PE Pros – Are You Ready To Teach Personal Safety & Self-Defense?

Do your students feel safe & strong?  Are you prepared to help students become safe & strong?

Do you currently have a personal safety/self-defense unit or course in your PE program? If you do, kudos to you – but please continue to read this article! And if you don’t currently have a program, definitely read this article!

If you currently have a personal safety/self-defense unit in your PE program, does it include:

  • Comprehensive curriculum that can be adapted to any specific teacher/course requirements?
  • In-depth personal safety information and basic physical skills training?

Today’s Reality

Unfortunately, based on statistics, societal violence is increasing. Are you providing personal safety knowledge and self-defense skills that will enhance student safety in school and in daily life?

PE teachers are typically tasked with designing and teaching personal safety information and physical self-defense skills to students. However, the reality is that most physical education professionals have little to no experience in this training. So, a PE teacher must either:

  • Contract a professional self-defense instructor to teach the course, or
  • Attempt to design and teach an unproven and potentially impractical program.

Whichever your situation is, you must ask the question, “Am I providing the best possible educational experience for my students?”

Physical Education teachers need:

  • Professionally designed and proven curriculum that includes student assessment methods.
  • Confidence in their abilities to deliver personal safety information and instruct the physical skills accurately, effectively and efficiently.

Before getting into more detail about programming, it is important to:

  • Define personal safety training and self-defense training,
  • Explain why personal safety and self-defense training should be provided for students, and
  • Identify what should be included in a quality personal safety and self-defense training program.

Personal Safety & Awareness Training educates the mind – providing information helps your students:

  • Recognize & Prevent potential or real conflict situations
  • Recognize & Avoid potential or real conflict situations
  • Recognize & De-escalate potential or real conflict situations
  • Recognize & Exit from potential or real conflict situations, or
  • Recognize & Defend (only if necessary) – teaches “When” not “How” to defend
  • Understand the 4 Types of Awareness – Mental, Emotional, Environmental, and Physical

Self-Defense Physical Skills Training provides students with the opportunity to learn, practice, and improve basic physical skills that may be necessary for a combative situation. Students need to understand that physical self-defense training does not make them invincible – it is a “discovery” experience. Students discover their current and potential individual physical defensive capabilities, which will enhance their decision-making abilities (fight or flight) if confronted with a potential threat of violence.

Why Provide Personal Safety & Self-Defense Training to Students?

Along with teaching students how to protect themselves, a properly designed training program can empower students through:

  • Improved self-confidence, self-esteem, discipline, focus, respect and emotional control.
  • Heightened mental, emotional, environmental and physical awareness.
  • Improved physical fitness and mental/emotional health.
  • Enhanced communication skills, especially applicable during potential conflict situations.

What Should Be Included in a PE Program?

It is important to know what information and physical activities should be included in a comprehensive, quality personal safety & self-defense training program.

Personal Safety Training should address most or all the following subjects:

  • Legal Liability of Self-Defense
  • Confidence & Fear
  • Assailants – Who Are They?
  • Understanding the Consequences of Conflict
  • Principles of Personal Safety
  • De-escalation Methods and Strategies
  • Pre-emptive Self Defense – When, Why, and How?
  • Martial Arts Training or Fitness Training versus Self Defense Training
  • Body Language
  • Awareness – Mental, Emotional, Environmental, and Physical
  • Personal Safety Tips
  • Predator Lures
  • Personal Safety ‘Weapons’

The Self-Defense Physical Skills Training program should support the personal safety concepts by teaching basic realistic, effective, and practical self-defense techniques, which should include:

  • Positioning & Distancing – proper stance (non-aggressive, but ready to act) and maintaining distance from an aggressor.
  • Evasion movements – how to move away from an attacker.
  • Re-Direction techniques – how to deflect or block an attacker’s grab or strike attempt.
  • Striking techniques – how to execute strikes (to maximize power, speed, and accuracy), what parts of the body can be used for striking and where the target areas are for the various strikes.
  • Loosening/Escape techniques – how to get out of and move away from various grabs and holds.
  • Self-defense against weapons.
  • Ground fighting – how to apply physical techniques while on the ground.
  • Environmental-specific considerations – in what environment (small room, elevator, airplane cabin, car, etc.) you might need to perform self-defense actions.
  • How to exit, safely and effectively, after physical self-defense actions are performed.
  • Identification of everyday items that could be used as self-defense “weapons” and how to use them.

The limited time that most PE programs allocate to a personal safety/self-defense unit makes it necessary to provide basic skills that can be adapted to each student’s unique abilities and capabilities.

  • It is better to learn, repetitively practice and become proficient at performing a few techniques than it is to learn, but not perfect dozens of different techniques.
  • Training should be progressive – gradually increasing in complexity (single techniques progressing to combinations of multiple movements and techniques) and intensity (speed of movement, power of movement, resistance to movement, etc.).
  • Biomechanics should be taught to allow an individual to reach his or her maximum potential for technique performance speed, quickness, power, accuracy, etc.

Physical self-defense should be the last choice for action, but training for it is necessary to gain the greatest possible level of confidence and ability. Physical skills training provides the best chance for a successful outcome if physical self-defense becomes necessary.

Final Thought

Personally, I would love to see PE programs consider offering personal safety/self-defense training for full semesters or even full school years and possibly structure a program that could be taken all 4 years of high school. Short duration programs (8 hours or less of total time) provide very little time for effective education and skills training, which could potentially have a negative impact by developing false confidence in a student.

A well-structured program could combine personal safety education, physical self-defense skills training and fitness conditioning into one PE program, which would be more effective in student learning and retention, as well as meet even more of the National Standards for Physical Education!

I hope this article has provided you with practical and useful guidelines by which to establish a new program and/or evaluate your current training program to ensure your students enjoy the best possible learning experience.

If you have questions or would like information about a complete program that integrates personal safety education, physical self-defense skills training and fitness conditioning into one PE program, CLICK HERE or please email me directly at Tim@empower-usa.com.

Remember, “ONE BODY, ONE LIFE, ONE CHOICE!”