Te­nille Al­leyne

One on­ly needs to read the news­pa­per head­lines and watch the news on tele­vi­sion to see that un­sus­pect­ing women have be­come tar­gets for hi­jack­ers, kid­nap­pers and rapists alike. The fright­en­ing re­al­i­ty is, that many of these women have end­ed up se­ri­ous­ly hurt or even killed fol­low­ing these vi­cious at­tacks. A des­per­ate call to mit­i­gate this wor­ry­ing trend, is no longer in­cum­bent on the Gov­ern­ment alone, but on the cit­i­zen­ry.

Twen­ty-three-year-old mar­tial artist, Adi­ka Clemen­dor has not on­ly joined the cho­rus of those who has had enough with crime, he is al­so do­ing some­thing about it. Ear­li­er this month, he opened his own school which spe­cialis­es in mixed mar­tial arts, to teach ado­les­cents and adult men and women how to de­fend them­selves. "I was fed up of see­ing and hear­ing of peo­ple get­ting robbed and ac­cost­ed," Clemen­dor said. The free­lance graph­ic artist said he was al­so at­tacked by a six-mem­ber group of men who car­ried stones and knives.

His knowl­edge and skill of mar­tial arts didn't come from an in­sti­tu­tion, but in­di­vid­u­als in his fam­i­ly and a few friends who have passed on to him their mil­i­tary and com­bat guard train­ing. His class­es range from ba­sic self-de­fence tech­niques to more ad­vanced com­bat train­ing which he teach­es through­out the week with pri­vate ses­sions by ap­point­ment for clients with busy sched­ules. Af­ter help­ing a di­vorcee de­fend her­self against an abu­sive hus­band, Clemen­dor said, his clien­tele start­ed to grow. When a per­son is at­tacked, he said, the first step should be as­sess­ing one's at­tack­er and sur­round­ings be­fore phys­i­cal ac­tion is em­ployed.

If the per­son is at­tacked from be­hind, the vic­tim should im­me­di­ate­ly take con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion. "The first thing I try to teach is to turn the ta­bles on them. You need to get the ad­van­tage." He added that any­one can wran­gle free from an at­tack where the ban­dit may cov­er a per­son's eyes or gain hold of a per­son's hair from be­hind. "They may be hold­ing your hair, but they can't keep your body still, and that ac­tu­al­ly works in your favour be­cause you can turn, twist and break free from your at­tack­er." Every­day items found in a woman's bag and on her per­son can ac­tu­al­ly be used as weapons in an at­tack, he said.

These in­clude ball-point pens, house keys, mas­cara pen­cils, ear­rings, shoe heels and even hand­bag straps. Giv­ing in­to fear or anger, Clemen­dor said, is not an op­tion. "Be­cause that is when you lose con­trol." Women, he said, should use same in­ten­si­ty as they would to fight a woman as they would a men.

"An at­tack­er is an at­tack­er – man or woman." He en­cour­aged that men and women to be wary of their en­vi­ron­ment so that they can ob­vi­ate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an at­tack. "I pride my­self on say­ing that if you spend a half hour min­i­mum with me, not on­ly will you learn the phys­i­cal pro­fi­cien­cies, but you will al­so you get a boost of con­fi­dence" Clemen­dor said. "What­ev­er you have to do, and how­ev­er you do it, take steps to en­sure your safe­ty."

For those in­ter­est­ed in Adi­ka Clemen­dor's class­es, call 720-5599, or vis­it his Face­book page "No More Vic­tims."

Self de­fence tips for women

Gen­er­al

�2 If you see or sense prob­lems on your way, just change your route and – pre­pare to run or de­fend your­self;

�2 Do not wear con­spic­u­ous jew­el­ry when you are walk­ing on the streets alone;

�2 Do not act or look like an easy tar­get – look con­fi­dent!

Mo­tor ve­hi­cles

�2 Dan­ger ar­eas are step­ping out of your car ei­ther at home or in iso­lat­ed ar­eas, and al­so walk­ing to your car;

�2 Al­ways ap­proach your ve­hi­cle with the keys ready;

�2 Win­dows should be up and doors locked even when dri­ving to avoid un­want­ed pas­sen­gers at in­ter­sec­tions;

�2 Al­ways check your car be­fore en­ter­ing;

�2 Nev­er leave your car un­locked, even for the few min­utes it may take you to re­turn a video, buy milk and the like. At­tack­ers have been known to lie in wait for such an op­por­tu­ni­ty;

�2 Nev­er pull your car over from a qui­et road even if some­one dri­ves along­side your car point­ing at the tyres etc. Al­ways con­tin­ue dri­ving to a well-lit and crowd­ed area be­fore ex­it­ing your car. The prob­lem might be a bluff and the dri­ver wants you to stop at the side of the road to "help" you with­out a rea­son;

�2 Al­ways be alert in park­ing lots, spe­cial­ly when it's dark. If you are afraid, don't be too shy to ask some­one to es­cort you to your car. Be­tween cars and in­side cars, it's easy for some­one to hide and wait un­til an inat­ten­tive per­son comes along.

Walk­ers/jog­gers

�2 If you have car trou­ble and are walk­ing to look for help, al­ways walk against the traf­fic so that you can see what is com­ing;

�2 If shad­owed by a car, run back in the di­rec­tion from which you came. If you con­tin­ue in the same di­rec­tion, you will make it easy for the shad­ow­ing to con­tin­ue;

�2 Be wary of alert pas­sen­gers;

�2 Don't use mu­sic de­vices when walk­ing in iso­lat­ed ar­eas at any time;

�2 Reg­u­lar­ly change your rou­tines;

�2 Mark out hous­es at in­ter­vals on each route you take that may be used as "safe hous­es" in the event of at­tack such as shops or hous­es that you know to be oc­cu­pied by a friend or an ac­quain­tance. Try to in­cor­po­rate these hous­es every time you vary your route;

�2 Be alert at all times;

�2 Don't pre­sume that be­cause your area has been "safe" thus far, that it will con­tin­ue to be so.

(www.safe­ty­for­women.com/tips.htm)