I was surprised to find this in the New York Times. I doubt I could have even walked in heels when I was young and in top shape, much less fought in them but if you are attacked, anything at hand can be a weapon:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/f..._th_20151115&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=66419148
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/f..._th_20151115&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=66419148
Fashion & Style
Using High Heels for Self-Defense
By ABBY ELLINNOV. 14, 2015
On a recent rainy evening, about 30 women, most wearing high heels, gathered in a Midtown Manhattan rehearsal space and engaged in a series of brisk maneuvers: hammer fists, elbowing out of chokeholds, fierce kicks.
“The idea is to lock in muscle memory,” said the leader, Avital Zeisler, a former ballerina with posture as straight as an index finger and black tresses evoking Cher during her Sonny years.
Ms. Zeisler, 26, is not a model or actress; and her charges were not engaging in some gimmicky exercise class like pole dancing. She is an expert in hand-to-hand combat who has trained members of the military and law enforcement, as well as actresses like Keri Russell, Megan Boone and Amanda Seyfried.
She is passionate about women learning to defend themselves, no matter what they are wearing on their bodies — or feet. And so this workshop, for which she sometimes charges up to $80 a participant, was free.
“The objective is to disrupt the attacker’s thought process — even just to get him to blink,” Ms. Zeisler told the assembled.
Lydia Billings, 24, a photographer and a founder of End Rape Now who was attending the class, was impressed. Her best friend was raped in high school, she said, but Ms. Billings had never before studied self-defense.
“A few really simple, powerful moves can get you out of any situation,” said Ms. Billings, who was wearing a pair of Payless pumps.
Ms. Zeisler is not the first or only person teaching such self-defense techniques. The instructional website Howcast has posted videos about using heels in self-defense (this being 2015, the iPhone is also a potential weapon). And Jennifer Cassetta, 39, a personal trainer in Los Angeles and a third-degree black belt in hapkido, began a class called Stilettos and Self-Defense in 2007.
“Women feel very empowered wearing heels,” Ms. Cassetta said. “I love heels. I love the way my legs look in them. But most women can barely walk in them, let alone run. If you can’t run away, you better know how to fight off an attacker. You have to be prepared at all times, no matter what you’re wearing, no matter how tall you are.”
While it is known that shoes can be lethal weapons — last year, Ana Trujillo of Texas was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing her boyfriend to death with a 5½-inch stiletto heel — they are not always easily accessible when they are on your feet. And they tend to handicap one of the best strategies for self-defense: running away.
But despite warnings about the perils of heels, and the havoc they can wreak on backs and ankles (“Working out in heels is really bad for your calves, and can cause tears or tendinitis,” said Rob Conenello, a sports podiatrist in Orangeburg, N.Y., and the past president of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine) it’s unlikely that urban women are going to stop wearing them anytime soon. So some concerned with safety are factoring in that reality.
According to a United Nations analysis, about 35 percent of women worldwide said they had experienced physical violence, including rape, murder and sexual harassment.
Ms. Zeisler is one of them. At 19, she was sexually assaulted by her boyfriend at the time, after which she went through a debilitating depression. She left her home in Toronto and traveled to Israel, her father’s birthplace, to study Krav Maga, an Israeli form of self-defense.
In 2013, she created and began teaching the Soteria Method (Soteria is the Greek goddess of safety), whose components include self-defense, fitness and, yes, “empowerment.” She defines self-defense as “having the ability to create, live and protect a life that you love.”
Her argument is that women shouldn’t have to alter their physical appearance or “compromise their femininity,” she said, to ensure their ability to protect themselves.
“When I teach self-defense, I want to make sure it’s authentic to women,” said Ms. Zeisler, who has also written a book, “Weapons of Fitness.” These weapons can presumably include Christian Louboutins. “The point of training in heels is that if you’re wearing heels and targeted for an attack,” she said, “you’re equipped with a few survival strategies that can save your life.”
Lori Hartman Gervasi, 57, a black belt trained in traditional karate who also has taught self-defense in heels, believes that women need to contemplate their shoes, along with other items of clothing, before an attack even happens.
“That way they’re not standing there thinking ‘Oh no, I’m being grabbed by some jerk and dragged by my hair to his car and I’m in heels of all things!’” said Ms. Gervasi, author of “Fight Like a Girl … and Win: Defense Decisions for Women,” who is based in California. “Instead, this woman should know many options for getting out of this ordeal. Like stuffing her thumb in his eye and using those high heels to rake down his shin, then kick him in the groin.”
Ms. Seyfried, 29, trained with Ms. Zeisler off and on for two years, and said her advice also included many hypotheticals. “It’s basic survival, and how we can outsmart the attacker,” Ms. Seyfried said. “It’s not just about learning it, it’s about getting it into your bones and the muscle memory of it. She had me picture the possibilities and imagine myself in these situations. If you have one exit and it’s blocked by the attacker, then what do you do?”
(Answer: Scan the assailant to see if he is armed, then improvise a weapon, like a chair — or shoe. If these aren’t options, defense training enables a woman “to close in and neutralize the threat,” Ms. Zeisler said.)
Vanessa McDaniel, 33, a graphics designer who is traveling around the world, is so enthusiastic about training with Ms. Zeisler, which she has done since November 2012, that she plans to become a Soteria instructor. Ms. McDaniel was attacked when she was younger, and always wondered how she could have gotten away.
“Training with Avi has given me more confidence,” she said. “Walking down the street, I feel like I am better equipped to handle the catcalls or other situations I might encounter, and I have — fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it — had the opportunity to use some of what she’s taught me in real life.”
And Dayna Bloom, 26, a singer and songwriter in New York, said that studying with Ms. Zeisler has given her extra oomph in areas besides self-defense.
Ms. Bloom has learned “how to attack life,” she said. “Even though someone is not attacking me.”
