Masatoshi Nakayama - Practical Karate Volume 5: Self-Defense for Women

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHORS' FOREWORD

THIS book is for you, the ladies, not about you. Please accept it in its intended constructive purpose. It has the very difficult task of bringing to you safe, workable self-defense karate responses for standing positions against a single assailant without requiring you engage in the severe discipline of, and dedication to, daily training required by classical karate. It is not however, an exhaustive survey of karate methods, but chooses those which give direct consideration to easy learning for the average female.

You may find this book overly frank and you may be a bit shocked at its approach. Read it anyway for this approach can save your virtue or life.... or both!

Whether you are beautiful or plain, you are not immune from attacks against your person. There is likewise no guarantee that your name will not join tomorrow's multitude of crime statistics recorded in the daily papers. Police files are filled with an ever increasing number of assaults, robberies, rapes, and other vicious attacks committed against women. Less serious, but nevertheless objectionable, are the operations of "mashers" and meddlesome males who molest women and girls in urban areas. You need to develop a skill with a system of self-defense, whether you are a housewife, student, career girl, or a lady of leisure.

We are dismayed to see that the recent karate boom around the world has given a lucrative chance for unscrupulous and unqualified self-appointed karate "experts" to prey on innocent and unsuspecting women. Many of these "experts" who are not qualified to properly instruct in such a serious subject as self-defense for women, offer short courses in self-defense mastery that promise complete safety under any and all circumstances if only the subscriber will pay to learn certain Oriental secrets. False confidence, established as a result of these teachings, can cause, when brought td the test, endless misery and even disaster. Authentic karate teachers do reside abroad and their teachings have full merit, but choose your instructor carefully, for your very life is in his hands. Karate techniques properly taught, will be an invaluable tool of self-defense for the rest of your life. Badly taught technique may hospitalize you.... or bury you.

This book, like its predecessors, is a categorized collection of self-defense situations and recommended karate responses which will better prepare you for emergencies should defense of your property, virtue, or your life become necessary. Karate responses for women can be precisely these applied by the male sex, but, more often than not, modifications are required to ensure the success of the defense. The fundamentals described in Book One of this series hold true and should be practiced, but basic physiological differences in your female body and the lack of the ability to generate sufficient functional strength required for some of these male responses should be borne in mind. Further, limitations on movement imposed by female wearing apparel (high heels, tight skirts) cancel out much useful karate technique, and it must be modified accordingly.

It is not necessary to wait until you have practiced all the fundamentals of Book One before going on to the self-defense situations in this book. You may, with a minimum of practice of the fundamentals required for these situations of your choice, practice the situations and responses until you have an efficient working knowledge. Use Book One as a reference as you go step-by-step through the various situations in this book.

You are reminded that even mastery of what is contained in this text' will not make you invincible in personal encounters, and that mere reading with one or two rehearsals of each response in this book will not produce effective results.

The authors are indebted to the Japan Karate Association, Tokyo, Japan, for the use of their facilities, and hereby acknowledge with pleasure the assistance of those members and officials who have made this book possible. Additional thanks are due to Kazuo Obata, whose excellent photographic skills have contributed greatly towards the easy readability of this book; to for her posing as the "victim"; and to George Hoff, a student of combative arts, whose realistic posing for the "assailant" part of this text is highly professional.