All self-defense strategies come down to these choices.

Run

Run, the first skill, may involve running as fast as you can. But it’s really anything that gets you out of harm’s way. It could be walking, wheeling, or driving away. It could be not showing up for a meeting or date. It could be leaving a relationship or a job. It may mean cutting off contact with a family member. Anything that makes you Not.Be.There. for the harassment, abuse, or assault that’s happening (or might happen).

Defend Yourself team members have:

• Cut off contact with homophobic parents
• Ended abusive relationships
• Runaway from attackers
• Left jobs with toxic bosses

…and much more!

When have you used a “run” technique? Tell us your story and if you tell us it’s okay, we may share it in the spirit of skill-building.

Yell

Yell, the second skill, is anything using your voice. Talk to them, tell them what you want, give them a command, get really loud. Tell them what’s okay with you and what’s not.

Speaking up can be difficult but at the same time it’s simple. And practice makes it easier. Start small, with something like telling your friends what pizza toppings you want or telling a telemarketer to not call you anymore. Move up to telling a manspreader on the bus to please make room for you. Challenge yourself by telling a co-worker you can’t take their shift or help them with a project.

Whatever you do to use your voice, be sure to celebrate it. Even if it didn’t go the way you planned or have the result you hoped, you gained assertiveness skills by speaking up!

If you’d like to get more skills for growing assertiveness, check out one of our classes!

Tell

The third one — Tell — is getting help.

It’s really underused. Americans often think that we have to take care of everything ourselves. Asking for help is a profound way of taking care of yourself.

Get help while it’s happening: You can get help in the moment something bad is happening, for example if someone won’t stop hitting on you at a party, or you’re being harassed on the street or even if you’re being attacked. Is someone you know there? If you know someone who’s around you, like at a party or at school, you can ask them to stay with you until the aggressor leaves you alone.

If you don’t know anyone else, pick someone and tell them what you need. You in the red shirt go get the bouncer! (Or security staff, or your friend/mom/teacher, or whoever can help.) Identifying the person and giving them a task breaks through the bystander effect, which is the thing where the more people who are around, the less likely any one person will do anything about it.

When it’s over: You can also get help after the harassment, abuse, or assault is over, or at least not happening now. There are lots of ways to do that; here are a few:

• Call a hotline
• Report it to HR (in the workplace)
• Talk to a faith leader, counselor, or support group.

If you’re not a full-on grown up, its important to tell an adult as well as talking to your friends for support. Talk to a parent or other adult family member, or a friends parent. Tell the school counselor, or a teacher you trust. Tell a therapist. Call a hotline.

If you tell someone and you don’t get the help you need, KEEP TELLING UNTIL YOU DO! It’s awful that you might have to ask more than one person, but many people don’t yet know how to deal with harassment, abuse, or assault. So keep telling until you get the help you need.

For a list of organizations that can help, go to our Resources page.

Hit

The fourth one — Hit — is what you do when you can’t do Run-Yell-Tell or you tried them and they didn’t work.

In Defend Yourself classes, we teach a basic set of hits that you can do without much practice. In an attack, they’ll cause either excruciating pain or temporary disability so you can get to safety. It doesn’t matter if you’re a couch potato or an athlete — we teach skills that people of any ability can do!

The best places to hit are eye, nose, throat, groin, knees, and feet. Find out how to hit them — and how easy it is — by joining us for a class.

If you’re being physically attacked, you may need to hit the attacker to protect yourself.

There are six primary targets on the human body that you can hit to cause excruciating pain or temporary disability: eyes, nose, throat, groin, knees, and feet.

You’ve probably felt the effectiveness of some of these, like if you’ve ever dropped something on your foot or gotten something in your eye. Now, imagine someone doing that with lots of force and on purpose — it hurts!

I (Lauren) was once bumped in the nose in a martial arts class by a small 10-year-old who wasn’t hitting hard or on purpose. It was just like in the cartoons — everything went black and I saw stars!

And anyone who’s done sports knows how easy it is to damage a knee. Knees are only made to go one direction, so pressure in any other direction can cause temporary disability, and then the attacker can’t run after you.

We hit only when there’s physical danger and when Run, Yell, and Tell didn’t work or aren’t available.

The goal of hitting (or any other self-defense technique, including Run, Yell, and Tell), is to give you enough time to get to safety (usually where there are other people).

This post is from a Defend Yourself student, who says:

Setting boundaries has been hard for me. We women are conditioned to put others’ needs before our own. When I tried to set boundaries in the past I’d be called names, told I was ‘selfish,’ and was guilt-tripped until I caved. Caving worked in the short term, but it doesn’t work in the long run. Resentment gets built up, which is not healthy. I didn’t like being a pushover.

Through Defend Yourself, I learned the tools to set and maintain boundaries. At a recent job, one woman who I worked under grabbed my wrist when I was about to stamp a document in the wrong place. I would be afraid to speak up in instances like that at jobs in the past because being in a shaky financial situation I could not afford to lose those jobs. However, something in me sparked though I may be on the bottom rung at many of these jobs, I still felt I deserved respect.

I used a firm voice and told her, ‘You do not have to touch me like that.’ I set another boundary when she touched me again in another instance and reiterated that she did not need to touch me. She has not touched me inappropriately since. I have continued to set boundaries in other ways at this job and am proud of myself for doing such.

Setting boundaries is a two steps forward/two steps back thing. It’ll take time and repetition until it becomes easier for me to do. I realize that people will continue to call me names, lay guilt trips, and throw tantrums when they don’t get their way and it hurts, but thats on them, not me. Setting boundaries is about putting oneself first, and Im glad that I learned to put myself first.

Walking at night, living alone … many people are afraid of being attacked in these situations. And with good reason: More than half of us will be the target of violent crime in our lifetimes. In fact, we are most vulnerable with people we know: More than 70% of attacks on women, girls, LGBTQ and gender non-conforming people are by acquaintances, friends, partners (& ex-partners), and family members.

The blame for harassment, abuse, and attack always rest with the aggressor. But we can take steps to prevent and interrupt these violations. Here are five tools for safety:

For practice on all these things, and lots more skills,take an empowerment self-defense class!

For a printable pdf of this handout, click here.

Lots of people have heard that if they are attacked they should yell “fire” to help attract attention. I don’t agree.

I suggest yelling things like:

• “No!”
• “Stop!”
• “I’m being attacked — get help!”
• “This man is bothering me!”
• “Leave now!”

Why am I not onboard with the “yell fire” advice? First, remember that some 70% of attacks on women and teen girls are by people we know. We’re most likely to be attacked on familiar ground: our homes, the homes of our attackers, school, work, social situations, etc. So we’re generally inside. If you’re in a building and yell fire, most people will run outside, not run to the fire. So yelling fire can send help away.

Also, yelling serves many purposes. It can help attract attention, it reinforces your message, it can dissuade the attacker. For the second and third of these, it’s more helpful to be yelling something consistent with what you want.If you’re defending yourself, or trying to get away, yelling “GET OFF ME!” would be way more effective than yelling “fire!”

Before I studied self-defense, I was mugged in the daytime with lots of people around. I yelled FIRE! really loud, and nothing happened. So I also have personal experience that makes me not a fan of yelling “fire!”

Of course I’m not opposed to anything that works! (And almost anything might work sometimes.) The most important thing is to yell — and yell loudly.

Yours in resistance, Lauren

#resist