Loren W. Christensen - Fight Back: A Womans Guide to Self-Defense That Works

Fight Back: A Womans Guide to Self-defense that Works

by Loren W. Christensen and Lisa Place

FIGHT BACK: A WOMANS GUIDE TO SELF-DEFENSE THAT WORKS. Copyright 2011 by Loren W. Christensen and Lisa Place. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the authors, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. For information, address YMAA Publication Center, PO Box 480, Wolfeboro, NH 03894.

To contact the author or to order additional copies of this book:

YMAA Publication Center

PO Box 480

Wolfeboro, NH 03894

www.ymaa.com

ISBN 978-1-594394-50-8

Acknowledgements

To our daughters: Alyse Place, Amy Widmer and Carrie Christensen

We pray you never have to use the material in this book, but if you do, simply reach down past your societal graces, unleash that salivating lioness with you, and command her, Get em!

A big thanks to our photographers:

Amy Widmer, Alyse Place, David Tankersley, and Loren W. Christensen

And to our models:

Rickie Place

Alyse Place

Jace Widmer

Amy Widmer

Lisa Place

Loren W. Christensen

Self-defense in the News

One night in our city, Portland, Oregon, 51-year-old nurse Susan Kuhnhausen returned home after an evening working the emergency room in one of our hospitals. She had taken only a couple of steps into her dark house before an intruder, armed with a claw hammer, charged at her from a side room and smashed the tool into her skull. Incredibly, not only did she not lose consciousness, she began to fight the man who had been hired by her husband to kill her. They struggled in a furious battle all about the room and on the floor, punching and kicking each other in violent desperation. At one point, the nurse managed to take away the hammer from the hitman and slammed its steel head into his bones and tissue as he chewed on her flesh like a manic animal.

Mrs. Kuhnhausen, who outweighed the hitman by 80 pounds and had been fighting violent patients in the ER for years, fought her way behind the now frantic man, and wrapped her arm around his neck. He struggled with ferocity against her powerful hold but she continued constricting breath from his lungs and vital blood to his brain. With each passing second, he grew weaker and weaker until first his brain slipped into unconsciousness and then his heart ceased to beat.

Death by strangulation, the autopsy report would read.

During the trial, in which her husband would be sentenced to 10 years for his role in the attempted murder, Susan Kuhnhausen, who had taken the stand, leaned toward him, and said calmly, If I ever, ever believed that you deserved to be dead, I would of at least had the balls to kill you myself.

Foreword by Gavin de Becker

Gavin de Becker is the best-selling author of The Gift of Fear, the most widely read self-defense book in the world. His books have been featured in Time and Newsweek, and many times on The Oprah Winfrey Show, including a special hour-long episode which commemorated the 10th anniversary of the publication of The Gift of Fear. His books are now published in fourteen languages. He can be contacted at www.gavindebecker.com.

The primary goal of this book is to teach people to survive a violent physical encounter. The exchange of energy between aggressor and defender cannot be fully appreciated from the comfort and distance of wherever you are reading these words. In actual attacks, events are absorbed through every sense, taken in via taste, smell, touch, and through the skin, literally. Thats all the more reason we can benefit so much from having good information in advance.

Human beings arent natural fighters; we didnt get the sharpest claws or strongest jaws or fastest legs. We got the biggest brainsand Loren Christensen and Lisa Place offer much-needed teaching on how the brain and body can work together toward the goal of prevailing in an attack. Loren has been a teacher of survival strategies since 1965, hes authored over 45 books and this one puts it all together for the audience that needs it most: Women.

Why do women need it most? Because women are victimized most often, and because our culture has prepared women least effectively. The culture has sold the (false) idea that survival is always more likely if you do what a predator tells you to do, if you submit. Women have been persuaded to believe that violence is a mystery that can be understood only by men.

Perhaps more than anything else offered in these pages is the gift of practicality and reality, ways to avoid offensive and unwanted advances and confrontations in everyday situations. This book details physical, non-verbal warning signs to help readers detect danger through behavioral cues. Youll learn skills used by warriors, and see that you too can be a warrior when you need to be. Youll see that you dont have to relinquish your control to a predator, that you can physically resisteven if youve spent years thinking youd better not.

Trained for decades to interact with men in ways that serve the patriarchy, readers who fully absorb the information here can say No when they choose to. And I mean say No with muscles as well as words.

Safety starts with knowing that your intuition about people is a brilliant guardian. Listening to intuition really means listening to yourself. Like everyone, youve had scores of experiences when you listened and were later grateful, and scores of experiences when you chose not to listen, and were later regretful. I cant say it any more clearly than this: To protect yourself, you must believe in yourself. Nothing will encourage that belief more than knowing you are prepared.

Unlike many self-defense guides, and unlike advice given wholesale to girls and young women as they grow up, Loren Christensen and Lisa Place do not recommend submission when attacked. That option, of course, will always be available to those who feel in a given moment that its the wisest course. But Loren and Lisa add many other options, many other weapons, including those he calls weapons of opportunity and including the ones youre born with: elbows, knees, fingers, etc.

Too many women have been prepared for victimization through a lifetime of being warned that they ought to submit to violence or submit when even threatened. For women who have moved past that idea, who are willing to resist violence, this book can offer a new way of organizing your thinking on the subject: You can act defensively or offensively.

What I mean is that a woman who sees that violence is underway might have the thought I have to defend myself now.

Another woman in the same situation might have the thought He acted offensively so I am going to respond offensivelyand in a manner that will not allow him to act again.

If youre a reader drawn to the second thought process, youre holding the right bookbecause here it all gets real practical real quick. Theres information here about the physical aspects of predatory attack, and as important, the physical aspects of counter attack.

The topics of violence and self-defense arent always pleasant, of course, so each person must ask herself: Do you want this information? If not, I pose an easier, softer question: Of all the approaches you might take to enhancing your safety, do you suppose that ignorance about violence is an effective one?

This book teaches that our primary defense weapons are the mind and the heart. The heart Im referring to here isnt just the one that gives love and courage and perseverance; its also the organ that pumps extra blood to the arms and legs, the organ that gives extra energy and strength to the muscles when needed. Thats how practical and realistic the heart can be when it comes to our safety.