About

When I told my husband that I was thinking about starting this blog one of the first things he asked me was who my target demographic would be. That was pretty easy to answer. Outside of a handful of people I personally know, it doesn't exist. My ideal target reader would be a female who takes a multidisciplinary approach to self defense.

Multidisciplinary means "composed of or combining several usually separate branches of learning or fields of expertise." In this context it means pulling from fields like psychology, criminology, and various martial arts including Brazilian jiu jitsu and boxing to evolve a superior way to defend yourself. 

This is admittedly a niche demographic, even for men. So why did I go ahead and start this anyway? To share my personal experience as a female on all of the individual branches in which I train.

I have successfully completed multiple Shivworks classes ran by Craig Douglass including PUC (Practical Unarmed Combat,) IEK (In-extremist Knife,) and EWO (Edged Weapons Overview.) I plan to attend ECQC (Extreme Close Quarters Concepts) in the near future (I am working myself up for that.)

Currently I train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under black belt Warren Stout at Renzo Gracie Pittsburgh, weight lift and attend a monthly self defense training group run by Shawn Lupka of Antifragile Training. Shawn also happens to be my husband.

It almost goes without saying that all of these activities are male dominated. In many cases a man is not going to be able to relate or advise me on various female specific issues that come up. I want this to be a safe space to share viewpoints on all training related topics. 

Some posts will be frivolous discussing things like what companies make the best no gi gear for women. Other posts will focus on more serious issues like body image or how a previous assault victim gets up the courage to walk into her first jiu jitsu or self defense class.

While I intend for the main focus to be on female specific issues that's not to say that men can't take away anything useful from my posts. Many concepts and issues that we deal with in multidisciplinary training transcend the male/female divide. We can all relate to the anxiety of stepping outside of your comfort zone when trying something new and for those of us who do jiu jitsu sometimes feeling "lost in the weeds."

I will also be posting course reviews and event recaps. Further down the road I hope to have personal story guest posts as well as interviews with a few experts that I know in various fields of training. If you have a specific topic that you would like to hear about let me know!