Self defense class offered for teen girls

Homewood Public Library is holding a self defense class for teen girls led by Detective Juan Rodriquez on July 11. Registration is required. The account below describes a class led by Rodriguez for adults.

“Have the tips of your keys laced through your fingers when walking to your car or front door.”

“Don’t go out by yourself at night.”

“Trust no one.”

As a woman, I have heard these self-defense tips repeated over and over again throughout my life. I often wonder what makes me sadder: knowing these tips or the fact that they are so ingrained in me that I think it is normal to know them. 

Still, I assume that I will be never be attacked, much like I think I’ll never get a disease or be in a car crash. It happens on TV and on the news in a distant part of town, but not here, not to me and not to people close to me.

Yet, as I sat in the auditorium of the Homewood Public Library taking Detective Juan Rodriquez’s self-defense class, I realized I could be wrong. As class went on, I heard stories from many of the women in my own community, who were attending the class because their worst fears had already come true. They had personal experiences with assault or attacks where they once felt safe, where they thought it would never happen to them.

Rodriquez has seen far too frequently what happens when women are caught off guard during an attack. A former detective at the Homewood Police Department, he now owns Summit Training Academy in Pinson. 

The class also teaches defense techniques focused on women’s natural strengths that could be be used during an attack. Although he hopes his students never have to use them, Rodriquez wants women to be prepared.

He recognizes that women are unlikely to be taught self-defense skills while growing up. He points out the harsh fact that the number one killer of women worldwide is men, which is why he specializes in women’s self-defense. 

“[The attackers] are expecting you not to have a plan,” he said.

In the South, our “Southern belle attitude” does us no favors, Rodriquez said. We are brought up to be polite to the point where we might overlook actions that women raised in other parts of the country would question. 

“Sometimes you just have to be rude,” he said.

Rodriquez discussed what he calls a “God sense” that is alerted when a situation does not feel right. He said that many times when a victim has survived an attack, she will report that she just had a bad feeling in her gut about the attacker. Rodriquez urges women to listen to that sense and not question what is causing the feeling. The way to respond to it, rude or not, is to leave, he said. 

“By the time you figure out what the problem is, the problem will be on you,” he said. “Prevention is better than a cure.”

For more information on self-defense classes at the Homewood Public Library, visit homewoodpubliclibrary.org.

For more information on Summit Training Academy, call 329-8286.