Miami University throwin' down!

Okay, I admit both places were in Ohio so it wasn’t quite the glorious road trip that the title implies.  Last week, I spent some quality time in Ohio and the first stop was Miami University and they were super cool . . . and creative.  For example, The Programming Board has an amazingly large banner that they named Abraham, which stands for “A Banner Reaching Awesome Heights and Miracles.” Once I heard that, I knew I was with good people and that we were going to have a good time.  I had a great time talking with everyone about personal safety and kickin’ booty when necessary.  A big thanks goes out to Devin, the event coordinator and Scary Bad Guy.  Devin is actually a repeat Scary Bad Guy and has mad skills in this area. 

The next stop was Walsh University and, while they did not have a banner named Abraham, Bernie, one of the event coordinators, taught me a catchy song called “Stop,” which is a song about ending harassment and other inappropriate things.  The crowd was awesome, very interactive and entertaining.  I have to a throw out another big thank you to Steven, my very, VERY nervous Scary Bad Guy and Mike, one of the other awesome event coordinators.  And, Mike don’t think I forgot about the pony I demanded in return for this seminar.  I’ll keep an eye on my mail for it. 

Overall, my trip to Ohio was a huge success and a lot of fun.  I had a great time with all of the awesome students at Walsh and Miami!

GFB Jaime with the awesome event coordinators at Walsh University!

Stop number three on the Pennsylvania seminar trail was Elizabethtown College and it was GREAT!  The crowd was full of energy and a little rowdy with some shenanigans up their sleeves . . . Just the way I like them.  Heather Rhodes deserves a big thank you for bringing Girls Fight Back! to campus.  I’ve been the worst about getting a picture before the whole crowd leaves lately but I did manage to snag a photo with the lovely ladies you see above.  Thanks Elizabethtown! 

Penn College of Technology was my second stop on the Fight Back Pennsylvania extravaganza and it was a blast!  Staying true to their name, they had a stellar technological set up with multiple flat screens to blast out our Students Fight Back power point.  I would like to give a big shout out to everyone who worked to bring us to campus, especially Mike Hersh.  Mike was particularly helpful because he let me volunteer him to play the role of our “Scary Bad Guy” and still spoke to me after the seminar was over.  Thanks for being a trooper, Mike!   

             Well, hello there everyone! I just wanted to take a quick second to thank all of GFB’s  supporters for what you enable us to do.  Something we hear a lot at GFB is “thank you.”  We hear it after seminars from our awesome clients and great audiences.  We see it when you post it to our facebook page and when you email us.  But the truth of the matter is you deserve the thank you because, without you, our mission would have never come this far. 

                I was thinking about this yesterday on my flight from Portland to Philadelphia.  Some people, when I tell them that for a certain part of the year I live in airports and hotel rooms, they ask me how I do that.  Well, the truth is that it doesn’t really give me any pause and on my flight yesterday I kept thinking how lucky I am.  Sure, I’ll be living in airports and Hampton Inns for a while but I meet the most amazing and inspiring people when I ‘m on the road and I get to talk with them about something so fundamental to all of our lives.  The truth is that, without all of the support you have given us over the years, we wouldn’t have been able to spread our nearly message as far or nearly as fast.  

                Thank you for making what we do possible and keep hoping with us that someday it will be a service that is no longer needed and working with us to make that day happen.

                Strong. Resilient. Spirited. Unified. 

Last week I was riding the train into downtown Portland on my way to work and realized something very strange.  People share a lot of personal information on public transportation.  Granted, most people are not going up to perfect strangers on the train and offering up the information.  What happens is that people are calling places like their banks and phone companies but before their bank or phone company will give up any information, you have to provide them with some personal details to verify your identity. 

In the course of a 30 minute ride I learned full names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, and even one social security number.  Luckily for my fellow train-goers, I personally have no plans to use said information.  However, I can’t speak for everyone else on the train and you can bet that if I heard it, other people heard it also.

Getting down to the point, we need to be careful what we say and when we say it.  Just because it is public transportation does not mean it’s the place to air your not-so-public information.  

I have Google alerts set up on topics ranging from self-defense to the hottest spring sandal trends. I was going through them to see if I could find any gems and I came by a somewhat unsettling post on Yahoo Answers. If you’re not familiar with that sight, here is the rundown. Basically, if you have a question, you can post it on Yahoo Answers and the wonderful users of the World Wide Web can submit answers to your question. I came across this question: What is the best self-defense that’s not purely on defensive maneuvers?” The person who posted the question also posted more details and said,

“I guess I’m kinda looking for something that teaches yousomething like setting your opponent up, grabbing his arm, and forcing it out of socket . . . kinda gruesome but after all the bull **** I take from kids around school, there’s a lot I’m willing to do to inflict some pain on certain people.”

This post made me think it is a good time to revisit two topics: what self-defense is really about and respecting each other as people. Self-defense is about protecting your physical safety when you think it’s threatened. It’s not about teaching someone a lesson and it’s definitely not about revenge. Whether you agree with it or not, there are certain truths in society. One of them is that a person can stand at an acceptably distance, say really mean things to you, and you are not actually allowed to beat them up. That is what we call assault. If you think your physical safety is threatened, that is a completely story and it is why self-defense exists.

This person’s post also made me think about how we treat each other. I am a firm believer that people are basically good but there are a few bad apples thrown in the mix. However, sometimes even the best of people can cave into something like peer pressure and maybe treat someone else poorly or bully them. The person who asked this question has been bullied, probably pretty severely to make him seek out that kind of information. It is so important that we respect each other’s humanity and their dignity and hopefully that will reduce the number of people who feel like fighting is the only option.

Hope anyone close to the Piedmont Triad Area of North Carolina will join me for the fun, free event!  At 11am on Saturday, June 12^th, I’ll be presenting a free Girls Fight Back! seminar at Advanced World Martial Arts Systems in Kernersville.  The program is appropriate for ages 13 and up and will last about 90 minutes with plenty of time after to answer any questions you may have.  I’ll be talking about ways to avoid becoming the target of a violent crime by trusting your intuition and behaving like a bad victim and I’ll finish up with some simple fight techniques that you can use if you ever find yourself confronted by an attacker.  The program is presented with tons of humor and you’ll leave feeling like a stronger, more empowered person.  Pete Andrews of AWMAS has graciously agreed to let me use his studio for free and while there is no charge for the seminar itself, we will be collecting donations for Heroes Serving Humanity.  For more information about the workshop check out: http://www.awmas1.com/page_latestnews.htm. And call 336-992-5223 to sign-up.  Call ASAP – space is limited.

A few of the Warrior Women of Warren.

The first half of my Saturday was excellent. I laughed and talked self-defense with an incredible crowd of young women at the YWCA of Warren, Ohio. The event was completely seamless, the crowd was pumped and my Scary Bad Guy, Cory, might have been the best SBG on record. All in all, a fantastic morning.

But all good things must come to an end. A three-hour flight delay in Cleveland Saturday afternoon caused this road warrior to miss her connecting flight from Baltimore to Nashville. After being informed by a less than sympathetic airline desk agent that “it is not airline policy to put passengers up in hotels, even when airline error causes them to miss the last flight home of the day,” I came about as close to a complete nervous breakdown in BWI airport as I ever want to. I mean, have you ever tried to sleep on those airport chairs? Not exactly an appealing option.

Luckily for my back and my nerves, the passengers on my flight quickly turned into an angry mob (not really – but close!). Heated words were exchanged (not by me!), supervisors were called and, to make a long story short (too late!), hotel vouchers were reluctantly issued.

The aloft hotel turned out to be charming, even if there was a BUMPIN’ party in the lobby. My sixth-floor room offered reasonable quiet (except for the part when the birthday girl stumbled out of the hotel screaming, and I could hear her and her posse through the window), which was crucial since I had roughly five hours before it was time to rise and shine for the flight home. A quick sleep, to be sure, but it beat stretching out in front of the Cinnabon. Hands down.

The moral of the story, friends, is that travel is an adventure. BUT my time in Warren with those wonderful girls made everything worth it. I want to thank Toni and the rest of the staff for putting on a completely enjoyable event. Cory – you really were a wonderful (and memorable) Scary Bad Guy. And to everyone who came out on a Saturday morning, laughed at my jokes and opened your very own can of whoop-ass: thank YOU for being the absolute highlight of my weekend. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any other way!

Your name is not on your Twitter account. Your Facebook profile is set to private. And you would never, ever give out your social security number online. You’re safely anonymous online, right? Not so much.

I read an article today in the New York Times about increasing concerns over online privacy – how people compromise it, whether it exists at all. For the safety-savvy woman, the Internet presents a host of challenges that cannot afford to be breezed over.

The article contended that researchers were able to piece together individuals’ identities – sometimes down to their social security numbers – based on information gathered from their often-anonymous social profiles and those of their cyberfriends. To be more specific, by examining statistical correlations, scientists were able to identify 30 percent of Twitter and Flickr users and accurately predict the social security numbers of an estimated 8.5 percent of people born in the U.S. between 1989 and 2003.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Now let’s put this in perspective. Am I advocating that you remove all trace of yourself from the Internet to protect your privacy and your safety? No. You couldn’t do that if you wanted to. What I am saying is that as technology evolves, we inevitably become more vulnerable. Rather than blame technology or blame the scientists or blame our loud-mouth friends, we need to step up our own game and take what steps we can to stay safe online.

Someone who scours your profile and your friends’ profiles may be able to piece together information about your life, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we should just lay it all out there. What we’re trying to do here is be a “bad victim” or a “hard target” online. If a criminal is going to stalk someone or steal someone’s identity, chances are, they’re going after the easy prey. Most criminals aren’t trying to make life hard for themselves! So if you are discriminating about what you post, and you pay attention to where you show up on other people’s profiles, you will make the would-be cyberattacker’s life just that much harder. Chances are, when they realize they can’t find much information on you, they’ll move on to an easier victim.

I’m talking about things like posting online where you work, what time you leave at night, where you live, whether you’re alone. What kinds of pictures of you can people find online? When you’re considering posting a tidbit of information or a photo to your Facebook page or your Twitter account, stop and ask yourself three questions:

1. Would I want my mom to see this?
2. Would I want my boss to see this?
3. Would I want a serial killer to see this?

Because, like it or not, all of those people are looking. When it comes to protecting your privacy online, follow one simple rule: Avoid TMI (too much information).

I’m not saying you shouldn’t “play” online. But I am saying that you can’t hide behind anonymity when you do. You should always act like you’re being watched because, well, you are. As Cornell computer science professor Jon Kleinberg told the New York Times,

“When you’re doing stuff online, you should behave as if you’re doing it in public — because increasingly, it is.”

Yesterday, I got to bring Students Fight Back! to Monmouth College in Monmouth, IL. To put it simply, they were awesome. The campus was adorable and the building they had me speaking in was absolutely gorgeous. To put the icing on an already delicious cake, I had the best scary bad guy ever . . . EVER!

Big thanks to my “Scary Bad Guy,” Matthew . Matthew, I think you have a future in drama if you want it. To top it off, I got to meet with Weed for lunch before taking for Seattle/Portland. Thanks to Danielle Tucker from ASAP who organized a great student event and to all the students who made it rock.

Stay Dangerous.

Let it never be said that Everett Community College does not think outside the box when publicizing events. When I arrived on campus, I saw dozens of absolutely adorable posters publicizing the Girls Fight Back! seminar. Now, I know what you are thinking . . . that sounds awesome but not necessarily innovative. Well, let me tell you what else EVCC did. First, they wrote the words “Girls Fight” and drew arrows leading all the way to the seminar room. They also had a dancing guerilla directing student traffic to the seminar. This is what I call creative advertising and I LOVE it!

The crowd at EVCC was awesome and pretty much completely fierce. I had a blast and want to give a big thanks to Kelsey Burke for bringing me to EVCC and coordinating such an amazing event. You rock, ladies.

“He seemed so nice at first.” This is a statement I think we all hear frequently in many different contexts. You might hear a friend say it after going on a second date with someone who was so nice on the first date but turned out to be a big jerk on the second. You might hear a victim of sexual assault saying this about her assailant. It begs the question, what is happening to these nice people?

Here’s the deal. Being nice is a choice, not a personality trait and anyone can chose to be nice for a period of time to get something they want from you even if they are the furthest thing from nice. To put it bluntly, people can use niceness to manipulate you. Now, I’m not saying that you should stop trusting all the nice people in the world, because many people chose to be nice and are genuinely good people. However, if your intuition is giving you a signal that the seemingly nice person you are dealing with is a bad news, trust your intuition.

Your intuition will steer you toward the people you want in your life and away from the people you would rather keep out. Trust it and let it work for you.

I recently attended a really great self-defense program in the Portland area. It was Prepare Portland’s class and they teach Impact-style self-defense. It was a fun-filled weekend of learning full contact, all-out, empowering self-defense skills. These are my thoughts and a general review of the program but remember, you should research any program before attending.

Prepare Portland delivered a very well-rounded program focusing on setting physical and verbal boundaries and how to fight back from different holds and positions. We started on Friday evening with introductions and background about the program, and then we warmed up and went straight into it. We started with physical fighting and, as the night and weekend progressed, we layered verbal assault and self-defense into the fights. There was a good variety of ground fighting, fighting standing up, surprise attacks from behind, and verbal attacks. Plus, each new scenario built upon skills taught in the previous scenarios so the confidence of the class grew with each scenario.

The program was also incredibly empowering. Each instructor was encouraging, positive and had valuable insights to share. The instructors gave us each the opportunity to give them an index card with scenarios we either wanted to try or avoid. This tailoring gave the students the opportunity to either tackle a scenario they wanted to conquer or avoid a situation they were not quite ready to take on. In general, I think the male, padded instructor is crucial to the success of a full-contact self-defense program. They have to be able to make the switch from being compassionate and your biggest supporter when out of the suit and a creepy weirdo/your worst nightmare when in the suit.  I have to say that our padded instructor played both roles extremely well and I am amazed at his ability to, seemingly simultaneously, attack and encourage.

The one thing that might be a drawback to this program is cost. For 20 hours of training, the full cost is $495.00. However, the bright side (and I’m all about the bright side) is that there are scholarships available based on your income and the staff is really good about working out payment plans. 

To sum up, Prepare Portland delivered a highly empowering, practical self-defense course that I hope more of my fellow Oregonians take advantage of. Great program, great staff, great times.