Self Defense Fridays

Men & Women of all Abilities Welcome

Our “Self Defense Fridays'' program is designed to teach capabilities that are normally not taught in martial arts classes but are critical for successfully defending yourself.  Such capabilities can be divided into molding fighting skills for self defense, analyzing real life experiences, and practicing situational awareness.

1. We teach a variety of critical fighting skills such as escapes from grabs and chokes, knowledge of vulnerable striking points (which are often not permitted in competitive martial arts styles), introduction to explosive and efficient striking methods, experience of facing multiple opponents, familiarity with fighting against weapons and using weapons, understanding how everything that people carry or can find in the surrounding space can be used as a weapon, ground fighting skills for street situations, and much more.  
2. While martial arts classes usually teach how to fight in a structured environment, we teach how to face danger in specific situations: open spaces like alleys, confined spaces like bars, bathrooms and metro cars, transitional spaces like parking lots and bus stops.  During classes we often show footage from security cameras and guide students to understanding what would be the most optimal defense in real life situations.  
3. Situational awareness and preparedness are central parts of our self defense philosophy.  We believe that the best tactics are to avoid confrontation by observing and knowing the environment, de-escalating confrontation whenever it is possible, trying to find an exit path if a bad situation occurs, and only using physical self-defense skills in proportional manner  when all of the above fails.

Our class is taught only once a week, and learning is most efficient if it is taken along with a more conventional martial arts class.  Due to historic reasons our self-defense class has the best synergy with combat tai chi and kung-fu classes offered by our school.  However any class that will teach you how to punch, kick, wrestle, use weapons, spar will help your self-defense progress, please see our school programs for many great options.  Each week we teach a different self-defense topic selected from 6 categories, and we regularly invite experts in their disciplines  to teach our classes.  The schedule of topics and instructors for the current month is available here, 

We take martial arts training very seriously. We also believe that play and a friendly atmosphere makes for better and faster learning.  Here are some videos by our students that show both our training (overview, weapons, grabs) and the fun times (NYC Metro Ride, Armlocks In A Bar, Self Defense Kitten).