 It was with the utmost horror that I read the story entitled, ‘Boy gets life for raping teacher’ on the BBC news website a few weeks ago, for several different reasons. Firstly and most obviously as a woman and secondly, as a school teacher myself the abhorrence of the crime was committed in the haven of her own classroom, which to a teacher is akin to your own living room. How is this relevant to Martial Edge? Well, as I fit the criteria of the victim but also as a practitioner of Tae Kwon Do, I couldn’t help thinking, what if that had been me? Would my (limited) knowledge of Tae Kwon Do have helped me out, and, would I have ended up in the dock for defending myself?
With regards to the tenets of Tae Kwon Do, the ones that are most apt here are “I must never misuse Tae Kwon Do” that is, no unprovoked attacks; and “I must be a champion of freedom and justice”, such as I interpret it, the need to defend others. Although this tenet always gave me the mental picture of needing to don a lycra catsuit and cape, I largely suspect my powers as a superhero are very limited barring the ability to give a villain a severe telling off. So, our bases are loosely covered with the rules of Tae Kwon Do; but this doesn’t necessarily coincide with the law.
We tend to fear the unprovoked attack from a stranger the most and this seems to be the emphasis of the training we receive in the dojang. With the practise of semi-free sparring and one step, we are taught to spontaneously repel and react to an attacker. This is of course invaluable for speed of response and honing your skills to your own personal preference but they rely on one thing, being attacked from the front with a punch. If you are a man, this may well be a common attack, but not always the same case for a woman. In the case of a man assaulting a man, what will be the purpose of the attack? Probably either theft or a physical assault linked to alcohol. However, if you are a woman, this could be the same as a man, but if a man is attacking you, chances are a woman will assume he would want to indecently assault you as well. So what can you do?
After consulting a local police officer, I discovered the following information. I asked her where the martial artist stood with regards to self defence if s/he was attacked, if there was any difference in the law between the martial artist or untrained person, or if it made any difference if the victim was male or female. Surprisingly, the Police do not discriminate between any of these factors; they only see the situation as being assault and self defence regardless of gender and training. The phrase that is key here is ‘reasonable force’. Self defence is defined as being the defence of any assault up to and including homicide. You are entitled to use force to defend yourself, a member of your family or your property, or even to prevent someone else from committing a crime; however, what you are not allowed to do is lay into the attacker when he (or she) is down.
The area of reasonable force is a very woolly phrase that is not specific enough. The female teacher attacked in her classroom stated that, “ I honestly thought that I was going to be murdered, on top of everything else. ” She was in fear of her life and therefore, if given the extra opportunity some training in a martial art would give her, to what extent is ‘reasonable force’ allowed to extend? Certainly in this case, the woman would have needed to incapacitate the attacker to the point where he couldn’t get up again. I felt further clarification was needed on this so I consulted a law teacher at my school, who told me the following information:
“The use of force in the circumstances must be considered reasonable by an objective jury, who must put themselves in your subjective position. Therefore, if you are trained in martial arts then the jury would imagine they too were when making their decision. For this reason, those with these skills need to be careful as they have to be held out to a higher standard of care.”
So basically, the jury have to imagine they too were a woman about to be attacked by a man but with a mind to having responsible use of your skills. They don’t give extra sympathy to the attacker just because he happened to pick on the wrong person, I’m sure our hearts would bleed for him; however, we are not allowed to take someone’s head off if they merely ask us the time.
Concerning the Tae Kwon Do practitioner, in any case of self defence the most important thing to do is to stay on your feet. We are not experts in wrestling and we are certainly at our weakest if we find ourselves on our backs, much like a tortoise. Neither is it a good idea to wait until you have been hit, try to block and then step back to counter. Your best bet is to strike first, hit them fast and hit them hard and plough through them until they are unable to sustain any further attack. In other words, take them out and do it quickly. Don’t bother with any flashy moves, the simpler and harder the better.
On the other hand, as a slightly built woman of about 8 ½ stone, I doubt very much I could plough through a dense fog; but, however large my attacker may be, they still have vulnerable parts such as the eyes, nose, throat and groin. Again, a hard, fast and sustained strike using fingers, palm or knuckles to these vulnerable parts to weaken them would probably be my best bet before following through with a heavier blow to either knock them over or get away.
Of course, the best form of defence is to avoid being in a dangerous position in the first place. Common sense tells us not to wander around alone at night, park in a lit area and if you are being mugged, give them the damn wallet (chuck it on the ground, don’t give it to them, that might give them the opportunity to grab you). Unfortunately, this is little comfort to the teacher attacked in her own classroom but statistically, this type of incident is rare. According to data taken from www.crimestatistics.org.uk, the incidence of reported female rapes in 2003/4 was 12,354, so that means in Britain a woman has a 1 in 2428 chance of being raped. With regards to indecent assault to a female, the corresponding figure was 26,709, a 1 in 1123 chance of being indecently assaulted. However, the figure for common assault (which includes men) is 241,718: a 1 in 248 chance of being physically assaulted. There is a little phrase I remembered when viewing these numbers, ‘there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics’. The key word I noted was the word reported. These are the women who found the courage to actually go to the police station, these numbers do not tell us the unreported incidents, they also don’t tell us the ratio of attackers, that is, did the victim know him and had he done it before. When my police officer friend looked at these numbers, she pointed out to me that, in the majority of cases, you are much more likely to be sexually assaulted by a man that you know: in other words, a ‘friend’, an ex or a relative. These numbers also do not take into account specific incidences of domestic violence, another huge can of worms that statistics can not truly represent because it is a crime that often depends on secrecy.
So, again, what does this have to do with Tae Kwon Do? If I follow the rules of common sense and are therefore very unlikely to be attacked by a random stranger, how will I benefit from a martial art regarding self defence? The main gain, certainly which I experienced was that of self confidence. Knowing a martial art does not give me an invisible force field, nor have I turned into Buffy the Vampire Slayer but it has made me more self-aware when I am out; the confidence to assert my right, and every other woman’s right on this planet, to say no and mean it.
|
|
|
Techniques and Tutorials 
(0 vote)
