Women took turns attacking padded police officers as they learned self-defense techniques over the weekend in the University Health Center’s Rape Aggression Defense Systems course.
The course enhances females’ natural instincts of fighting free by using their body to escape, said Sierra Fowler, health promotion coordinator.
R.A.D. arrived on campus about 18 years ago to help keep female faculty, staff and students as safe as possible, said Kathy Saichuk, health promotion coordinator. Rape is the most underreported crime and any woman is a target, Saichuk said.
R.A.D. is a 12-hour class that teaches basic techniques, such as fighting back and preventing attacks, over a three-day period. The first one or two hours focuses on topics such as the importance of defense and the advantages and disadvantages of pepper spray.
The following 10 hours are hands-on defense techniques against R.A.D.-certified University police officers, who wear pads and act as the attackers. The officers go through two days of additional training, on top of the mandatory 36-hour class to be an instructor, to learn how to protect themselves and safely attack, Fowler said.
Anthropology sophomore Belle Cost said the simulated attacks were terrifying.
“You don’t know what [the attackers] are going to do next,” Cost said. “It feels very good to beat up someone who is trying to hurt you.”
Cost said she joined the class so she wouldn’t feel afraid at night by herself and to feel more empowered as a female.
The simulated attacks consist of one, two or three padded attackers grabbing the student who is also partially padded. The student then uses what she has learned to attack back and retreat out of the area while officer Jeffrey Lemoine is on the side yelling advice like “Use your voice!”
The officer has a whistle and if used, everybody immediately stops until he gives permission to continue the simulated attack. In one simulation, the students were told to keep their eyes closed while they were being taunted until they are touched, then they are allowed to open their eyes and counterattack.
The objective is to “develop and enhance the options of self-defense, so they may become viable considerations to the woman who is attacked,” according to R.A.D. founder Larry Nadeau.
Upon completion of the course, the women have the option of attending multiple advanced self-defense courses, including weapon defense or defense against multiple attackers.
Only a few situations have occurred where R.A.D. students needed to use their skills, Saichuk said. One man ended up with a broken nose and never got the purse he was trying to steal. Another time, a group of women noticed they were being followed and were able to leave and get to a safe area before anything occurred.
Although there is no way to measure whether rape has decreased since the availability of the course, many students inform instructors later that they made different decisions since being educated on the dangers of being in certain situations, Saichuk said.
A woman is flipped over by an instructor at Rape Aggression Defense Class, a self-defense course for women, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014 at the Nelson Memorial Building.
