You’re stronger than you think.
That’s the message from Guelph’s Wen-Do instructor Leslie Allin, who works to empower women and girls by teaching them how to defend themselves.
Wen-Do is the oldest self-defence organization in Canada taught by women for women. It’s inspired by martial arts, though it’s not a martial arts program and is a less formal practice.
A space solely for women, girls, and anyone who identifies as a woman, it focuses on the practicalities of self-defense, as well as the physical and mental preparation for it.
“All of our techniques are designed to be used against an attacker who is bigger and physically stronger,” since an attacker likely would be, Allin said. “So everything we do is designed with that in mind.”
Allin got her first taste of Wen-Do 10 years ago after finishing her PhD. A course was being offered at the University of Guelph, and she was immediately hooked, becoming a fully certified instructor within two years.
She’s the only Wen-Do instructor in Guelph, and teaches here regularly, throughout the GTA and beyond.
Wen-Do uses leverage-based techniques, targeting the vulnerable body parts of an attacker – “techniques that are effective to break different things on an attacker’s body to just get away.”
Still, all the movements are supposed to be practical and easy to remember.
“If I’m going to do a block, I’m going to sweep my arm across my upper body, using my ulna (a forearm bone spanning from the elbow to the wrist) to block, because it’s the sharpest, hardest bone in the forearm. I’m going to keep my elbow at 90 degrees to make sure I can keep that attacker’s arm away from me,” she said. A move like this would essentially take the force of the attacker and redirect it back at them.
Another move is the hammer fist, where you make a fist, wrapping your thumb around your fingers and squeeze. You come up in a circular motion and smash down through a vulnerable part of the body on an attacker using the fleshy pad of the fist.
“We’re just using our body in a way that generates a lot of motion,” she said. “I want us to know we’ve got the strength to break an attacker's nose, and I want us to feel entitled to defend ourselves.”
For example, an attacker came after a six-year-old child who was trailing a few steps behind her mom. He grabbed her by the shoulder and started pulling her away, when the child picked up her foot and slammed it down onto the top of his.
“She broke his foot,” Allin said. “She screamed, he let go, she ran back to her mom (who) called the police.”
They caught him later that day because he couldn’t get far with a broken foot.
“We’re so much stronger than we’re asked to believe,” she said. “So we say to women and girls in the class, if a six-year-old girl can do that, how about you?”
Avoidance is another good strategy, and an often successful one. It teaches women and girls to trust their instincts, rather than minimizing their experience thinking they’re overreacting or being overly sensitive.
“The sooner we trust our guts… the more likely we are to give ourselves permission to start avoiding or engaging… and then we’re less likely to have to use any kind of physical techniques. Although we for sure spend a ton of time covering what are some really effective techniques we can use.”
On the side of mental preparation, Allin said it has a lot to do with personal boundaries, recognizing when someone is crossing them, challenging victim-blaming myths and becoming empowered all around.
There are a lot of narratives embedded in the way women and girls are socialized, she said, especially when it comes to what we are capable of.
“Women and girls are asked not to make a fuss. Don’t be loud. Don’t take up too much space. Don’t call attention to ourselves,” she said. “This is not a coincidence. We are statistically not as safe.”
She said it’s important for women and girls to “give ourselves permission to yell, because it stops us from freezing.”
“We absolutely have a right to make a scene,” she said. It's one of the first things they cover in the program.
For instance, she remembers one student who woke up in the middle of the night to what sounded like a rat. With her still husband fast asleep, she followed the sound into the hallway, where she found a man with a bag of her belongings fiddling with the door to her child’s room.
Filled with a sudden rage, the woman shouted at him to get out of her house and that she was calling the police, and he dropped the bag and ran.
“She was so happy that she practiced (shouting) because it was at her fingertips,” she said.
Allin’s next two-day public course in Guelph is scheduled for Nov. 16 and Nov. 26 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Participants will learn both verbal and physical self-defence techniques including practical strikes, blocks and releases, effective responses to harassment and threatening situations outdoors, on public transit, in private vehicles, at home, work or school, as well as strategies for dealing with attackers with weapons, ground and bed attacks and gang and swarming situations.
The 15-hour course will also cover awareness and avoidance of threatening situations and discussions around the psychological, social and legal issues involved in self-defence through a feminist and anti-oppression lens.
These courses are open to cis and trans women and girls age 10 and up of all abilities.
