Something that everybody, especially women, should read about defending themselves. Some here will know where it is from:
"Good evening. Welcome to class. I know a few of you already, but for those I haven't met, my name is
Henry Bowman." He looked out at the group in front of him, and saw a few skeptical looks. "This was
originally planned as a coed class, but there appears to be little or no interest among the men in the area, at
least not right now.
"I suspect that at least some of you are here out of curiosity, and aren't at all sure what this course is about
or if you want to take it. You can't ask anyone to advise you about it, either, because this is the first time
I've taught it.
"I'm going to ask that you agree to one thing. I know that really listening carefully is extremely tiring. An
hour of it, if you really do it, is exhausting. I'm going to ask that you listen to me carefully for ten minutes,
with an open mind about what you hear.
"I'll warn you right now that I'm going to say some things that will almost certainly upset you, and that you
will disagree with. When that happens, I want you to promise me that for the next ten minutes, you will not
tune out and quit listening. I want you to promise that you will not spend all your time preoccupied with the
outrageous thing I just said and miss what comes next. I want you to promise me that for ten minutes, and
ten minutes only, you will pay attention to every word I say as if your life depended on it.
"After ten minutes is up, I want each of you to think about what I've said, and decide if you want to listen to
anything else I have to say. If not, I won't ask for any more of your time. Does that sound fair?" There were
several startled murmurs among the young women in the lecture hall. Henry saw a few tentative nods of
acceptance.
"Okay. Good. Ten minutes." Henry Bowman took a deep breath and made eye contact with each of the
seventeen women in front of him.
"A close relative of mine was violently gang raped. The rapists were talking about blinding her so they she
could not identify them when they were interrupted by a stranger, and they ran." Henry breathed deeply and
went on.
"The rape left her physically injured and emotionally devastated. The physical injuries have healed. The
emotional damage will take longer. Some of you may have stories you could tell about one of your own
relatives, friends, or perhaps about yourself." He nodded, deciding what would come next. "I studied
everything I could about that rape and others, so that the terrible price that the victims paid would not have
been for nothing. That's why I'm here talking about personal protection.
"Personal protection," Henry said in loud voice. "When you signed up for this not-for-credit course that the
University agreed to offer and that I volunteered to teach, all of you had your own ideas of what personal
protection meant, and those ideas were probably all different. What I think each of you shares is a
realization that there are times in your life when you are not safe, and you want to do something about it.
And that something, whatever it is, is important enough that you came to a not-for-credit class you know
nothing about other than its title, taught by someone you'd never heard of, on the chance that it might give
you something of value.
"This course is going to teach you how to avoid becoming a victim of violent crime. I am not going to tell
you how to keep your dorm room from being burglarized when you are out, how to prevent the girl down
the hall from stealing your checks and looting your bank account, or how to keep your jewelry from being
taken while you're in the shower. Those things aren't important enough for me to bother with.
"I won't mince words here—the course I'm going to teach is how to see to it that you never ever become the
victim of a vi olent physical attack that results in rape, crippling injury, lasting emotional damage, or death."
Henry looked around and saw that he had their undivided attention.
"I am also not going to tell you how to rearrange your life so that you avoid all situations with any potential
for danger. Frankly, I don't think that can be done. Even if it could, I would still not be willing to let violent
predators dictate the way in which I live my life. If you're willing to stay inside a locked building and only
venture out in big groups, you don't need me or anyone else to teach you how to do it.
"What I am going to teach you is how to be prepared for the sudden, unexpected, violent attack so that if it
ever does come, you will instantly do the thing that has the greatest chance of stopping that attack and
saving both your dignity and perhaps your life." Still got their interest Henry thought. Good. He strolled
casually across the front of the lecture hall as he talked, his hands behind his back. Henry sat back against
the table at the front of the room and palmed a new, white, tennis ball from his open gym bag behind him.
"I am going to help you gain skill and confidence. I am going to help you develop certain reactions until
they are instinctive." Without warning, he tossed the tennis ball underhanded to a girl in the fourth row. As
the ball arced towards her through the air, she looked very startled, then recovered, dropped her pen,
reached out her hands, and caught the ball. Henry smiled and looked around the rest of the class.
"I'd like all of you to think about what you just saw. In less than one second, this woman did a whole list of
things instinctively. She recognized that something was suddenly flying through the air at her. She
identified it as a slow-moving tennis ball and therefore not a danger to her. She let go of the pen she was
holding. She analyzed the trajectory of the ball, and brought her hands up to the proper position. Then, the
instant the tennis ball touched her hands, she closed her fingers around it before it could bounce out. Less
than one second. She wasn't born with that skill. Try what I just did with a two -year-old, and you'll be
lucky if she even blinks before the ball bounces off her head." He smiled and nodded at the woman holding
the ball. No one noticed that as he talked, Henry took a butter knife from his pocket concealed it in the
palm of his right hand.
"The difference is that in twenty years, each of you have seen a lot of things flying through the air." He was
strolling in front of the three women in the front row as he spoke. The one nearest him was a muscular,
athletic-looking brunette. "You've all had enough snow balls, tennis balls, car keys, and frisbees tossed or
thrown at you that you react without thinking. You duck the snowball and reach out for the car keys, even
when there's no warning." As he spoke these words he stepped next to the brunette so that his hip was
almost touching her shoulder and held the polished knife against the far side of her neck.
"One sound and I'll cut you bad, Rosie O'Donnell!" Henry Bowman said in a savage whisper.
There was a collective gasp from almost the entire class. A few of the women, including the one he had
addressed, froze silently in utter shock. Henry waited to a count of five, then stepped back, held up the
butter knife, and ran it roughly across his hand to show how dull it was.
"None of you have had anything like that happen often enough to have developed any kind of instinctive
response. Every one of you froze." Henry stepped to the table and picked up the gym bag.
"My time isn't up yet," he warned the class as a whole, then held the bag out to the woman he had just
pretended to threaten. She shied away from him.
"Soap, clean towels, and fresh sweats in here. Second door on the left in the hallway. Wash your face in
cold water and come back," he whispered. "Go." The girl took the bag, and Henry could see she was about
to get up and run out of the room. She glared at him, then looked at her watch.
"In six minutes, when you're done," she hissed, slouching back in her seat. Henry nodded, and turned to the
class.
"To cope with the situation I just demonstrated, you need three things: First, you need experience and
preparation so that the unexpected does not paralyze you. You need to be ready for what I just did. You
need to be just as familiar and prepared as you would be with a snowball flying at you in the middle of
January.
"Second, you need to learn what to do, and then work on it, so that your instinctive reaction is the right one,
and not something that will make the problem worse. Defending against violence is a lot more complicated
than ducking a snowball, and because of that, it takes a lot more practice.
"The third thing you need is something that I have never seen mentioned in any discussion of personal
protection and defense. It is also the one thing that is far and away the most important. For want of a better
term, I call it the 'Warrior Mentality', and it's something I'm going to stress over and over in this class. If
you have it, you're going to have the greatest possible likelihood of retaining not only your life and good
health, but also your dignity and self-respect."
As Henry looked at the seventeen faces, he saw interest, hostility, disbelief, curiosity, puzzlement, and
skepticism. He did not see boredom.
"I'm going to ask all of you to imagine something, and then I'd like one of you to volunteer to pretend
you're being interviewed." He gave what he hoped was a self-effacing smile. "I won't threaten you, yell, or
use bad language. I'll stand right here, I promise." Henry licked his lips and went on.
"Imagine for a moment that tonight you were the victim of a premeditated, intentional assault. It was dark.
You got some bruises in the attack, and the attacker ran off. I'll let you decide the other circumstances and
the specifics of the assault. The hospital people looked you over, calmed you down, and you're shaken but
okay. The soreness seems to be gradually going away." He looked at each student. "Anyone willing to be
interviewed?" Silence lasted a few seconds, then one young woman spoke. She was of medium height, and
wore tennis shoes, cut-off shorts, and a t-shirt. Henry could see that she was lean and muscular with long,
slender legs and good calves. She looked as if she spent a lot of time outside.
"Yeah. Go ahead," she told him. Henry smiled at her and nodded.
"Ma'am," Henry started, "I understand that today a man assaulted you, and you were roughed up. Can you
tell me something about exactly what happened?"
"I was walking to my car. As I was getting my keys out of my purse, suddenly there was a man beside me. I
don't know if he'd been following me, or what. He tried to take my purse."
"How did he do that?"
"He grabbed at it. He, uh...he just tried to rip it out of my hands. I wasn't thinking— I held on to it. It was
instinctive, you know? Someone tries to pull something out of your hands, you just hold tighter." Henry
saw some of the others nodding, and he did the same. He could tell the woman was getting involved with
the role-play.
"So then what happened?"
"I, uh, started to scream. Before I could though, he...he hit me with his fist. He hit me in the jaw. I felt this
terrible pain in my face, and...and I fell down. My wrist is sore, too."
"Did he get your purse?"
"Yes. He ran away with it."
"Anything in it he could use? Money? Credit cards?"
"Yes. Both of those."'
"I see," Henry said. Is this woman really role-playing, or did something like this actually happen to her? he
wondered. "If you don't mind my saying so, you certainly look very athletic," he said, changing the subject.
"Why didn't you just run away?" The young woman actually smiled at the question.
"I was wearing heels and a long skirt at the time. I was returning from a job interview. But the man
surprised me. Even if I'd had on my track shoes, I probably would have done the same thing. Holding on to
the purse was, as you were talking about, instinctive."
"Any guesses why the man picked you?" Henry asked, changing the subject again.
"I was there," she said simply. "Maybe I looked preoccupied, and he saw that as an opportunity. I have no
idea."
"Did you learn anything from this experience? Anything you'll do differently now when returning to your
car after job interviews?"
"I'll look around more. I'll be more aware of where I am and who is nearby. I'll, uh, try to find someone to
walk with me when I have to go someplace where it's dark, or where it's deserted. I don't think it would
have happened if there'd been other people around. Well, maybe it still would have," she said,
reconsidering, "but not as likely."
Henry nodded encouragingly. "So you've already planned a number of good steps to reduce the chance that
this will happen to you again in the future."
"Yes." With his peripheral vision, Henry Bowman could see that the others in the room were nodding
slightly and paying close attention.
"You're not worried about this man attacking you again?" Henry asked with concern.
"N-no. Why?" The woman was baffled now.
Henry looked incredulous. "He's got your credit cards and driver's license, so he knows where you live.
He's seen your car, and he's got the keys to both it and your apartment. Knowing you'd be stranded, unable
to drive your car right away, and that you'd go to a doctor, he probably went straight to your place, let
himself in, and rigged a window or two so he could get in later if you changed the locks right away. But I
guess you weren't thinking about your own safety. You were much too overcome with guilt." The entire
lecture hall was silent.
" What guilt?" the young woman demanded, her eyes boring holes into his. "It wasn't my fault I got
attacked."
"No, it wasn't. But you learned several things from this attack; you told us that. Well, so did the man who
robbed you." Henry held up a fist and began to tick off points on his fingers.
"First of all, he learned that robbing lone women in parking lots is easy. Second, he learned that it is a
viable way to get money and access to vehicles and new victims. Third, he learned that victims sometimes
resist a little, so he learned to hit them to make them do what he wants. Maybe he's learned that lesson well
enough that next time he'll carry a lead pipe, and hit the person first, so he doesn't have that problem."
Henry pretended to have just thought of something.
"You know, I just realized, if you've got a roommate, and she was home when the attacker used your keys
to let himself into your apartment, she may be dead by now. Or maybe she's just injured. If you're lucky,
maybe the guy just scared the hell out of her, as he did you. If she is dead, though, then you'll have to ask
the coroner to find out if she was raped first—she won't be able to tell you.
"People tend to have friends that are like them, and a woman's purse tells a lot about its owner. If your
purse had an address book in it, you've given this man a bunch of names, addresses, and unlisted phone
numbers of new victims to choose from.
"Maybe when the man saw how you resisted, he decided from now on to stick to older victims. Maybe he'll
punch out elderly people whose bodies can't take the kind of shocks yours can. We don't know the answer
to that question.
"What we do know," Henry said, raising his voice, "is that this man is not going to take your purse, go back
to his apartment, and say 'Ah, my final mugging. Time to look through the want ads and find a job.' He is
going to keep doing it.
"The other thing I can absolutely guarantee you is that you will not help put this man in jail now.
Eyewitness testimony is the least reliable kind of evidence. If you identify a suspect in a line-up and claim
that beyond doubt he's the one, you may well be helping to imprison an innocent man." Henry saw that the
young woman was cowed and her eyes were filled with tears, but he pressed on.
"The time to do something is when you have the mugger right in front of you! The time to fight is when
you are strong, not after you've been beaten! And the time and place to lose your dignity is in here, with
me, where you'll get it back in five or ten minutes, and you won't be left lying on the ground, bruised at best
and maybe permanently crippled, with guilt eating at your guts that he's going to do it again, to someone
else, because you didn't stop him." Henry Bowman took a very deep breath and made eye contact with each
of the pupils before him. Every one of them was waiting for his next words.
"My ten minutes are up." No one replied.
"If you elect to stay in this course, you will be forced to face more issues such as the one you're thinking
about right now. You will not hear about rape whistles and sisterhood support groups. If you stay in this
course, you will learn why the worst handgun is ten times better than the next-best choice for saving your
life. You will learn how to carry one at all times when it is possible, and how to improvise other methods of
defense when it is not. You will develop the will to kill a violent attacker if necessary. You will learn
exactly how to do it, and you will learn when to do it." Henry looked at the woman he had just interrogated.
"Are you willing to face those issues?" he asked gently.
The woman hesitated. "Yes," she said finally, with a firm nod.
"Me too," the first woman broke in. "When you stuck that knife at my throat, I wet my pants, and I wanted
to rip your balls off." The other students became very animated at this revelation. "You knew it, too, didn't
you?"
"That's why there's towels and sweats in the bag," Henry said with a smile. He tapped his groin area with a
ballpoint pen, and there was an unexpected sound. "Also have on a plastic cup in case you did more than
just think about it. Preparation is everything," he said with a smile and arched eyebrows. The class erupted,
and Henry handed the woman the gym bag.
"So who's staying?" he asked the group. The response was unanimous, and Henry was startled to see
expressions of raw sexual interest on several faces in the group. Okay, fella, Henry thought to himself as his
heart rate accelerated, don't get excited. That's the kind of thinking that's apt to screw this up big-time.
Always be a hard target and fight like a cornered cat.
