if I fail?" Thoughts of this sort must be eliminated from your vocabulary. You must remain positive, assertive and focus on the ability to motivate yourself with proper training.

Fear doesn't have to be a "freeze" mechanism that prevents a beneficial reaction. One must decide what frightens you more - being dominated, injured or killed by an assailant/batterer, or taking a risk and fighting back. You may hurt yourself somehow by protecting yourself against your assailant. His knife might nick your ear, a bullet from his gun may graze your head, or you might end up with bruises and your body sore,etc.; but you're chance of being alive is much greater than not. Using personal safety/self-defense is a means for "stun and run", escape and ultimate survival. If you are too scared to react defensively and decide to remain under an assailant's control - he will have his way with you. Your mind can be more dangerous than your assailant. You must turn your fear into an effective reaction.

In teaching the S.P.E.A.R. system there are three acronyms to help us remember that psychological fear is only in our mind (by Tony Blauer):

1. False Evidence Appearing Real
(External stimuli that distracts us; physical evidence, weapons, multiple assailants, etc.)
2. False Expectation Appearing Real
(Internal stimuli that distracts us; how we visualize, images of pain and failure.)
3. Failure Expected Action Required
(A trigger to DO SOMETHING!)

"Feel your fear, fight your fear, challenge your fear, attack your fear. Do not fear fear. We all feel it. Fight your fear first then fight your physical foe."

You can't conquer what you can't confront. When inside of the storm remain calm.

Remember that awareness is the first step to any form of personal safety/self-defense. The best kind of personal safety/self-defense is the kind that you don't need to use. If you can avoid a potentially threatening, dangerous situation do so.


Take care and STAY SAFE!
Anny
A Survivor
The Realistic Female Self-Defense Company
"Raising female awareness and skills to reduce susceptibility in response to violence." www.annyjacoby.com
www.realisticfemaleselfdefense.com