Some time after I’d started a new job, one of my new co-workers asked me what my background was. I was starting to tell her I was a women’s self de- when she cut me off and said, OMG do you teach Wen-Do? I replied YES! She told me “Wen-Do saved my life!” She had taken Wen-Do back in the mid-80′s and again in the mid-90′s. She broke the nose of an attacker – who was someone she was dating at the time – as he attempted to sexually assault her. She got away safely. I know it’s a short story, but so so powerful…and she was so thrilled to share it with me…

In a northern Ontario town that I lived in, a young woman of 17 was raped. She had support and charged the man who raped her. It was a rural town, and everyone knew of the case. He was convicted of the rape. The judge gave the man a $700 fine as his punishment for the crime of rape. The community who supported her was outraged at the sentence and discussed what to do. A group of us decided to make up an ad campaign that ran on the radio, TV and newspaper. It was like a tourism ad, and said, “Men, come travel to this community for a visit. You can rape 17-year-old girls for only $700.” Three days after the ads started, the crown attorney launched an appeal of the sentence the man had received. He was sentenced to three years in jail.

Before I took this course someone tried to sexually assault me at a party and I got away. Never has anyone made me feel proud or brave for getting away. They have only told me I shouldn’t have been there and I shouldn’t have been drinking. It was only at and during this course that I felt proud of getting away. Thank you so much.

When my mother was 14, she lived in Iran. One day she was in the market with lots of family and friends. A man she didn’t know grabbed her between the legs in the front. She grabbed him and pulled him into her, beating him about the head. She punched and punched and punched him until he hit the ground and she left. Her family and friends validated her and told her she did the right thing.

A girl was on the bus, and a man was standing at the pole in front of her seat. He was leering and making sexual comments to her. A young woman saw this. She got up from her seat, and stood facing him at the pole, blocking his view of the girl. Then, she stared at him. No words. Just stared. He got off at the next stop.

When I was a teenager in El Salvador, I came home to find that my dad – who worked in the military – had lined up my mom and two sisters in chairs and was pointing the gun at them. As I entered the room and saw what was happening, I lunged at his outstretched arms. At the same time I yelled to my mom and sisters to run away. I brought my two arms down over his arms. As my dad’s arms and gun came down, I heard three shots- Bam! Bam! Bam! He fired into the ground at his feet and we all got away.

When I was about 13 or 14 years old, I was walking home and there was a group of boys – four or five of them – taunting, pushing, touching and yelling at a girl about my age. They’d go at her, back off slightly, and go at her again. I ran forward and yelled at them to stop it, to leave her alone, to get away. I stood next to her. They turned and ran. I walked her back a few blocks past my home. No one approached her again.

A student of mine in Toronto told this story. This had happened when she was in Grade 5 in Korea. She was walking home one evening after a doctor’s appointment, when a man came up to her and asked her for directions. The destination he claimed he was going to lay across a construction site, and he asked her to go with him to show him the way. As they walked across the site, he put his hand on the back of her neck, saying that he was cold. She felt very uncomfortable, but didn’t know what to do. (“I had a severe case of nice-girl syndrome,” the woman said as she told me the story.) They went on, and when they reached a dark area of the site, he pulled her into a corner and started trying to take her clothes off. She froze. She had no idea what to do. Then he started to unzip her pants, and suddenly she knew this was the limit. She had to do something. And she started to scream.

As soon as she screamed, some people passing the area looked around, and the man let go of her and ran away! She ran home, starting to cry as she went, and she said that the crying felt good, it felt liberating. Her mother, her grandmother, and her sisters were all home when she ran in. She was able to tell them what had happened, and they took care of her.

I heard this story from a woman who took a Basic Wen-Do class in Toronto. She was originally from Afghanistan, but was living as a refugee in Pakistan at the time that this story took place.  I’m guessing she was in her fifties or so at the time.

One day a stranger tried to grab her as she was walking outside.  She yelled, and a neighbour came out, and the man ran away.  Then, over the next few days, she noticed a man following her on the street.  She thought it was the same man who had tried to attack her, though she wasn’t absolutely sure.

This made her very nervous, so she decided to carry a packet of red chili powder with her when she went out.  After about three days, this man approached her, started trying to talk to her, and then grabbed her.  But she was ready.  She threw the chili powder in his face, and he let go of her and ran away.  She never saw him again.

This same woman said she was once travelling on a bus between Karachi and Peshawar.  It was during Ramadan, and evening was approaching.  At one of the stops, a man came onto the bus and offered the passengers some dates, to break their fast.  She felt suspicious of him, and after he stepped off the bus, she said to the other passengers, “Don’t eat those dates!  They might be drugged.”  The bus driver thought she might be right, so he gave one of the dates to a dog to see what would happen.  The dog ate the date and passed out.  Presumably the guy’s plan had been to drug all the passengers, then rob or assault them, but her quick thinking had protected them all.

A student in my class said that she had once taken her three-year-old son to have a meal at Swiss Chalet with the child’s father, her ex-husband.  Her ex had been nice and friendly as they were eating, but suddenly, just as they had finished paying, he grabbed the little boy and tried to drag him out of the restaurant.  She tried her best to hold onto the boy, but her ex managed to get as far as the street.  So she yelled, “Help!  He’s kidnapping my child!” Bystanders heard her and quickly gathered around, and her ex let go of the child and left.