Self-Offense

Video of Krav Maga in the boxing ring


Summer vacation from teaching allowed time to play with my teacher friends at the beach. On route, my girlfriends and I met at a mutually distant shopping center. Planning to use my car since I have the year-long beach sticker, they had snorkel gear and towels to load. Channel 12 News entered the shopping center's parking lot ahead of me. There had been gun-point hold ups at that K-Mart/Publix hub so the News team was an understandable visit.

Preparing for the summer, I bought a bright red bathingsuit. It was the first bathingsuit I bought in 4 years due to the impact the financial disaster 2007 had on me. No pool or beach time for me for 4 years. But I saved up for the beach sticker and shopped carefully for the bathingsuit. Looking for a company that caters to large women and creates feminine designs for them, I found one! 
"Just My Size" http://www.justmysize.com/ uses excellent materials and inventive engineering in their brassieres and bathing suits.
Since the red bathing suit I bought had a pretty flaired shirt, I don't wear other beachwear when going from my house to the sea.

Lynn Gordon, Channel 12 News, West Palm Beach,  saw me and Renee in the K-Mart shopping center and asked us to interview with her regarding the hold-ups at that center. Renee opted out because she was not a resident of the city but I agreed. Realizing I was standing in my red bathingsuit, I did my best to not get embarrassed. Getting close to the age of 60 and yet being willing to wear a red flare bathingsuit meant I had finally outgrown cultural taboos against women.

It was much more important to me to answer Lynn Gordon's good questions than shy away. Her questions were about how to protect ourselves.  I, Teacher ,was back from vacation.

Think about it: one woman Lynn Gordon interview bought pepper spray. Another woman bought a concealed hand-gun kept in her purse. Both tools are ok but not useable in a time frame of having a gun pointed at you. I enrolled in Krav Maga because my first defense if self - offense.

http://www.cbs12.com/news/features/palm-beach-county/stories/vid_348.shtml

The famous comedian, Carol Burnett, was interviewed many years ago. She said the best start to dealing with a perpetrator is to become "the crazy woman". She said this puts the robber off game. I used this technique in New York City when I was accosted at gunpoint. It was the edge I used to stay alive.

Krav Maga's philosophy is that you have the right to your life. This means you have the right to be offensive.

After my 3 introductory lessons, I signed up for membership. I wear the b&w Krav Maga t-shirt now.