This phrase is only three words long, but it means a lot to your strategic thinking about street fighting.  What have women been taught by their mother and father when they were little girls? They were taught to use their mind to outsmart her attacker. It is a good start, but it limits even the possibility of the girl using her body and fighting spirit to protect herself fully. She has physical, mental, and spiritual   capabilities that can be trained to have the same knock down power as any man. Girls though, are not even thought of as candidates for this kind of training, by the girl or her parents.  If girls only needed to have a strong mind to get her out of some danger that would be one thing, but they have an abundance of self-defense techniques they can also use. The very idea that girls and women are somehow lacking when it comes to using their bodies, as weapons is just patriarchal training at its worst. If women and girls were to read and learn about the lives of women warriors they would learn that women have been soldiers and warrior Queens for centuries. Back then; it was normal to see women warriors all over the battlefield.

What is no surprise to me though, is that so few girls and women know today of the details of what women as warriors have accomplished.  Where in our culture are girls encouraged and guided to learn simple self-defense and martial arts?  Where are girls taught about their own history beyond being mothers or homemakers? Where do teachers/instructors about that subject then, test them?  Who and where do they get held responsible for passing that information on to other girls? What curriculum reveals to them that they are direct descendants of women who have routinely been warriors for centuries? Where are girls taught that they are growing up in a world that is hostile to their development as contributors to ruling the earth? Where in our society are girls celebrated when they get awarded their Black Belts in a martial art? Where does our culture provide a setting for girls to read and discuss the long history of women as warriors? Where is that special place where thousands of girls pick up, read, study, review and are tested on the contents of that course’s book?

Because of all this, it occurred to me that girls should be introduced into “no negotiation training” as young girls and have that training become the “new normal” for girls. Imagine girls growing up in a world that made it clear to boys or men who try to abuse them that they were met with powerful physical force from a young girl who knows that no one touches her body unless she says it is ok. Imagine a girl who spends her off time being a volunteer self-defense and martial arts teacher of other girls, so that they can learn self-defense and martial arts from a girl just a little bit older than they are. What would that do to a girl’s life that starts learning self-defense when she is 6 years old and continues with that self-defense training for years and years? What if she graduated from high school with 12 years of instruction and teaching under her belt? What would 12 years of training in self-defense mean to her? What if she decided to double up on the training and studied 12 years of Tae Kwon Do/ Kung Fu/Jiu-Jitsu training along with the self-defense training? What kind of woman would she grow up to be? Could anyone stop her from training during those twelve years?  Well, since she is never ever going to tell anyone except other women or girls about her training, who would stop her? It gives a different meaning to girl power doesn’t it?

No negotiating training means to me, why negotiate or even think about negotiation when you don’t have to?  You only negotiate when you want something that you can’t have or take outright. That is particularly true if it is a man who has no clue about a girl’s long years of training in the martial arts.  Consider that if the man is thinking and planning on having sex with the girl/woman and not thinking about protecting him self? Of course what if she is thinking about pounding him into a puddle of goo before he can put his hands on her? Can you see the possibilities here? So the short and sweet is: why would you negotiate when you can take what you want?  That’s just how a man thinks who is coming for you.

And here are my last words on “no negotiation training”. Women, of course, deserve respect and love. Women deserve to be treasured and safe wherever they walk, fly or sail over this earth. Although my words go out over the Internet, I am always with you, cheering you on to be safe, resilient, brave, talkative, demanding and strong. Until my last breath here on earth I am going to be pushing one agenda only, and that is women must be their own protectors, and that, the notion that laws have been enacted to prohibit and punish men for raping women is proof positive that the patriarchy is alive and strong and is as patronizing as it has always been towards the feminine for hundreds of years. But it most certainly has not always been that way. Women at one time were treated and thought of as being as strong and fearsome as men’s equals. In the earth’s history back then, there were no wars. During that time, frame women were equals to men and there was balance and peace the world over. It may take a few generations for this toxic masculinity to die down and have no power, but if you wonder what I am doing with these videos and why I do it, re-read this last paragraph a few times, and it will sink in that what I am doing teaching women and girls how to be street fighters is deeper and more long lasting that what shows up on the surface.

No negotiating training is made for women and girls.