From: CA.FER@forsythe.stanford.edu (Jennifer Gates)
Subject: Re: Model Mugging (long)
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 20:56:50 GMT

>        [snip]
>>
>>Model Mugging is a self defense and empowerment course designed to
>>provide women with a knock-out defense against a single unarmed assailant.
>
>So I asume that it may not be very effective against a single armed
>assailant or multiple assailants.  Rapists are very often armed.
>That's one mark against.

There are intermediate and advanced classes that adress armed and
multiple assailants. The single unarmed assailant is adressed in the
begining class as he accounts for more than 80% of assaults on
women.
>
 snip snip

>This is completely false.  A man's greatest strength also issues from
>the hips.  They just tend to also have greater upper body strength,
>on the average.  It could come as a rather unpleasant surprise to some
>poor girl that tried to use this in a less than proficient way against
>a male that also knew how to play the same game.  It sounds like MM
>training counts on the statistical probability that a man will not know
>how to fight from the hip.  This is valid, but the student should be
>made well aware that this could backfire on them.  Are they made aware
>of this posibility?

Of cource we talk about people who are trained fighters...
snip snip
>>
>>- Model Mugging asks its graduates to report back to them if they are
>>ever attacked. Of the women who have reported back to M.M. of attacks,
>>all those who chose to fight, knocked out their attackers. Some of
>>these women had taken the class up to eight years before they were
>>attacked. You need not have been recently trained to be effective!
>
>Of those who called, how many trained in other fighting arts?
>How many were in truly serious attacks?  What I mean by this
>is that a rapist may not be hell bent on getting what he wants.
>Those half baked atttempts are relatively easy to handle.  If
>a rapist is looking for and expecting something easy, I can see
>them being easily defeated by a very determined and pissed off
>defender, even if she has zero training.  With some training I
>can see the stupid bastard getting what he deserves and more.
>But in the case where a rapist is quite hell bent and physically
>capable of successful implemetation, I see great problems for
>any woman that is not properly equipped to deal with such a
>situation.  Fighting back against such a person when your repertoire
>of techniques is not well honed could get you real dead in a hurry.
>Rapist gets pissed and stops caring whether or not he kills you.
>This gets real dangerous real fast, and in such situations you will
>want to have training that will not fail you.  I am not by any means
>convinced that this can be provided by MM, given the time limitations,
>though it sounds like it could be a good place to start.
>
Wow, well the truth is that it is the women who don't try to defend
themselfs who get killed more often... This is actually a large part
of our cultural myth that encourages women to be good victims...
The idea that if you hurt a man, he will kill you... Rapists are
looking for easy marks, that is the name of the game... Statistics
show that women who make no attempt to defend themself get raped and
hurt much more than those who try even if they are untrained..
Snip snip
>
>If you have anything definitive about some of the questions that I've
>posed here, I would be sincerely interested in hearing them.
>
>        -Andy V.

Well in general it is true for all Martial Artists that they could
always come up against someone bigger, stronger or better trained
then them. But we all have to start somewhere. This is a good place
for women to start. First of all as we have discussed in other
threads traditional MAs do not appeal to very many women. In my
experience many women take up MA after haveing taken MM.... MM
teaches women how to release power, traditional MAs don't do a very
good job of this, so I think that both types of training are useful,
they have been for me....

Fer