While most residents in Calgary enjoy a relatively safe city, our world is growing ever more unpredictable. Whether it’s a random attack, harassment, or bullying, individuals in Calgary face a variety of risks and dangers on a daily basis.
For women, in particular, self-defense skills play a crucial role in helping them discover the power within themselves to defend themselves against potential threats and stay safe. Learning self-defense helps empower women by giving them the confidence, awareness, and physical skills needed to protect themselves in any situation. Helping women feel empowered to take charge of their safety is the mission of Kung Fu for Life. Our self-defense classes for women teach both basic and advanced techniques to help protect against physical attackers. Through practice drills, workshops, and group classes, participants learn how to defend themselves in real-world scenarios while building strength, coordination, flexibility, and confidence. But self-protection isn't the only benefit of learning Kung Fu and self-defense! Read on to learn how learning self-defense in a community of women can be beneficial both in and out of the classroom.
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When Can You Legally Defend Yourself?
Unfortunately, it happens all too often: you’re out with some friends, minding your own business, when someone sets out to cause trouble with you. And despite your best efforts of de-escalation, you may not be able to get out of the situation easily. Or maybe you stumble around a corner and interrupt an assault already taking place, and the assailant – or assailants – focus on you instead. Or in an extreme case, you could be in a worst-case scenario: you’ve come home unexpectedly, or woken up in the middle of the night, and someone you don’t know is inside your home, and you’re in their way.
In situations like these, preparation is the key. You have to be able to act decisively and effectively, while ensuring the safety of you and your loved ones. You may be willing to do what it takes to protect them – but just how many options do you have? Do you really know when you can legally defend yourself? (Before going any further, we do have to point out – we are not lawyers, and as with any laws, this information is subject to change! These are guidelines only, and we make no guarantees that what is true today will hold up in the future. If you are in need of detailed help, consult someone who is trained to interpret the most up-to-date laws properly). "How often should I train Kung Fu?"There’s an old saying that says people need about 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. So if you didn’t sleep for nearly 14 months, and trained all day, every day, you could become a kung fu master in that time. Easy enough, right?
Okay, so maybe not that easy. But it does lead to the question: what is the best amount of time to train? Is there a “sweet spot” of dedicated time per week you should aim for? Women in Martial Arts It’s unfortunate, but it’s true: the world isn’t always a friendly place. And even more unfortunately, it’s usually more unfriendly to certain groups in particular. Until everyone gets along well, learning a martial art as self-defense is a good idea for everyone, even though we hope you’ll never have to use it outside of our facilities. It’s an especially good idea for women, and we want every woman out there to know that this a safe place to learn and practice alongside other women on the same journey.
There might be a misconception that if a woman comes to a class here, they will be disrespected or overlooked. That’s just not true – we are all students, and we are all in this together. We’ve never had an issue with this, and we’ll make sure it stays that way, because we want every single person in our classes to feel empowered and capable of mastering the skills they are learning. So why is it important for women to pick up these techniques? Especially if the chance of having to use them is small? Kung Fu For Kids RecreationOne of the biggest shows on Netflix right now is “Cobra Kai” – a Karate Kid spinoff that shines a spotlight at the role of martial arts throughout life, with old rivalries that move into a new generation. A major theme of the show highlights how childhood is one of the most influential periods of our entire lives: it’s where we develop the habits, hobbies, and discipline that we will carry with us through the years. We learn social skills, how to deal with adversity, and how to focus our skills and energy into meaningful outlets – so with all that said, is learning a martial art a good kids’ activity? We think so!
Kung Fu Competition Training vs. Self-defense Training It is important to understand that you don’t have to compete in order to learn self-defense. The origin of our system, shaolin, was never meant for competition. It was designed to create good health, focus of mind and body, and of course learning to defend oneself.
Sometimes what you might think looks barbaric in the fighting ring, is actually civilized when compared to advance self-defense training. Ring fighting contains only a portion of true Kung Fu/ martial arts. |
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