I spent a lot of time thinking about their future — as all good dads do. One of the areas that I want to "beef up" my girls in is self defense. I like to believe that I'm well equipped to handle threats against me. However, I can't always be there defend the girls. In some circumstances, it doesn't matter how well-trained I am, it matters how vulnerable the asset.
In this case, the asset is June.
She'll be turning 16 soon, and will be venturing into a world that may not always wish her well, in circumstances that, if well informed and well prepared, can be managed to afford a position of control rather than weakness.
To make sure she has the most control I can afford her, I spent some time training her to kill people. Ya, I'm that dad. To be clear, I spent time training her to kill bad people — people who want to hurt her. I took her down to Front Sight, and this is a log to help us remember what she learned and to inform the occassionaly ill-intentioned rapscallion that your target is best sought elsewhere, unless you enjoy bleeding.
For those who know me, they know that I've spent "some" time at Front Sight. I've graduated from each of their weapons platforms including handgun, shotgun, rifle, hand-to-hand defense, and knife defense. I've even done their rope and rappel class with Maleen. All the training is excellent, and I have found that I learn something new every time, no matter how often I've repeated the class. Btw, if anyone is interested, I'll be attending again in October for handguns.
You have to understand that June is a school-a-holic. When I was a younger man, I would have jumped at the opportunity to skip school had my father come to me and said, "Hey you want to go spend 4 days beating each other up? Oh and you'll miss a few days of school."
June is not my younger self.
June requested that we go over the Christmas break so that she wouldn't be doing bio makeup work for two weeks. I was in awe, but it was her choice, so after Christmas, June and I packed up and headed to Vegas.
Not only was this going to be both of our first time in hand-to-hand defense, it also afforded a great opportunity to yak on the way down. (Less so on the way back. More on that later.) All the dad's in the readership, I definitely recommend this. My Dad used to take me out in the car, and we'd just drive. We'd drive all over the town, or even out of town. Sometimes we'd drive to the Sand Dunes and go motorcycling. Sometimes we'd drive to Arizona to do rock crawling. Upon reflection, later in life, I realized these were my Dad's version of father's interview. He would ask me about everything in my life. We talked about everything: funny, sad, happy, difficult, awkward. Everything. This trip was great. June and I had a good six hour interview.
This was also a great opportunity for June to expand her foodie senses. We ate out at every meal, so she was going to get some different flavor every time we ate. And she took full advantage.
When we arrived at class, we learned that the class was overbooked, and for a class targeted for 20, we were going to have 60. Wow.
We took over the main classroom and put down mats everywhere. We started with the basics: what does a punch look like? Where do you hit someone? How do you kick? How do you knee, hammer punch, elbow? Once we felt like we had that down, practicing solo, it was time put on gear and beat the tar out of each other.
I think June liked this part.
June weighed about 120, and I weighed about 180. It seemed an unfair fight, so I was pulling some of my punches, but on day one, the instructors put an end to that. "Is her attacker going to take it easy on her? Is that the way you want her to train? Quit pulling your punches, you're not doing her any favors. And by the way, you are the height and weigh of the average attacker."
I started hitting harder...so did June. She wasn't going to take it easy on this pseduo attacker. Sure, he's usually my dad, but until we walk out that door, he's attacking me and trying to hurt me!
Though I was on the receiving end of a lot of abuse, there's something supremely satisfying about having your buck twenty daughter dodge your attack, elbow you in the face, wrap your arm around your body into a submission arm bar, force you to the ground, kick your ribs, stomp your non-surgery ankle to mock-break your ankle, and leave you, broken, lying on the ground while she resets for another attack just in case you stand up.
We learned the wing, the tip, and the arm bar. Winging the attacker brought them down to the ground and you could switch your hold to submission. Tipping flipped them completely over. Arm bar let you direct them wherever you wanted to by applying force to their elbow. Out of these, June's favorite was easily the tip. I got tipped at least a couple hundred times.
June has been doing Duolingo for a couple months, and she made sure to do it every night at the hotel. I taught her the difference between papá (dad) and papa (potato), and she's taken to calling me Potato as a joke. We even nicknamed her favorite self defense move 'Potato Tipping' because she was constantly using it on me.
On day two I was pretty sore, but I managed to put on a brave face...you know, for June. She'd twisted my attack-side shoulder so many times it hurt to raise my hand, and my ribs were all bruised. Day two brought a lot more punching, and a lot more submission. When we went home, I just wanted to soak in the tub. I legitimately felt like an old man.
During lunch breaks I showed her around front sight. There are several gun ranges and a sniper range. There is an area full of doors for practice opening a door and shooting an attacker. I call it Monster's Inc. There's also a ropes course which June definitely wants to do withe me some other time.
Day three, I still managed to raise my attack-side hand, but I couldn't mask the pain on my contorted brow. I started attacking a lot more with my support-side, but I knew it wouldn't last as long as my dominant side. Day three was the introduction to knives. They start you off with a pretty harrowing collection of videos of real knife attacks to set the stage for what you're up against. I believe this is the most violent thing June's ever seen. It was hard for me to watch, and I've seen my share of non-Hollywood violence.
Then we started working with knives. It's a natural extension of hand-to-hand defense, you're just adding an implement at the end of the hand. In this case it was a knife, but it could be a handgun, a rock, a bottle, even a pen! We spent our time figuring out how not to get stabbed, slashed, or otherwise maimed, then we concentrated on how to take away the assailant's blade and turning it against them.
This was a major moral moment for June. She was having a hard time with escalating the violence against another human. She didn't want to use the blade against the attacker. Wasn't it enough to take the blade away?
And so began one of the deeper philosophical discussions she and I have shared. "When it comes down to it," I explained, "it may not be you. What if you're walking with Daisy and Pearl, and someone attacks you. Even if the attacker doesn't hurt you, are you going to leave them in fighting condition to attack Daisy? Are you going to let them chase down Pearl?"
There was some silence, and then she looked me dead in the eye, and said, "No. They don't get to go after my sisters."
The very next iteration went like this: I threaten June with the knife and advance. June dodges the knife, takes a chin strike on the way to a diversion arm bar. It was a smooth transition into a wrist lock to break grip on the blade while she kicked my knees out. I thought she'd leave me there on the mat, but she kept me in wrist lock and hilt-stuck me in the temple for a knockout. The last attack was impressive: she laid the blade against the back of my knee and simulated cutting the tendons out of my strike-side knee.
I was...proud?
"What made the difference?"
"No one goes after my sisters. You get to bleed out while we make our escape."
Nearly every attack there after ended with her preventing the attacker from continuing the fight. If they disengage the fight, they get to keep their knee tendon / brachial artery / temple / wrist / ankle / elbow. She looked at the world and saw something ugly that day, and she grew up a lot by considering the effects of actions.
Day four opened without any ability to raise my hand...even if I wanted to. I was sore, head to toe. Everything had been hit, slashed, locked, or submissioned. I could tell that June was feeling it too. I was attacker probably 70% of the time, but June got some attacker time as well — which is to say she took a beating on some of the engagements as well. I accidentally stabbed her in the leg at one point; even though it was a trainer knife, it left a huge green bruise that formed immediately. Day four also got a lot of ground fighting — if you're pinned or knocked down.
By the time we wrapped it up on day four, June and I were thoroughly exhausted, and that's when we had to start our drive back home. June's might and power gave out after about 20 miles. She slept most of the way home. Thank goodness for Rockstars, or I would have been asleep as well.
We ordered some trainer knives and guns on the way home so we'd have them to practice with.
We had a great time learning self defense, and I have much better satisfaction now knowing that June can defend herself pretty well. As a dad, I've gotta say mission accomplished. We went down to learn defense, and we learned it pretty well. We also got in some great discussions about some pretty deep subjects. And above all, we got to hand out and enjoy one another's company. As my Dad used to say, "There's no such thing as 'quality time,' There's just time." And that was the best part of it: spending time with June.
