Self-Defense Tip #4: equalizers

Content Warning: This post deals with topics related to violence and personal safety.

Dr. Conklin is back with a fourth tip, and this one's about finding a weapon amongst your regular belongings and using it as an equaliser.

Video Transcript:

Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. Annalijin Conklin. I am here today because I have been doing martial arts since the age of eight and have 25 years of active practice experience. So I’d really like to use this opportunity to share some safety tips that will hopefully be beneficial to you.

Okay, so safety tip number 4: one of the key pieces of advice I would give is find yourself what’s called an equalizer. So that really means a weapon of some kind, and really it can be anything. It can be easier to learn the behaviour and the practice of it with a single item that’s a solid item, but you could have a scarf that’s flexible, key chains that are also a little bit flexible. So it can really be anything. The reason for getting a weapon is to equalise the differential between women’s strength and men’s strength and women’s power and men’s power. And there is a difference there. And so getting an equaliser really helps with women’s self-defense in that context of that differential, ‘cause, you know, I’m not gonna be able to out-muscle a fella who is relatively my height, even a little bit more in terms of pounds than me, it just isn’t gonna work. Especially if someone’s twice the size of me. Mass does matter. So how do we counter that, we counter that with a weapon.

What does that mean? Well, as academics, we often have pens. But with a pen, right, I’m just carrying it in a fist, and you know, the basic motion you wanna do is just sort of a diagonal down and a diagonal down. So I’m just making an X-motion, or what’s called a “figure eight.” You can probably see the figure eight. And I can do this with anything in my hand. By having this, essentially my distance is pretty close with whoever I’m dealing with. Ideally I wanna create as much distance as possible. So really, I want a long weapon, if I can. But most of us don’t walk around with broom sticks or walk around with staffs, [laughs] right? Or swords for that matter. So we have to kind of work with what we’ve got.

Probably the largest weapon that most of us have on campus as academics is a ruck sack, or a nap sack. Or maybe even your coat. Or your scarf, right? A scarf like this. Again, I’d probably do the same thing. It helps if you kind of make a bit of a knot so there’s a bit of a weight at the bottom. And then I would just do the same thing, right? I’m still doing my downward X. This takes a bit more practice, ‘cause you can see there’s a bit more flexibility in this weapon, so it kind of comes back at me. If this was metal, you don’t want it to hit yourself, you gotta practice that. But it’s a simple motion that really in a worst-case scenario if you have enough distance and you just start doing that, again, that’s gonna be a deterrent to someone. And when you fight back, you increase your chances of survival. Women who fight are more likely to survive.

So another thing you might have is a notebook. It might be an iPad, right? I understand the value of those, but when it’s the value of your life, you can use something like this. Its hard edge, same thing, right? I can smack it sideways, I’m using this edge, I might even use the corners if I can. Just anything that’s gonna create a deterrent and equalise that deferential.

The last piece is keys, right? Or another example is keys. So one of the things I advise other women to have on their keys is something that will create a bit of distance. So rather than have a little set of keys on a keychain, have a keychain that creates a bit of distance, so again, I can hang onto it and I can just create that little bit of distance and deterrent. So the equaliser and the distance, again, enhance my likelihood of being safe and surviving. The other really important safety tip is a whistle. Always have a whistle on your keychain if you can, and always ideally have your keys with you and close to you. A whistle is awesome because you just need to blow that as hard as you can close to someone, and if it’s close to their ear then you can blow their ear drum. Or you can cause enough pain that it just, it gives you that moment where you can escape, especially if someone is like really close to you. Blowing that is way better and even gets attention in a way that calling for help doesn’t always bring the attention people want, so that whistle is really important. But this is something that you really do need to practice, right? Again, ‘cause you can hit your hands and it’s not really pleasant. Some individuals do recommend, or I’ve seen it’s recommended that, you know, maybe you put your keys between your figures and then that creates some stability with the key and it is a weapon. One of the disadvantages of that is if someone grabs your hand with those keys in it and squeezes, that’s really not pleasant for you. So I prefer and would advise really that if you’re gonna hold the key, you just hold the one. But not in a way that it can be caught between fingers or whatever, like keys that have rings on them you can get that snagged, it’s not really good.

But I would recommend first and foremost: pick up a weapon. And anything can really be your weapon. But create that distance and get an equaliser.