With recent assaults on female residents, University students can benefit now more than ever from the Rape Aggression Defense Systems courses offered by the LSU Police Department and the LSU Student Health Center.
Female University students learned to strike fear into predators in the introductory physical defense class offered Sept. 23 through 25, as well as the advanced class offered Nov. 19. Both took place at the Nelson Memorial building.
The basic physical defense class taught women strategic danger avoidance methods and physical defense techniques and also offered a series of simulated attack scenarios. The course, taught strictly by RAD certified instructors, offered a lifetime return and practice policy; anyone who attends a class can return to another for free, no matter where the course is held.
This 12-hour class was broken down over three days, each offering different lessons, LSU Health Promotions Coordinator and RAD instructor Kathy Saichuk told The Daily Reveille on Sept 25. This basic level class featured lecturing on the first day, defensive tactics and training the second day and simulated assault scenarios on the last.
The four-hour advanced class built on techniques of the basic physical defense class. While the basic class included training and then simulated attack scenarios, the advanced class offered complex physical techniques that built on methods taught in the basic class.
“This took some of the things we learned in the elementary course and put them together to make either more powerful moves or faster moves,” said math graduate student Kimberly D’souza.
Advanced classes focus on more specific aspects of concentrated content like weapon defense or defense on the ground. Because the class was centered on detail, participants learned finesse and become better at techniques requiring more practice, Saichuk said.
The national RAD organization specifies what can be taught in these advanced classes, she said. Techniques taught in advanced classes can be more debilitating to an attacker.
“Some of the techniques in the advanced class, if done properly, can cause serious bodily harm,” Saichuk said on Nov. 17. “It doesn’t take a lot of force to damage the spinal cord if the technique is done