Scenario drills with women...

Hi Dave,
I did some scenario work with a couple of my students. One of them is an attractive young woman, and I realized that she's not likely to have people yelling "oi, bitch, you spilled my beer and I'm gonna take yer head off!" at her. So I was trying to posture into a rapist scenario.
First off, it was really hard. I really felt awful and gross trying to get enough into a mindset to do it. Not the "this feels stupid" of when you first try posturing in a scenario, but really yucky.
Second, I had a tough time coming up with scenarios. I essentially fell back on grabbing her wrist and doing a "hey now you're coming with me" thing, but felt like there was a lot more that we could do that would be more valuable to her.
BTW, her hard skills are pretty good, she's been training for a few years now, but of course scenario training isn't done much here (if at all) so that's new to her. She found it valuable and wants to do more.
Suggestions on scenario training with women?

JK

first .. ask the woman!
she may have a specific idea that she wants to work with

second .. draw up some ground rules regarding the level of contact she would feel comfortable with.
This is a serious subject and any young dip-stick who thinks he might cop a crafty 'feel' is going too cause problems.

third.. work from 'chat ups' .. There's some very common 'postures' guys take up when attempting to chat women up.
then on to getting too close in conversation, with maybe arm around shoulder stuff.
then go to the "Come on just one dance" type of arm or body grab..

finally work on being in real close, say like a goodnight kiss that the guy is letting get out of hand.

leave rape scenarios until both female and male in the training are very comfortable..

we used to get the girls to wear tight t-shirts with a very old blouse or shirt over the top... so we could rip these off without accidently exposing 'bits'..

then eventually at the girls OWN pace, they would always come up with a request to get a bit more real.

I once had a "Dave can you come behind me and grab my boobs I want to see how I would react".. (There's worse jobs!) .. the defence was very hard and the girl in question (Janet McGovern) was very pleased with herself.

hope that helps a bit mate

Dave,
That helps a lot, and will lead to some good conversations and probably some good training as well.
JK

Hi Dave and JK.

Thank you for letting me in to the discussion here.

It made me to read how you two train with women. I can tell you from my experience that your perspective and careful attitude is appreciated.

I'm happy to read that you both take the woman's ideas into such careful consideration!

To deal with these things, it's important to study how the "rapist" works. I see that Dave brought up the "chat ups". I think that's great! May I suggest that maybe you'd go out a few times and sit in the back just watching the interaction between people - the disrespectful, wearing down a victims boundaries, behaviours are easy to spot if you look for them. Try to see how they work to get their way. For instance the buying of a drink, or two, or just buying a gift and the woman accepting it - can in some men's minds justify some "taking" on their part... Is someone a little too nice? How does he behave when he doesn't get his way, the charm doesn't work? It goes on and on like that...

Then work with the women - and listen in to their specific ideas and experiences. Together I know you can come up with superb scenarios. Think of when you'd be most vulnerable?

I understand that the part for the guy becoming the rapist - may be hard to do. But think of it as a life saver for the girl - the better you two do it, the better she'll be able to defend herself - and meanwhile, could be that you develop a deeper understanding of the nature of that pred too? Remember that what scares you, might trigger him...

And as Dave mentions: take it at the individual's own pace. Understand also that the "freezing" is a natural reaction (both in animals and humans) - and if you get to that, analyze it together (why she freezes might be good to know in the future, but she needn't say why if she's doesn't want to) and learn to use it and turn it into kind of a mental trigger to get into appropriate action. A lot of this training - I think - is about identifying the moods that the sexual predator uses to get control over the victim- fear (which different ones?)/shame/embarrassment/guilt... etc... Those should be used as warning signs and connected to proper action.

This is just from the top of my head... If you want I could think some more - but I've been busy the last few days.

JK - I could be more specific in a PM if you want. There are both good guys and bad out there and I don't want to give anyone ideas. Don't be afraid to ask - I'm not afraid to answer!

Thank you for your efforts in this particular field. It warms my heart!

Lynx

May I just add this?!:

Most of these guys(?!) are excellent "mind-twisters"... They spin things around in a second, which can get the girl mentally off balance/stunned for just enough time to start up the next strategy. It's not all about physical violation, it's a combination of physical and mental violation. To do this might be hard but it does give a different approach to it - which can be vital to the training.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

Lynx

One of my female students routinely comes out with 'no thanks mate, I'm not interested' in 'aggressor' drills. It's not always 100% appropriate to whatever is happening but it reflects what she is likely to have to say.

She usually then starts ripping eyeballs out, which is in effect saying the same thing in more... physcial... terms.

I dealt with what amounted to a stalker a while back. Someone I knew victimising another of my friends. Looking back on what happened, it's possible to see how things gradually got worse without a clear moment where a line was crossed.

He started out as a bit clingy/over-friendly and gradually pushed the limit. Nothing he did was so bad that it caused an immediate reaction (he was assisted by a vulnerable victim who, while unhappy about what he was doing, was not sure whether she was in fact reacting to emotional baggage from earlier in her life). By the time she had realised that he was 'way out of order his behaviour was, in his mind, condoned by the fact that nobody had protested.

And so, by tiny little steps, he nibbled at the barriers and became increasingly obsessive/sinister until she was constantly tormented. By then m, he though what he was doing was normal and even when told to stop he just made excuses and carried on.

Once I found out what was hapening I became involved. There were only two moments where I actually wanted to kill him. One was when he verbally attacked me for telling him not to come to classes any more, and the other was when he told me that 'there were other signs you know' that indicated that the victim welcomed his attentions.

Thing is, this guy was not actually malicious. He was stupid, totally uncaring about anyone's needs but his own, and willing to lie to cover his actions, (I beleive that was partially because he didn't think he was doing anything wrong and was indignant about being challenged.)

This guy was obsessive and tormented his vitim for a long time - maybe two years. He got inside her defences and into her life - and without even trying. Like I said, he was an obsessed idiot, rather than a deliberate aggressor. And yet he did all that damage.

The moral of the story is - take a moment occasionally to evaluate your life and relationships. And be willing to ask yourself if what's going on is normal and/or good for you.

Be willing to draw a line. and if you draw one, defend it.

Thanks for the insights and input.
There is a lot here to work with, and a lot more "soft skills" training than the "oi you spilled my beer" battering scenarios.
Some of this will be difficult to do, much of it will require thought aforehand. Talking it out and discussing/planning with the student seems to be a huge part of creating a useful drill.
Lynx, the ideas of analyzing and working through the "freeze points" if they come up, and "identifying the moods that the sexual predator uses to get control over the victim" - you've given me a lot to think about.

Thanks,

JK

JK

I'm glad to have been able to contribute something.

I'm also glad to see that as I'm much for analyzing and adapting (and thus tend to "complicate things" ) - others put it very simple, like MJD:

Be willing to draw a line. and if you draw one, defend it.

Lynx