South African self-defense
This post (found here) deals with a very serious subject; that of rape and how to prevent it. The newspaper is South African. That country
has some of the highest levels of rape and gender-based violence in the world
In order to help combat this disturbing aspect, Sanette Smith, a female karate expert, was drafted in to teach female hotel staff self-defense. Her views about this problem are most interesting. Learning to defend themselves is important, but probably more so is the idea that they have options, including the element of surprise.
However, for me, the most important part of what she said is towards the end of the article and it is worth quoting:
One of the best self-defence tools a woman can use is her power of intuition. Women should exercise, train and develop this ability. Women are inclined to downplay their feelings of intuition because if they acknowledge what their intuition is telling them, they will have to act on it. This carries a great responsibility. Not acting, however, carries an even higher price and could mean the difference between life or death. By exercising intuition every day, a woman’s awareness of what is happening around her will be enhanced automatically, in a natural way.
Surely this is something which is so important that it should be part of everyone’s lives; men and women. It is something I have talked about elsewhere. It is one thing to have an intuition, an intuitive ‘hit’. It is another thing entirely to act upon it. In this case (rape) the difference can literally be life and death. For the vast majority of us, we are not faced with this huge difficulty. For most of us the choices are less stark and less grim. But they are choices nonetheless!
If we are unable or unwilling to make choices based on our intuition, if we are unwilling to let ourselves grow in strength in our intuition, then we are depriving ourselves of a way of choosing, of a choice perhaps.
It doesn’t have to be anything as dramatic and repugnant as rape to focus us on using our intuition. It should be the complete opposite; the sheer full and rich enjoyment of life with all its possibilities which gives us the impetus to develop our intuition.
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