November 15, 2023 • 48 mins
39-year-old, Polish Jiujitsu Coach, Personal Trainer, & Self-defense Instructor, Joanna Ziobronowicz, was once a “Bouncer” in the UK. She’s currently writing a book titled, She Fights Back – (Using Psychology of Self-defense to Reclaim Your Power), scheduled to be released in July 2024. Joanna gives us an exclusive sneak-peek into her upcoming book, and also discusses the new series of courses and certification programs she’ll be launching in London and Hong Kong for women’s self-defense.
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Outdoors People Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
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(00:00):
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(00:21):
FOURCY Radio. Welcome to outdoors peoplewith me cw Getz and her Maya mar
Zaki. Good evening. It's Wednesday, November fifteenth, twenty twenty three.
(00:53):
We have a really very comfortable surprisinglybecause sixties are usually in Chili, but
this is very comfortable day today.Sixty four degrees fahrenheit, Sonny and that,
and you know what, we actuallywent for bike ride today. It
was just amazing, what a beautifulday. Just a little breeze that equates
to eighteen degrees celsius for the restof the world. I gotta tell you
(01:15):
just I mean, it was justa nice little breeze. And I can
tell you I think that is probablythe nicest day we're probably going to have
till the rest of the year,well, actually till next year, because
I don't see this. I don'tsee this beautiful weather continuing much past maybe
this weekend, so maybe down inthe fifties this weekend. Well, hey,
Wan, what do you got there? In? While I'm on the
(01:36):
subject, Maya, they had akind of a bad storm roll into Brazil,
at least where she's at an AmericanaBrazil knocked out the power and she
said, to see Douby, I'mnot going to be on the show that
I said, I can't do it. I said, totally understand. It's
all good. I'll fly solo.But Maya, when you see the show
later hopefully, I know it's notnearly what it would be with you,
(01:57):
but we're going to hang it here. So in her place, Wan,
what do you got in? Uh, let's see West Palm Beach, Florida.
There, what do you got forweather? Down here? We are
at seventy one degrees fahrenheit and it'sraining so cold and rainy. You know,
you're you're not that much warmer thanwe are. That's surprising. I
figured you'd be probably up in theeighties or my you know, we were
(02:21):
a couple of days ago, butit's been raining, just last three days.
It's just been raining out stop.It definitely makes a difference. So,
well, you know, some ofyour days are at least you're not
down Remia's. I think MIAs,there was like ninety some degrees down there.
It's just really really hot. They'relooking for a hot, hot summer
and there, you know, andtheir neck of the world, so to
(02:45):
speak. So yeah, Well,tonight's episode of outdoors People is brought to
you by Rudebaga paddle Sports providing timeon the water, campground views making camping
easier, by the luth Pack madein the USA since eighteen eighty two,
and by Jackson Kayak pursuing joy throughpaddle Sports. Tonight's episode is she Fights
(03:06):
Back with my guest. Joanna Zabronovichthirty nine year old police jiu jitsu coach,
personal trainer, self defense instructor,and yoga instructor. Joanna Zabronovich was
also a bouncer while studying in London. Then in twenty seventeen, after working
in the corporate world for five years, she made the decision to pursue her
(03:27):
dream of a career in martial arts. Joanna has held the titles of Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu World Champion, European Championand Grand Slam Champion from twenty seventeen to
twenty eighteen. She holds a BAin Tourism and an MA in Phonetics from
University College London. At the moment, Joanne is a Brazilian jiu Jitsu head
(03:47):
instructor at carpadm jim in Hong Kong. She's also the author of a women's
self defense book titled She Fights BackUsing Psychology Self Defense to Reclaim Your Power,
which is scheduled to be released inJuly of twenty twenty four. Joanna
will soon be launching a new seriesof courses and certification programs for women's self
(04:11):
defense based in London and Hong Kong. Or the nose or the chin,
So you're aiming aiming for this chinelevation on them boom, All right,
So let's start at Hope. Well, hi guys, I'm Joanna from Elevate
Martial Arts and Strength to the Walland we're going to take great sprints gus
(04:34):
to personal testial way. Next there, control your for self space. Okay,
so are you ready? I wantto hear it. Let's go on
a great Ready, sady, gohow that golf? And today we're doing
a self defense class for women toteach them they weren't as tactics the esculation
(04:55):
and basic block and the reason whyI want to move for around her and
self defense. We never go squarebecause when you're fixated on the square,
you don't see what's happening around andyou don't recognize where's an exit room.
You're gonna start wrestling all I cansee it all right. It's absolutely crucial
for every woman to know how todefend herself and also just to be aware
(05:17):
of the surroundings of potential strength andwhat can be done in danger situations.
You're just gonna block from insects oneso like it's so clows this way,
that's it here, and then theother side is gonna be that's it.
At the same time as I've blocked, I'm gonna use office the right hand
clock, so the phm's gonna goafterward to start really slow to get your
(05:38):
slow motion want too, nice oneright in the door. We're running every
Sunday at ten o'clock. It's aone hour class and everyone is awesome.
We call it bare hunt. Soeither holding from the side, from the
back okay to take me away,or even if you're thinking about close distance,
going for things like the chokes.Great opportunity for any teamal to come
(06:01):
with our teenager and adults. SoI put the pressure on it. Now
I have to strike one two,making sure you know I'm gonna call to
the floor, right yeah, seeus next week for more wake up with
(06:26):
that. Welcome to the show,Joanna, thank you so much for having
me. Well, that video wasamazing. Thanks for this nice introduction.
Go ahead, they have you heardthat? You know what? That was
an awesome video and I when Ifirst saw that, go yes, that's
just right on target. Man,that's uh, that was phenomenal. Who
put that together for you? Bythe way, I was actually a colleague
(06:49):
of mine working off that same Jimin London that put that together. So
they have a video production company,and so they actually specialize in martial arts,
so they video a lot of martialarts. Let's give them a plug
and what's their name? Fight SportsProduction? There you go? There you
go, absolutely yeah, and nicereally nice, nice video. So first
(07:12):
I'm going to start this off,I'm going to ask you here, was
there something that happened in your lifethat motivated you to begin focusing on self
defense for women. Oh, thatis an interesting question because I actually was
never interested in solved defense per se, but I was always fascinated by martial
arts. So there were a fewsituations, a few things that happened in
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my life that led me to thedecision to focus a little bit more on
self defense. So I have togive you a bit of a background story
to explain that. Yeah, soI started martial arts quite early on as
a teenager and just pursued different martialarts. Actually patriated to a different country
at one point to pursue my martialarts career, and I went to London
(07:58):
to train with a grace used tolearn jiu jitsu, And at one point
I decided to go back to UNI. And when I decided to go back
to NUNI, I obviously had topay my student fees and decided to take
on a job that required nighttime workand weekend jobs. So there weren't that
many solutions that you can imagine towork in a nighttime, so we usually
(08:22):
would be something between bartending and maybedoing security work. So since I already
had some friends in the security sector, I just jump on the opportunity to
become a female security personnel and startedworking as a bouncer. Essentially interrupt you
there and ask you this when you'rewhen you go for a bouncer job,
(08:43):
I mean you have to audition forthis and like meet the hell out of
someone or what does that work?Yeah, So the notion of a female
bouncer isn't necessarily to tackle guys,but I think the premise of having a
female bouncer a on side is solelyto deal with other female in the club.
So you can imagine regular nightclub isfifty to fifty ratio between males and
(09:05):
females on average, maybe more manbulous. So the idea behind it is that
when a female customer has to betaken out of the venue, it's usually
the female security that should be dealingwith that person. Whether there's someone passing
out in the bathroom, for example, which is quite common, it's a
little bit better, you know,less aggressive to have a female female security
(09:28):
to deal with that situation, toenter female bathroom, et cetera. So
for that reason alone, it becamelike common practice for bigger night clubs to
employ female female security. Okay,interesting, yeah, so yeah, it
makes sense. So when I startedworking in security, as you can imagine,
(09:50):
there's also a sort of different clubsin London, and some of them
a little bit more dodgyo it'd site. It's a very British word, by
the way, meaning a little biton darker side of the spectrum, and
some of them obviously a little bitmore high street you could say, membership
type of clubs. So I've donesecurity work in all Thegether all the different
(10:11):
clubs you can possibly imagine, comingfrom more sort of like the underground clubs
so where things were not really thatsafe all the way to like Plash membership
club. So I've seen quite alot, and obviously starting off as a
female security dealing with females. Lateron I was really keen intented to test
(10:31):
my martial arts skills. So Iwas thinking, if there is, you
know, any conflict or disruption inthe club, I wanted to take part.
I want to see if I canhelp out to deal with situations.
And some of the times I didn'thave a choice. Some of the times
when a fight would kick off andthere was no one else on side,
or I happened to be right inthe middle of it. Obviously I'm the
(10:52):
one that has to immediately take action. So in those moments, I kind
of realized, Wow, it's sodifferent from the martial arts environment, where
you have you know, set ofrules, you have a coach on side.
Even when you go into fighting world, you usually have a referee there,
and obviously their rules will not allowfor anyone to pull your hair,
(11:15):
poke you in the eye, scratchyou with the nails, which is not
the case in the nightclub. That'snot the window. Yeah, anything goes
right, everything it's outside of thewindow. And the most important is the
element of surprise because you actually don'tknow when it's going to happen, like
how when, who's going to dowhat, and you're not even sure of
the intentions of what the people aredoing. A lot of times I find
(11:39):
myself in the middle of a situationwhere I had no clue what was going
on. So a lot of timesI was wondering, who's the attacker,
what are they actually doing, whoare they even attacking? Because the situation
is very disruptive when you have alot of individuals gather in a group,
sometimes the time just goes so fastand you actually not sure you know who
(12:01):
to tackle first, to address,or maybe there's multiple people that are being
the perpetation. So usually what happenswhen when there's a fidy night to have
seen in videos or experience it andplaying sights, a lot of the times
out of people get involved, andonce other people get involved, it gets
really disruptive and so you lose theplot. Who actually is uh the perpetrator.
(12:30):
We have a term for that inthe United States. We call it
cluster And I can't finish that word, but I think everyone knows what I'm
talking about. Yeah, cluster blank, Yeah, it's yeah, kind of
ugly. You can you can putthe beef in it. It's live.
So in those situations, it actuallymade you realize that martial arts and themselves
(12:52):
are of course amazing to teach certaintechniques, and you know, to teach
you a lot of the basic stuffthat you will be able to employ,
it doesn't really prepare you for theunexpected. So with that in mind,
I was thinking of ways how canI introduce a system of self defense to
(13:13):
vulnmeble members of public, like myselfto people who are not necessarily equipped with
that type of strength, people whoare smaller, a little bit more fragile
and weaker, and how they canemploy strategies to actually be a little bit
more prepared for such situations. Butalso you know how to train them and
(13:35):
give them the tools, realistic toolswith which they will be able to go
out on the street and feel alittle bit safer. Sure, and a
lot of self defense systems, don'tget me wrong, I don't want to
trash talk about any particular self defense, but a lot of them don't really
address the problem of the escalation orhow a situation even is starting. The
(13:56):
only address the physical aspect, whichis, okay, I'm going to block,
I'm going to do dispensing move.But actually they don't teach you how
to you know, in the firstinstance, how to how to react,
how to use your voice, howto use your distance control, and things
like that. So when I startedstudying going a little bit deeper into the
research as a researcher myself. Youknow, I love research, so I
(14:20):
love using statistical data to figure outwhat are the common threads, how do
they happen, who are the perpetratorswho are the victims? You know,
which space do these instances occur mostlikely? And what are the tools that
I can give to people to helpthem understand how they can prevent threads in
the first place. My first kindof my first thought about self defense was
(14:41):
not per se physical but actually prevention. And so I started putting some courses
together. And at the beginning,people are not too interested in the psychology
aspect of self defense. They justreally purely wanted to, you know,
learn defance moves, because right,I want to learn how to fight man.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, prettymuch, pretty much. And again,
(15:05):
self defense can be a very cool, fun and engaging activity for a
group for example, and that aspectis also very very extremely important. But
equally, I, as an individualwho was trained martial arts and work in
security, I don't want to givepeople the fake idea that okay, you
know what you've done a coss nowyou'll be able to defend yourself, because
(15:28):
that's absolutely not the case. Soas time went by and I would deliver
self defense workshops to corpus, togroups, I started realizing that what I
was actually selling was purely the physicalproduct, but actually not the psychology behind
it, and so probably a fewyears ago I think I started adding on
(15:52):
the psychological component to my workshops andI founded this this orgain based off in
the UK, and this organization startedproviding courses for all sorts of groups,
individuals, but also corporate companies,charities, et cetera. And I'm starting
(16:14):
to focus more and more on prevention. So this really helps me to hone
in the wider spect around the selfdefense right right right now, when you
say, when you say prevention,we're talking about I'm going to try to
how do I say, not alleviate, but but I'm going to try to
(16:37):
not engage in physical the physical aspectof this thing self defense. We're going
to try to like disarm this thingor disengage am i am I correct in
that assumption with the psychology or psychologicallimit. Yeah, So there are two
aspects of physical and psychology and psychologicalaspects of self defense. And I do
(16:59):
like to distinguish between the two becauseI think it's important for people to realize
that, hey, yes, Ican teach you how to practice and how
to perform the moves, but alsoI want to make them aware what is
happening before that. So Okay,go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
(17:21):
You had another question behind it,or I guess I kind of I'm
thinking, can you give us justa little bit of an example of what
maybe the psychological part of it mightentail, Like, give me just paint
us a little small and quick,little situation of going, here's what's happening,
and here's where aspect comes in canplay a big role. Yeah,
(17:41):
where a lot of the times,and again I'm gonna talk about statistics.
A lot of the times when youwhen you talk about violent attacks or violent
behavior, it's usually something that thatcan be prevented. And we know that
from again from from studies conducted atuniversities, for example, where students are
usually you know, the most vulnerablegroup to fall into that spectrum, and
(18:06):
we know that a lot of themhave to do with coergion, manipulation,
and fear pressure. So just knowingthat and knowing that we can educate the
younger generation how to react to thesebehaviors can could potentially eradicate some of the
instances of sexual harassment or violence.Okay, interesting, So this is where
(18:30):
I'm starting the discussion actually about selfdefense among young adults and students and This
is I think the group that wereally need to address first, and we
need to focus on that. Andmy job as an educator is actually go
to universities and schools and to teachand give lectures on that topic, because
(18:52):
not only this group is the mostvulnerable one, this is the group that
probably will go into their adult lifewith the tools, without the tools that
they need to prevent such behaviors.So we know about over fifty percent of
violent behavior against women happens in educationalinstitutions, which includes colleges and high schools,
(19:14):
So on campus, a lot ofthese situations happen, like I mentioned,
due to peer pressure. So ifwe were to start educating the younger
generation either using some form of courseworkor programs that will aim at prevention,
Actually there is one in Canada atthe moment that's doing that, and they're
mixing physical self defense training with lecturesand prevention. They talk about constant they
(19:41):
talk about many full tactics and thingslike that to prevent that. It also
focusing on helping helping adults to understandtheir rights, their legal rights, and
they have proven track record of actuallyimproving instances of harassment and violence against women.
Over fifty percent from our member Sothat was a huge, huge,
(20:03):
yeah, huge change of narrative there. So we know that these that these
methods work, but they do needto be combined with some sort of psychological
aspects as well. Absolutely, Juanna, why jiu jitsu? What what's significant
about that? Why did you choosethat that is a topic you talk for
(20:25):
about for a week? Yeah,yeah, sure, sure. There are
many many different reasons for it,but I think the most important for me
was the fact that it was whatwas the most fascinating for sure. And
I think it's endless form of practicewhere you there's no borderline or where it
finishes. It's uh, it's endless. If you can imagine like a set
(20:49):
of rules or a set of technicaldetails you can cover, it's it just
never ends. So after about twentyyears of practice, I'm still learning things
on a daily basis, and Ithink that just stimulates my brain so much.
I like it because it feels likea game of chess, but a
fast paced game of chess. Sochess for me is a little bit boring
(21:10):
because it's very slow. Jiu Jitsuis a human chess. What this is
what it's referred to at least it'svery dynamic, but also that you have
to strategize to quite a lot.So your technique or the style you apply
will very depending on on the personyou're training with, but it will also
depend on your own individual preferences andstrengths that you that you possess. So
(21:34):
it's a sport which is extremely fascinating, and it's also a great form of
play. And I usually people don'tknow what jujitsu is. I usually tell
them it's a form of wrestling,because it's probably one of the most I
guess people connect wrestling to like someform of grappling and tuckling each other to
the ground, not necessarily like jiujitsu. They don't really know what it is,
(21:56):
so I just refer to it asa form of wrestling. And if
you think about that, it's theoldest, probably recreational form of combat fabardly
about, dating from twenty thousand yearsago. People already involved in some form
of wrestling. If you watch animalsin the animal Kingdom, watch cats or
(22:18):
even grizzly birds for that matter,they wrestle naturally, their natural wrestlers.
They do it as a form ofplay and also to hone their hunting skills,
and I think for humans it couldbe very similar in a way that
you treat it as a form ofplay and fun, fun experience, fun
activity where you involve yourself physically,but also you know it prepares you for
an expected to prepares you for somekind of physical conflicts as well. So
(22:41):
it had there was that interplay betweenhaving fun but also learning survival skills.
Interesting. Well, that's that's amazing. I love that. Well, listen,
we're gonna take a short break.We'll be back with more. Jovanna
Johanna Zabronovitch right for these messages.A few years ago, someone asked Rudebega's
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All right, We're back with JohannaSaronovitch here on outdoors People. Joanna,
I got a question for you,what is the scariest situation you've ever
found yourself in? There are many, I guess in my other life,
I guess there was maybe one instancethat I remember specifically that made me question
(25:49):
what I was doing totally, andit was when I, yeah, I
was still in the security second atone point, my colleague of mind came
rushing in with a bullet for bestingme. Put this on. We have
a local oncoming, and I waslike, wow, Okay, that's that's
a new thing to me, LikeI've never done it. I never experienced
that. That was that was quitescary. But I think like in my
(26:14):
adult years, I think it becameless and less scared of situations, especially
like physical contact. I think it'smostly when I was remember a teenager or
a kid that probably more so likea kid, that I was fearful of
things and and I think one ofthe reasons was that I wasn't trained enough
or I wasn't taught enough how toact, how to behave, and even
(26:37):
how to assert myself. So thatwas like a known environment wherever I was
going, and I also felt fearfula lot of the times. But as
time went by and I started trainingmartial arts and studying, that changed the
perspective I wasn't. I guess Iwas becoming a little bit more empowered and
believing in my skills that whatever happened, you know, I wasn't really scared
(27:02):
so much of physical contact. Ifsomeone's punching the street, I wasn't scared
of that that much as I wasscared of just behaviors that were manipulative or
behaviors that were coming from strangers.So these were like the type of things
that would be scared of more sothan the physical parts. So that's that's
kind of interesting, probably because it'snot pretty pretty common. I think it's
(27:26):
not typical. Yeah, yeah,exactly. You know, we're just talking
about this. You know, ofcourse, when you're you know, being
attacked, are there any patterns thatcan develop as a result of being attacked?
So definitely, especially for women.That my topic of self defense focus
(27:48):
is largely in women, so I'llbe talking to that most of the time.
So the usual patterns that develop aresome form of trauma. So traumatic
experiences actually kind of have an everimpact on a human psyche and that involves
a serious of mental health conditions suchas post traumatic stress, anxiety, and
depression. And it actually has beenshown in studies that women are the group
(28:12):
that it affected the most. Aboutseventy percent of women have been experiencing experience
balance or sexual harassment in the pastactually developed ATSD. Over a third I
believe, started self harming and ortrying over a third try to commit suicide,
(28:32):
and about twenty two percent engage inself harm. So that that's statistic.
Is it's massive, and when youwhen you look at it from that
perspective alone, it gives you theidea of the impact that it carries with
it. So I think we asa society educators are really responsible for,
you know, collaborative efforts to tryand educate people how to eradicate it.
(28:56):
Yeah, that's that's something you knowreal quickly. Here. I also heard
that being attacked can affect you insuch a way that you actually freeze.
Is that true? Oh? Absolutely, That's another aspect of self defense that
(29:17):
I mentioned in the course and inmy book. There is something unexpected that
happens, and even martial arts trainingdoesn't always prepare you for those situations,
and this is when the fight andflight happens, usually a fight or flight.
Scientists actually referred to this as hyperarousal, and it's a moment of
unexpected you know, anguish and releaseof hormonths. It's a little like a
(29:40):
tiny piece in our brain called amygdala, and when amygdellah triggers the fight or
flight response, it's it actually affectsthe body in such a way that on
one, on the one hand,it prepares us for combat because the blood
comes faster, the heart meats faster, like you more physically prepared. But
what can also happen in that hyperarousal state is that your body goes into
(30:03):
a state of freeze. You're ableto speak, You're able to talk,
and this is very common amongst women, and I would say young adults as
well can be a state of psychologicalfreeze. But there's also the state of
physical freees so you can't where youcan't even fight back. There's like it
just you freeze right physically, right, that's it. So what happens in
(30:26):
the body is actually that when yourheart rate hits a certain beats permitted rate,
you find yourself in a state where, yeah, like you said,
like, it's a bit like youfeel frozen. And what happens with your
modern skills in that moment is thatthey're very impaired, meaning that your body
(30:48):
is only able to execute movements thatare very simple in nature. These involve
grand motels, what we referred toas grand motor skills. Well, where
find modern skills such as I alwaysimagine like playing piano, things like that
are largely impaired. And this isone of the reasons why I never teach
any intricate techniques for self defense,because simply they don't work in this state
(31:10):
of hyper alareness. Oh so,if you teach someone how to manipulate the
risk joint and make a serious offensein moves, your brain won't be able
to actually execute these moods high stresslevel situation. And for example, if
you see people going into a fight, perhaps like skilled people, you may
(31:33):
may have noticed that they performed differentlyunder pressure, that their technical skill set
is diminishing with the psychological pressure thatthey're going experiencing. Oh wow, and
that's actually an example of that hyperawareness at place. Oh wow, that's
you know, that's some amazing stuff. And you don't and I mean,
(31:55):
at least I didn't. I,you know, would never think about that.
It needs to be a boxer.But I know your skill, your
technique sort of diminishes with the moretired you get. But I can,
I can certainly understand the psychological aspecttoo, of what you're talking about.
Well, listen, we're gonna wegot some photos did to look at Joanna
and when we come back, Sowe're gonna take a short break and we'll
(32:17):
be back with more of Joanna onoutdoors. People here. Right after these
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Jackson Kayak. All right, We'reback with Joanna Sobonovitch here on outdoors.
(34:55):
People want let's put some photos upthere, and let's have Joanna t tell
us a little bit about each one. All we're looking at there, we
go impressive photos. By the way, I must say thank you. This
is the one from World Championships inLas Vegas. We're two gold from a
few years ago. That's one ofthe happiest moments in my life. You
look bad ass there, Joe,And I got to tell you, man,
(35:16):
you just look at it. Idon't know what to say. Wow,
I certainly wouldn't want to piss youoff, and you know I can.
Oh that's yeah, you look tough, definitely focused. Yeah, you
do look focused. That's a goodthat's a great word, because you do.
You look very focused. No wonderyou were champion. Yeah, yeah,
(35:38):
we enter a stayed off at trancewhen we go into fighting arena usually
uh here, like it's a momentof triumph obviously, so this is when
the adrenaline is going to wear offslowly. But uh there's just a moment
of your fourio over there because youjust realized you're a champion of the world.
And yeah, that's that's big.This is the beast few seconds of
(36:00):
my life. Yeah, I meanI can only imagine, you know,
this is what in coming from theboxing world. I mean can imagine with
like, you know, people likeAli and Tyson are just thinking I'm the
baddest in the world. And youknow that's just interesting too, because martial
arts you're pretty much tougher than anybodyin my opinion, I mean, you've
(36:23):
got stuff, you know. Yeah, I think there's definitely an edge to
it where you go through physical andpsychological pain on a daily basis. So
there's a lot of grinding in therein the sport, and a lot of
preparation, a lot of sweat andblog goes into it. I think that
moment of triumph actually comes from theexperience of having endured so many hard or
(36:47):
physical training sessions, and it's kindof like a culminational that are hard work.
So it's extremely rewarding in that sense. Very cool, very cool.
This is a photo of one ofmy workshops actually, so teaching self defense
and teaching people how to employ aleg guard. So as a boxer,
(37:09):
you probably know that your hands actas the guard, but we also can
use legs are a form of theguard where we not only word off an
attacker, but we also use offenses. You can see here I use a
footpost to strike the chin area orto strike the face if you will.
With the hill just going to askyou that you're that's an offensive move.
(37:31):
Then you're just giving them like anuppercut basically, right, That's that's pretty
much it. Yeah, coming rightfrom the ground, so it is you
can knock people out man right therewith that that again, definitely can.
So in that sense, you seelike the person on the ground isn't isn't
necessarily someone who has to be onlysolely on a defense, but can be
(37:54):
definitely on the offense at the sametime. Yeah, and there's no gloves
on that floot like there are boxers. Oh no, you're basically bone to
bone right there. That's it.Better than bare knuckle fighting. Oh my
god, Yeah, that would hurt. And this is the group of the
(38:16):
ladies. I believe it's one ofthe first workshops are delivered in Richmond,
where I was based for a fewyears. Just a nice group of ladies
attending new workshop. Wow. Thatpretty big group there. Yeah, the
works does the workshops usually I canfor twenty people, Max and I don't
usually think bigger, bigger groups becausethe engagement is great for larger groups,
(38:38):
but then obviously we need to makesure we can instruct each individual correctly.
So that's probably the biggest group you'dever get in a workshop. You're just
going to ask you how many peoplethat max that you have in a group?
Yea twenty twenty twenty is a isa good number. And here again
(38:59):
we're having a as a discussion.So like I mentioned before, there's a
lot of talk and also sharing experiences. It's extremely empowering. You can see
this as a female group. It'svery empowering for women to talk about their
stories, individual experiences, what theyhave been through, how they prevented conflicts,
(39:21):
or how they'll tackled situations. Andsome of these stories you're here are
horrifying. It's whether to do withthemselves, or their friends or the family
members. And so that sharing experiencehas a lot of value as well because
we discuss scenarios, how we canbetter prepare for situations and also gives you
an idea of how these situations happento And this is your closest community.
(39:45):
Is the closest community you will getbecause all these ladies are local, so
you will know what's going on inthe neighborhood. So that's actually very valuable
knowledge. We'd get there right onside. So rather than just reading statistical
data, you can act hear storiesfrom people, which for me personally is
probably one of the most valuable tools. Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect
(40:06):
sense. And here again is justan explanation of a form of control from
the ground and how you can defendusing the legs using a frame like you
can see there's a leg frame infront, how to again the turn attack,
but also later on how to takethe person to the ground or strike.
(40:31):
For those of you who are justlistening and not watching, I got
to tell you this picture is Joanneon her back. Her elbows are on
the on the on the floor,but her problems are up. But I
tell you she's got her legs bentin such a position her her feet looked
like they could damage you badly fromthe position that they're in. I'm thinking
(40:53):
I wouldn't want to be that personon the other end of those no way.
Yeah, yeah, that's very coolpicture. By the way. Thanks.
It does change the perspective of whatit means to be on the ground,
I guess for a lot of peoplebeing on the ground is the most
vulnerable position to be in. Butactually this is why I like ju jitsu
(41:15):
specifically. It just shows you itdoes not have to be such a defensive
position solely. Yeah, this looksvery offensive on the ground and I'm like,
wow, correct, correct, Andwe are here also practicing breakaway techniques.
(41:35):
So in cases of such as abductionor someone trying to pull you,
drag you, we again teach strategieson how to effectively avoid these spreads,
So not necessarily trying to get outof their using strength because that's not going
to be a feasible solution, butrather using offense, so manipulating and adjusting
(41:59):
your body where you can strike.So that's the core message usually for such
situations, because this is high levelthreat. This isn't at play in the
club or someone grabs you for fun. This is a situation I would say
that's high risk. So in thosemoments you really have to employ strikes and
strategies. Yeah, serious stuff,here we go. This looks like a
(42:23):
flip gonna happen here. I'm tellingyou this is uh. This is actually
one of the one of my favoriteexercises to start with, which is a
simple a risk manipulation. It's it'san escape from a risk grap and this
is just to demonstrate how leverage canbe powerful and used by a smaller person
(42:47):
against a bigger opponent, and howusing leverridge can help you get away from
situations interesting. I love it.These are these are such good pictures.
Hey, well listen, we're runningdown about six minutes here, Joan,
I want to know real quickly.Help. Let's have you tell us a
little bit about the new book thatyou're writing. Tell us a little bit
about that, please. So thebook is going to be published next year,
(43:14):
like you mentioned, July twenty twentyfour, we're starting marketing campaign for
it. It's a book that isincredibly empowering for females, and I directed
to females but also to educators andlarger society to kind of come together to
think about solutions, how we canhelp the younger generation, which is again
the one that's most vulnerable, andhow to understand threats the nature of threats
(43:38):
and preventive measures before we even starttalking about using physical defense. So there's
a lot of psychology in there.How to boost your confidence and self esteem,
which are probably the corner strongs ofself defense. Without having these tools,
such as the awareness, the theself worth, you will not be
(44:01):
able to vocalize probably your needs.You will not be able to search yourself
in dangerous situations. So we're startingthe discussion from that point where we re
ask the question, are you assertiveenough to even as you know, tell
the person no, to maybe changethe dynamic from the social conditioning of a
(44:23):
woman where we meant to be kindand not rude, but actually be able
to break the what I call thegood girl conditioning, so to be able
to say no in situations that requireus to do so, because a lot
of the times people find themselves thatlack the voice, and it's the state
of psychological frees where you're not necessarilyable to vocalize what you really want and
(44:47):
you go your instincts. So alot of the times when we talk about
females, we talk about instincts andinstinctual feelings about an individual. So if
you really to that intuition voice ofintuition, a lot of the times it
will save you from dangerous situations.So I talk a lot about that in
the book as well, but alsohow there are certain hues for victimization and
(45:12):
studies that I quote prove that certaintypes of behaviors and even body movements can
contribute to the fact of people fallingvictim to crime. So I really focus
on against statistics, preventative measures andhow can women can understand their body language
better to be able to not fallvictim or target to attacks. So there's
(45:37):
a lot of psychology and involved.There's also certain strategies and behaviors that can
employ in terms of physical contact andphysical defense obviously mentioned in the book,
but overall it is more of anempowerment tool for females to understand how they
can better become more confident and inpreventative measures. That's incredible stuff. I
(46:00):
mean, very very very deep.I mean it's just it's not just physical.
There's a lot more to it thanthat, and I absolutely no.
I would say the physical part isabout ten fifteen percent of the book and
the rest is about mindsets, confidence, feeling of self worth, being able
to vocalize and prevent threats. That'ssuch an interesting angle. I think that's
(46:24):
that's going to be a fantastic bookagain, and give us a title of
that book again, Joanna. Thetitle of the book is She Fights back
yep, and it says using psychologyof self defense to reclaim your power.
I think that is awesome, reallyinteresting stuff there. I really appreciate,
appreciate that. So Joanna, let'slet people know where they can find you
(46:49):
on the internet online. The bestplace to find me is go either directly
to my website www dot Women's SelfDefense UK or go to my Instagram page
Joanna underscore jiu Jitsu. That's probablywhere I put most of my content out
at the moment. Very good,very good. Well listen, Joanna.
(47:12):
We want to thank you for beingour guest here or my guest I should
say Orma is not here, butmy guest on Outdoors People. It was
an absolute pleasure having you on theshow. You're very, very interesting,
very I don't want to say verysuccessful person, and I'm just I think
that's amazing. You're awesome. Thankyou so much for having me. It's
(47:36):
been great pleasure being on the show. Thank you appreciate that, you bet
oh. I also want to thankour sponsors for bringing you tonight's show,
Rudebega, Battle Sports, Campground Views, d luth Pack and Jackson Kayak.
Tune in for next week's episode.How do you spell freedom with Our guest
Mina Ericson is a CW gut sayingthanks for tuning in to outdoors people.
(47:59):
See you next week.
Topics and opinions expressed in the followingshow are solely those of the hosts and
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We make no recommendations or endorsements forradio show programs, services, or products
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or comments should be directed to thoseshow hosts. Thank you for choosing W
(00:21):
FOURCY Radio. Welcome to outdoors peoplewith me cw Getz and her Maya mar
Zaki. Good evening. It's Wednesday, November fifteenth, twenty twenty three.
(00:53):
We have a really very comfortable surprisinglybecause sixties are usually in Chili, but
this is very comfortable day today.Sixty four degrees fahrenheit, Sonny and that,
and you know what, we actuallywent for bike ride today. It
was just amazing, what a beautifulday. Just a little breeze that equates
to eighteen degrees celsius for the restof the world. I gotta tell you
(01:15):
just I mean, it was justa nice little breeze. And I can
tell you I think that is probablythe nicest day we're probably going to have
till the rest of the year,well, actually till next year, because
I don't see this. I don'tsee this beautiful weather continuing much past maybe
this weekend, so maybe down inthe fifties this weekend. Well, hey,
Wan, what do you got there? In? While I'm on the
(01:36):
subject, Maya, they had akind of a bad storm roll into Brazil,
at least where she's at an AmericanaBrazil knocked out the power and she
said, to see Douby, I'mnot going to be on the show that
I said, I can't do it. I said, totally understand. It's
all good. I'll fly solo.But Maya, when you see the show
later hopefully, I know it's notnearly what it would be with you,
(01:57):
but we're going to hang it here. So in her place, Wan,
what do you got in? Uh, let's see West Palm Beach, Florida.
There, what do you got forweather? Down here? We are
at seventy one degrees fahrenheit and it'sraining so cold and rainy. You know,
you're you're not that much warmer thanwe are. That's surprising. I
figured you'd be probably up in theeighties or my you know, we were
(02:21):
a couple of days ago, butit's been raining, just last three days.
It's just been raining out stop.It definitely makes a difference. So,
well, you know, some ofyour days are at least you're not
down Remia's. I think MIAs,there was like ninety some degrees down there.
It's just really really hot. They'relooking for a hot, hot summer
and there, you know, andtheir neck of the world, so to
(02:45):
speak. So yeah, Well,tonight's episode of outdoors People is brought to
you by Rudebaga paddle Sports providing timeon the water, campground views making camping
easier, by the luth Pack madein the USA since eighteen eighty two,
and by Jackson Kayak pursuing joy throughpaddle Sports. Tonight's episode is she Fights
(03:06):
Back with my guest. Joanna Zabronovichthirty nine year old police jiu jitsu coach,
personal trainer, self defense instructor,and yoga instructor. Joanna Zabronovich was
also a bouncer while studying in London. Then in twenty seventeen, after working
in the corporate world for five years, she made the decision to pursue her
(03:27):
dream of a career in martial arts. Joanna has held the titles of Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu World Champion, European Championand Grand Slam Champion from twenty seventeen to
twenty eighteen. She holds a BAin Tourism and an MA in Phonetics from
University College London. At the moment, Joanne is a Brazilian jiu Jitsu head
(03:47):
instructor at carpadm jim in Hong Kong. She's also the author of a women's
self defense book titled She Fights BackUsing Psychology Self Defense to Reclaim Your Power,
which is scheduled to be released inJuly of twenty twenty four. Joanna
will soon be launching a new seriesof courses and certification programs for women's self
(04:11):
defense based in London and Hong Kong. Or the nose or the chin,
So you're aiming aiming for this chinelevation on them boom, All right,
So let's start at Hope. Well, hi guys, I'm Joanna from Elevate
Martial Arts and Strength to the Walland we're going to take great sprints gus
(04:34):
to personal testial way. Next there, control your for self space. Okay,
so are you ready? I wantto hear it. Let's go on
a great Ready, sady, gohow that golf? And today we're doing
a self defense class for women toteach them they weren't as tactics the esculation
(04:55):
and basic block and the reason whyI want to move for around her and
self defense. We never go squarebecause when you're fixated on the square,
you don't see what's happening around andyou don't recognize where's an exit room.
You're gonna start wrestling all I cansee it all right. It's absolutely crucial
for every woman to know how todefend herself and also just to be aware
(05:17):
of the surroundings of potential strength andwhat can be done in danger situations.
You're just gonna block from insects oneso like it's so clows this way,
that's it here, and then theother side is gonna be that's it.
At the same time as I've blocked, I'm gonna use office the right hand
clock, so the phm's gonna goafterward to start really slow to get your
(05:38):
slow motion want too, nice oneright in the door. We're running every
Sunday at ten o'clock. It's aone hour class and everyone is awesome.
We call it bare hunt. Soeither holding from the side, from the
back okay to take me away,or even if you're thinking about close distance,
going for things like the chokes.Great opportunity for any teamal to come
(06:01):
with our teenager and adults. SoI put the pressure on it. Now
I have to strike one two,making sure you know I'm gonna call to
the floor, right yeah, seeus next week for more wake up with
(06:26):
that. Welcome to the show,Joanna, thank you so much for having
me. Well, that video wasamazing. Thanks for this nice introduction.
Go ahead, they have you heardthat? You know what? That was
an awesome video and I when Ifirst saw that, go yes, that's
just right on target. Man,that's uh, that was phenomenal. Who
put that together for you? Bythe way, I was actually a colleague
(06:49):
of mine working off that same Jimin London that put that together. So
they have a video production company,and so they actually specialize in martial arts,
so they video a lot of martialarts. Let's give them a plug
and what's their name? Fight SportsProduction? There you go? There you
go, absolutely yeah, and nicereally nice, nice video. So first
(07:12):
I'm going to start this off,I'm going to ask you here, was
there something that happened in your lifethat motivated you to begin focusing on self
defense for women. Oh, thatis an interesting question because I actually was
never interested in solved defense per se, but I was always fascinated by martial
arts. So there were a fewsituations, a few things that happened in
(07:34):
my life that led me to thedecision to focus a little bit more on
self defense. So I have togive you a bit of a background story
to explain that. Yeah, soI started martial arts quite early on as
a teenager and just pursued different martialarts. Actually patriated to a different country
at one point to pursue my martialarts career, and I went to London
(07:58):
to train with a grace used tolearn jiu jitsu, And at one point
I decided to go back to UNI. And when I decided to go back
to NUNI, I obviously had topay my student fees and decided to take
on a job that required nighttime workand weekend jobs. So there weren't that
many solutions that you can imagine towork in a nighttime, so we usually
(08:22):
would be something between bartending and maybedoing security work. So since I already
had some friends in the security sector, I just jump on the opportunity to
become a female security personnel and startedworking as a bouncer. Essentially interrupt you
there and ask you this when you'rewhen you go for a bouncer job,
(08:43):
I mean you have to audition forthis and like meet the hell out of
someone or what does that work?Yeah, So the notion of a female
bouncer isn't necessarily to tackle guys,but I think the premise of having a
female bouncer a on side is solelyto deal with other female in the club.
So you can imagine regular nightclub isfifty to fifty ratio between males and
(09:05):
females on average, maybe more manbulous. So the idea behind it is that
when a female customer has to betaken out of the venue, it's usually
the female security that should be dealingwith that person. Whether there's someone passing
out in the bathroom, for example, which is quite common, it's a
little bit better, you know,less aggressive to have a female female security
(09:28):
to deal with that situation, toenter female bathroom, et cetera. So
for that reason alone, it becamelike common practice for bigger night clubs to
employ female female security. Okay,interesting, yeah, so yeah, it
makes sense. So when I startedworking in security, as you can imagine,
(09:50):
there's also a sort of different clubsin London, and some of them
a little bit more dodgyo it'd site. It's a very British word, by
the way, meaning a little biton darker side of the spectrum, and
some of them obviously a little bitmore high street you could say, membership
type of clubs. So I've donesecurity work in all Thegether all the different
(10:11):
clubs you can possibly imagine, comingfrom more sort of like the underground clubs
so where things were not really thatsafe all the way to like Plash membership
club. So I've seen quite alot, and obviously starting off as a
female security dealing with females. Lateron I was really keen intented to test
(10:31):
my martial arts skills. So Iwas thinking, if there is, you
know, any conflict or disruption inthe club, I wanted to take part.
I want to see if I canhelp out to deal with situations.
And some of the times I didn'thave a choice. Some of the times
when a fight would kick off andthere was no one else on side,
or I happened to be right inthe middle of it. Obviously I'm the
(10:52):
one that has to immediately take action. So in those moments, I kind
of realized, Wow, it's sodifferent from the martial arts environment, where
you have you know, set ofrules, you have a coach on side.
Even when you go into fighting world, you usually have a referee there,
and obviously their rules will not allowfor anyone to pull your hair,
(11:15):
poke you in the eye, scratchyou with the nails, which is not
the case in the nightclub. That'snot the window. Yeah, anything goes
right, everything it's outside of thewindow. And the most important is the
element of surprise because you actually don'tknow when it's going to happen, like
how when, who's going to dowhat, and you're not even sure of
the intentions of what the people aredoing. A lot of times I find
(11:39):
myself in the middle of a situationwhere I had no clue what was going
on. So a lot of timesI was wondering, who's the attacker,
what are they actually doing, whoare they even attacking? Because the situation
is very disruptive when you have alot of individuals gather in a group,
sometimes the time just goes so fastand you actually not sure you know who
(12:01):
to tackle first, to address,or maybe there's multiple people that are being
the perpetation. So usually what happenswhen when there's a fidy night to have
seen in videos or experience it andplaying sights, a lot of the times
out of people get involved, andonce other people get involved, it gets
really disruptive and so you lose theplot. Who actually is uh the perpetrator.
(12:30):
We have a term for that inthe United States. We call it
cluster And I can't finish that word, but I think everyone knows what I'm
talking about. Yeah, cluster blank, Yeah, it's yeah, kind of
ugly. You can you can putthe beef in it. It's live.
So in those situations, it actuallymade you realize that martial arts and themselves
(12:52):
are of course amazing to teach certaintechniques, and you know, to teach
you a lot of the basic stuffthat you will be able to employ,
it doesn't really prepare you for theunexpected. So with that in mind,
I was thinking of ways how canI introduce a system of self defense to
(13:13):
vulnmeble members of public, like myselfto people who are not necessarily equipped with
that type of strength, people whoare smaller, a little bit more fragile
and weaker, and how they canemploy strategies to actually be a little bit
more prepared for such situations. Butalso you know how to train them and
(13:35):
give them the tools, realistic toolswith which they will be able to go
out on the street and feel alittle bit safer. Sure, and a
lot of self defense systems, don'tget me wrong, I don't want to
trash talk about any particular self defense, but a lot of them don't really
address the problem of the escalation orhow a situation even is starting. The
(13:56):
only address the physical aspect, whichis, okay, I'm going to block,
I'm going to do dispensing move.But actually they don't teach you how
to you know, in the firstinstance, how to how to react,
how to use your voice, howto use your distance control, and things
like that. So when I startedstudying going a little bit deeper into the
research as a researcher myself. Youknow, I love research, so I
(14:20):
love using statistical data to figure outwhat are the common threads, how do
they happen, who are the perpetratorswho are the victims? You know,
which space do these instances occur mostlikely? And what are the tools that
I can give to people to helpthem understand how they can prevent threads in
the first place. My first kindof my first thought about self defense was
(14:41):
not per se physical but actually prevention. And so I started putting some courses
together. And at the beginning,people are not too interested in the psychology
aspect of self defense. They justreally purely wanted to, you know,
learn defance moves, because right,I want to learn how to fight man.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, prettymuch, pretty much. And again,
(15:05):
self defense can be a very cool, fun and engaging activity for a
group for example, and that aspectis also very very extremely important. But
equally, I, as an individualwho was trained martial arts and work in
security, I don't want to givepeople the fake idea that okay, you
know what you've done a coss nowyou'll be able to defend yourself, because
(15:28):
that's absolutely not the case. Soas time went by and I would deliver
self defense workshops to corpus, togroups, I started realizing that what I
was actually selling was purely the physicalproduct, but actually not the psychology behind
it, and so probably a fewyears ago I think I started adding on
(15:52):
the psychological component to my workshops andI founded this this orgain based off in
the UK, and this organization startedproviding courses for all sorts of groups,
individuals, but also corporate companies,charities, et cetera. And I'm starting
(16:14):
to focus more and more on prevention. So this really helps me to hone
in the wider spect around the selfdefense right right right now, when you
say, when you say prevention,we're talking about I'm going to try to
how do I say, not alleviate, but but I'm going to try to
(16:37):
not engage in physical the physical aspectof this thing self defense. We're going
to try to like disarm this thingor disengage am i am I correct in
that assumption with the psychology or psychologicallimit. Yeah, So there are two
aspects of physical and psychology and psychologicalaspects of self defense. And I do
(16:59):
like to distinguish between the two becauseI think it's important for people to realize
that, hey, yes, Ican teach you how to practice and how
to perform the moves, but alsoI want to make them aware what is
happening before that. So Okay,go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
(17:21):
You had another question behind it,or I guess I kind of I'm
thinking, can you give us justa little bit of an example of what
maybe the psychological part of it mightentail, Like, give me just paint
us a little small and quick,little situation of going, here's what's happening,
and here's where aspect comes in canplay a big role. Yeah,
(17:41):
where a lot of the times,and again I'm gonna talk about statistics.
A lot of the times when youwhen you talk about violent attacks or violent
behavior, it's usually something that thatcan be prevented. And we know that
from again from from studies conducted atuniversities, for example, where students are
usually you know, the most vulnerablegroup to fall into that spectrum, and
(18:06):
we know that a lot of themhave to do with coergion, manipulation,
and fear pressure. So just knowingthat and knowing that we can educate the
younger generation how to react to thesebehaviors can could potentially eradicate some of the
instances of sexual harassment or violence.Okay, interesting, So this is where
(18:30):
I'm starting the discussion actually about selfdefense among young adults and students and This
is I think the group that wereally need to address first, and we
need to focus on that. Andmy job as an educator is actually go
to universities and schools and to teachand give lectures on that topic, because
(18:52):
not only this group is the mostvulnerable one, this is the group that
probably will go into their adult lifewith the tools, without the tools that
they need to prevent such behaviors.So we know about over fifty percent of
violent behavior against women happens in educationalinstitutions, which includes colleges and high schools,
(19:14):
So on campus, a lot ofthese situations happen, like I mentioned,
due to peer pressure. So ifwe were to start educating the younger
generation either using some form of courseworkor programs that will aim at prevention,
Actually there is one in Canada atthe moment that's doing that, and they're
mixing physical self defense training with lecturesand prevention. They talk about constant they
(19:41):
talk about many full tactics and thingslike that to prevent that. It also
focusing on helping helping adults to understandtheir rights, their legal rights, and
they have proven track record of actuallyimproving instances of harassment and violence against women.
Over fifty percent from our member Sothat was a huge, huge,
(20:03):
yeah, huge change of narrative there. So we know that these that these
methods work, but they do needto be combined with some sort of psychological
aspects as well. Absolutely, Juanna, why jiu jitsu? What what's significant
about that? Why did you choosethat that is a topic you talk for
(20:25):
about for a week? Yeah,yeah, sure, sure. There are
many many different reasons for it,but I think the most important for me
was the fact that it was whatwas the most fascinating for sure. And
I think it's endless form of practicewhere you there's no borderline or where it
finishes. It's uh, it's endless. If you can imagine like a set
(20:49):
of rules or a set of technicaldetails you can cover, it's it just
never ends. So after about twentyyears of practice, I'm still learning things
on a daily basis, and Ithink that just stimulates my brain so much.
I like it because it feels likea game of chess, but a
fast paced game of chess. Sochess for me is a little bit boring
(21:10):
because it's very slow. Jiu Jitsuis a human chess. What this is
what it's referred to at least it'svery dynamic, but also that you have
to strategize to quite a lot.So your technique or the style you apply
will very depending on on the personyou're training with, but it will also
depend on your own individual preferences andstrengths that you that you possess. So
(21:34):
it's a sport which is extremely fascinating, and it's also a great form of
play. And I usually people don'tknow what jujitsu is. I usually tell
them it's a form of wrestling,because it's probably one of the most I
guess people connect wrestling to like someform of grappling and tuckling each other to
the ground, not necessarily like jiujitsu. They don't really know what it is,
(21:56):
so I just refer to it asa form of wrestling. And if
you think about that, it's theoldest, probably recreational form of combat fabardly
about, dating from twenty thousand yearsago. People already involved in some form
of wrestling. If you watch animalsin the animal Kingdom, watch cats or
(22:18):
even grizzly birds for that matter,they wrestle naturally, their natural wrestlers.
They do it as a form ofplay and also to hone their hunting skills,
and I think for humans it couldbe very similar in a way that
you treat it as a form ofplay and fun, fun experience, fun
activity where you involve yourself physically,but also you know it prepares you for
an expected to prepares you for somekind of physical conflicts as well. So
(22:41):
it had there was that interplay betweenhaving fun but also learning survival skills.
Interesting. Well, that's that's amazing. I love that. Well, listen,
we're gonna take a short break.We'll be back with more. Jovanna
Johanna Zabronovitch right for these messages.A few years ago, someone asked Rudebega's
(23:07):
owner Darren Bush, Hey, howlong have you guys been selling boats?
Darren replied, we don't sell boats. We sell time on the water.
Of course, that comes in alltypes. We help people paddle more safely
with Rudabiga outdoor programs. We rentcanoes, kayaks, and stand up paddle
boards. We sell and install racksto get you from home to adventure.
(23:27):
Rudabega's got everything you need to getyou out on the water, like paddles,
life jackets, dry bags and clothing. Rudebega Paddlesports on the web at
Rudebega dot com. Mention you sawthis ad on the Camping Show. It
is time to go camping. Introducingcampground Views virtual tours, you can tour
(23:48):
the campground, see the site,see if they are available, and click
to book your perfect spot. Hitthe open road and explore the amazing places
found in fature. We make iteasy to discover, find and book your
site so that you can go havethe fun and freedom you seek. Campground
(24:11):
Views virtual Tours make it easy andsimple for you to see where you are
going. D Luthpack is handcrafted forevery lifestyle, making memories since eighteen eighty
(24:44):
two, in store at three sixtyfive Canal Park Drive or online at d
luthpack dot com. We are onebig family, a community of tattlers,
and we want to make sure thateveryone has a great time. I don't
know. We're made right here inpart of Tennessee, USA. This is
(25:04):
where every Jackson Kayak is born,built by hands with a focus on innovation.
We are jack and Kayak. Weare we are we are Jackson Kayak.
And we are we are we Jackson. We are we are Jackson Kayak.
(25:26):
All right, We're back with JohannaSaronovitch here on outdoors People. Joanna,
I got a question for you,what is the scariest situation you've ever
found yourself in? There are many, I guess in my other life,
I guess there was maybe one instancethat I remember specifically that made me question
(25:49):
what I was doing totally, andit was when I, yeah, I
was still in the security second atone point, my colleague of mind came
rushing in with a bullet for bestingme. Put this on. We have
a local oncoming, and I waslike, wow, Okay, that's that's
a new thing to me, LikeI've never done it. I never experienced
that. That was that was quitescary. But I think like in my
(26:14):
adult years, I think it becameless and less scared of situations, especially
like physical contact. I think it'smostly when I was remember a teenager or
a kid that probably more so likea kid, that I was fearful of
things and and I think one ofthe reasons was that I wasn't trained enough
or I wasn't taught enough how toact, how to behave, and even
(26:37):
how to assert myself. So thatwas like a known environment wherever I was
going, and I also felt fearfula lot of the times. But as
time went by and I started trainingmartial arts and studying, that changed the
perspective I wasn't. I guess Iwas becoming a little bit more empowered and
believing in my skills that whatever happened, you know, I wasn't really scared
(27:02):
so much of physical contact. Ifsomeone's punching the street, I wasn't scared
of that that much as I wasscared of just behaviors that were manipulative or
behaviors that were coming from strangers.So these were like the type of things
that would be scared of more sothan the physical parts. So that's that's
kind of interesting, probably because it'snot pretty pretty common. I think it's
(27:26):
not typical. Yeah, yeah,exactly. You know, we're just talking
about this. You know, ofcourse, when you're you know, being
attacked, are there any patterns thatcan develop as a result of being attacked?
So definitely, especially for women.That my topic of self defense focus
(27:48):
is largely in women, so I'llbe talking to that most of the time.
So the usual patterns that develop aresome form of trauma. So traumatic
experiences actually kind of have an everimpact on a human psyche and that involves
a serious of mental health conditions suchas post traumatic stress, anxiety, and
depression. And it actually has beenshown in studies that women are the group
(28:12):
that it affected the most. Aboutseventy percent of women have been experiencing experience
balance or sexual harassment in the pastactually developed ATSD. Over a third I
believe, started self harming and ortrying over a third try to commit suicide,
(28:32):
and about twenty two percent engage inself harm. So that that's statistic.
Is it's massive, and when youwhen you look at it from that
perspective alone, it gives you theidea of the impact that it carries with
it. So I think we asa society educators are really responsible for,
you know, collaborative efforts to tryand educate people how to eradicate it.
(28:56):
Yeah, that's that's something you knowreal quickly. Here. I also heard
that being attacked can affect you insuch a way that you actually freeze.
Is that true? Oh? Absolutely, That's another aspect of self defense that
(29:17):
I mentioned in the course and inmy book. There is something unexpected that
happens, and even martial arts trainingdoesn't always prepare you for those situations,
and this is when the fight andflight happens, usually a fight or flight.
Scientists actually referred to this as hyperarousal, and it's a moment of
unexpected you know, anguish and releaseof hormonths. It's a little like a
(29:40):
tiny piece in our brain called amygdala, and when amygdellah triggers the fight or
flight response, it's it actually affectsthe body in such a way that on
one, on the one hand,it prepares us for combat because the blood
comes faster, the heart meats faster, like you more physically prepared. But
what can also happen in that hyperarousal state is that your body goes into
(30:03):
a state of freeze. You're ableto speak, You're able to talk,
and this is very common amongst women, and I would say young adults as
well can be a state of psychologicalfreeze. But there's also the state of
physical freees so you can't where youcan't even fight back. There's like it
just you freeze right physically, right, that's it. So what happens in
(30:26):
the body is actually that when yourheart rate hits a certain beats permitted rate,
you find yourself in a state where, yeah, like you said,
like, it's a bit like youfeel frozen. And what happens with your
modern skills in that moment is thatthey're very impaired, meaning that your body
(30:48):
is only able to execute movements thatare very simple in nature. These involve
grand motels, what we referred toas grand motor skills. Well, where
find modern skills such as I alwaysimagine like playing piano, things like that
are largely impaired. And this isone of the reasons why I never teach
any intricate techniques for self defense,because simply they don't work in this state
(31:10):
of hyper alareness. Oh so,if you teach someone how to manipulate the
risk joint and make a serious offensein moves, your brain won't be able
to actually execute these moods high stresslevel situation. And for example, if
you see people going into a fight, perhaps like skilled people, you may
(31:33):
may have noticed that they performed differentlyunder pressure, that their technical skill set
is diminishing with the psychological pressure thatthey're going experiencing. Oh wow, and
that's actually an example of that hyperawareness at place. Oh wow, that's
you know, that's some amazing stuff. And you don't and I mean,
(31:55):
at least I didn't. I,you know, would never think about that.
It needs to be a boxer.But I know your skill, your
technique sort of diminishes with the moretired you get. But I can,
I can certainly understand the psychological aspecttoo, of what you're talking about.
Well, listen, we're gonna wegot some photos did to look at Joanna
and when we come back, Sowe're gonna take a short break and we'll
(32:17):
be back with more of Joanna onoutdoors. People here. Right after these
messages a few years ago, someoneasked Rudebaka's owner Darren Bush, Hey,
how long have you guys been sellingboats? Darren replied, well, we
(32:38):
don't sell boats. We sell timeon the water. Of course, that
comes in all types. We helppeople paddle more safely with Rudabik outdoor programs.
We rent canoes, kayaks, andstand up paddle boards. We sell
and install racks to get you fromhome to adventure. Rudabak has got everything
you need to get you out onthe water, like paddles, life jackets,
dry bags and clothing. Rudebea paddlessports on the web at rudebega dot
(33:01):
com. Mention you saw this adon The Camping Show. It is time
to go camping. Introducing campground Viewsvirtual tours, you can tour the campground,
see the site, see if theyare available, and click to book
your perfect spot, hit the openroad and explore the amazing places found in
(33:24):
nature. We make it easy todiscover, find and book your site so
that you can go have the funand freedom you seek. Campground Views virtual
Tours make it easy and simple foryou to see where you are going.
(34:05):
D Luthpack is handcrafted for every lifestyle, making memories since eighteen eighty two,
in store at three sixty five CanalPark Drive, or online at the luthpack
dot com. We are one bigfamily, a community of tattlers, and
we want to make sure that everyonehas a great time out on the water.
We are made right here in Barta, Tennessee at USA. This is
(34:30):
where every Jackson Kayak is born,Jill by hands with a focus on innovation.
We are jack and Kayak. Weare we are. We are Jackson
Kayak. And we are we areWe're Jackson, jo we are we are
Jackson Kayak. All right, We'reback with Joanna Sobonovitch here on outdoors.
(34:55):
People want let's put some photos upthere, and let's have Joanna t tell
us a little bit about each one. All we're looking at there, we
go impressive photos. By the way, I must say thank you. This
is the one from World Championships inLas Vegas. We're two gold from a
few years ago. That's one ofthe happiest moments in my life. You
look bad ass there, Joe,And I got to tell you, man,
(35:16):
you just look at it. Idon't know what to say. Wow,
I certainly wouldn't want to piss youoff, and you know I can.
Oh that's yeah, you look tough, definitely focused. Yeah, you
do look focused. That's a goodthat's a great word, because you do.
You look very focused. No wonderyou were champion. Yeah, yeah,
(35:38):
we enter a stayed off at trancewhen we go into fighting arena usually
uh here, like it's a momentof triumph obviously, so this is when
the adrenaline is going to wear offslowly. But uh there's just a moment
of your fourio over there because youjust realized you're a champion of the world.
And yeah, that's that's big.This is the beast few seconds of
(36:00):
my life. Yeah, I meanI can only imagine, you know,
this is what in coming from theboxing world. I mean can imagine with
like, you know, people likeAli and Tyson are just thinking I'm the
baddest in the world. And youknow that's just interesting too, because martial
arts you're pretty much tougher than anybodyin my opinion, I mean, you've
(36:23):
got stuff, you know. Yeah, I think there's definitely an edge to
it where you go through physical andpsychological pain on a daily basis. So
there's a lot of grinding in therein the sport, and a lot of
preparation, a lot of sweat andblog goes into it. I think that
moment of triumph actually comes from theexperience of having endured so many hard or
(36:47):
physical training sessions, and it's kindof like a culminational that are hard work.
So it's extremely rewarding in that sense. Very cool, very cool.
This is a photo of one ofmy workshops actually, so teaching self defense
and teaching people how to employ aleg guard. So as a boxer,
(37:09):
you probably know that your hands actas the guard, but we also can
use legs are a form of theguard where we not only word off an
attacker, but we also use offenses. You can see here I use a
footpost to strike the chin area orto strike the face if you will.
With the hill just going to askyou that you're that's an offensive move.
(37:31):
Then you're just giving them like anuppercut basically, right, That's that's pretty
much it. Yeah, coming rightfrom the ground, so it is you
can knock people out man right therewith that that again, definitely can.
So in that sense, you seelike the person on the ground isn't isn't
necessarily someone who has to be onlysolely on a defense, but can be
(37:54):
definitely on the offense at the sametime. Yeah, and there's no gloves
on that floot like there are boxers. Oh no, you're basically bone to
bone right there. That's it.Better than bare knuckle fighting. Oh my
god, Yeah, that would hurt. And this is the group of the
(38:16):
ladies. I believe it's one ofthe first workshops are delivered in Richmond,
where I was based for a fewyears. Just a nice group of ladies
attending new workshop. Wow. Thatpretty big group there. Yeah, the
works does the workshops usually I canfor twenty people, Max and I don't
usually think bigger, bigger groups becausethe engagement is great for larger groups,
(38:38):
but then obviously we need to makesure we can instruct each individual correctly.
So that's probably the biggest group you'dever get in a workshop. You're just
going to ask you how many peoplethat max that you have in a group?
Yea twenty twenty twenty is a isa good number. And here again
(38:59):
we're having a as a discussion.So like I mentioned before, there's a
lot of talk and also sharing experiences. It's extremely empowering. You can see
this as a female group. It'svery empowering for women to talk about their
stories, individual experiences, what theyhave been through, how they prevented conflicts,
(39:21):
or how they'll tackled situations. Andsome of these stories you're here are
horrifying. It's whether to do withthemselves, or their friends or the family
members. And so that sharing experiencehas a lot of value as well because
we discuss scenarios, how we canbetter prepare for situations and also gives you
an idea of how these situations happento And this is your closest community.
(39:45):
Is the closest community you will getbecause all these ladies are local, so
you will know what's going on inthe neighborhood. So that's actually very valuable
knowledge. We'd get there right onside. So rather than just reading statistical
data, you can act hear storiesfrom people, which for me personally is
probably one of the most valuable tools. Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect
(40:06):
sense. And here again is justan explanation of a form of control from
the ground and how you can defendusing the legs using a frame like you
can see there's a leg frame infront, how to again the turn attack,
but also later on how to takethe person to the ground or strike.
(40:31):
For those of you who are justlistening and not watching, I got
to tell you this picture is Joanneon her back. Her elbows are on
the on the on the floor,but her problems are up. But I
tell you she's got her legs bentin such a position her her feet looked
like they could damage you badly fromthe position that they're in. I'm thinking
(40:53):
I wouldn't want to be that personon the other end of those no way.
Yeah, yeah, that's very coolpicture. By the way. Thanks.
It does change the perspective of whatit means to be on the ground,
I guess for a lot of peoplebeing on the ground is the most
vulnerable position to be in. Butactually this is why I like ju jitsu
(41:15):
specifically. It just shows you itdoes not have to be such a defensive
position solely. Yeah, this looksvery offensive on the ground and I'm like,
wow, correct, correct, Andwe are here also practicing breakaway techniques.
(41:35):
So in cases of such as abductionor someone trying to pull you,
drag you, we again teach strategieson how to effectively avoid these spreads,
So not necessarily trying to get outof their using strength because that's not going
to be a feasible solution, butrather using offense, so manipulating and adjusting
(41:59):
your body where you can strike.So that's the core message usually for such
situations, because this is high levelthreat. This isn't at play in the
club or someone grabs you for fun. This is a situation I would say
that's high risk. So in thosemoments you really have to employ strikes and
strategies. Yeah, serious stuff,here we go. This looks like a
(42:23):
flip gonna happen here. I'm tellingyou this is uh. This is actually
one of the one of my favoriteexercises to start with, which is a
simple a risk manipulation. It's it'san escape from a risk grap and this
is just to demonstrate how leverage canbe powerful and used by a smaller person
(42:47):
against a bigger opponent, and howusing leverridge can help you get away from
situations interesting. I love it.These are these are such good pictures.
Hey, well listen, we're runningdown about six minutes here, Joan,
I want to know real quickly.Help. Let's have you tell us a
little bit about the new book thatyou're writing. Tell us a little bit
about that, please. So thebook is going to be published next year,
(43:14):
like you mentioned, July twenty twentyfour, we're starting marketing campaign for
it. It's a book that isincredibly empowering for females, and I directed
to females but also to educators andlarger society to kind of come together to
think about solutions, how we canhelp the younger generation, which is again
the one that's most vulnerable, andhow to understand threats the nature of threats
(43:38):
and preventive measures before we even starttalking about using physical defense. So there's
a lot of psychology in there.How to boost your confidence and self esteem,
which are probably the corner strongs ofself defense. Without having these tools,
such as the awareness, the theself worth, you will not be
(44:01):
able to vocalize probably your needs.You will not be able to search yourself
in dangerous situations. So we're startingthe discussion from that point where we re
ask the question, are you assertiveenough to even as you know, tell
the person no, to maybe changethe dynamic from the social conditioning of a
(44:23):
woman where we meant to be kindand not rude, but actually be able
to break the what I call thegood girl conditioning, so to be able
to say no in situations that requireus to do so, because a lot
of the times people find themselves thatlack the voice, and it's the state
of psychological frees where you're not necessarilyable to vocalize what you really want and
(44:47):
you go your instincts. So alot of the times when we talk about
females, we talk about instincts andinstinctual feelings about an individual. So if
you really to that intuition voice ofintuition, a lot of the times it
will save you from dangerous situations.So I talk a lot about that in
the book as well, but alsohow there are certain hues for victimization and
(45:12):
studies that I quote prove that certaintypes of behaviors and even body movements can
contribute to the fact of people fallingvictim to crime. So I really focus
on against statistics, preventative measures andhow can women can understand their body language
better to be able to not fallvictim or target to attacks. So there's
(45:37):
a lot of psychology and involved.There's also certain strategies and behaviors that can
employ in terms of physical contact andphysical defense obviously mentioned in the book,
but overall it is more of anempowerment tool for females to understand how they
can better become more confident and inpreventative measures. That's incredible stuff. I
(46:00):
mean, very very very deep.I mean it's just it's not just physical.
There's a lot more to it thanthat, and I absolutely no.
I would say the physical part isabout ten fifteen percent of the book and
the rest is about mindsets, confidence, feeling of self worth, being able
to vocalize and prevent threats. That'ssuch an interesting angle. I think that's
(46:24):
that's going to be a fantastic bookagain, and give us a title of
that book again, Joanna. Thetitle of the book is She Fights back
yep, and it says using psychologyof self defense to reclaim your power.
I think that is awesome, reallyinteresting stuff there. I really appreciate,
appreciate that. So Joanna, let'slet people know where they can find you
(46:49):
on the internet online. The bestplace to find me is go either directly
to my website www dot Women's SelfDefense UK or go to my Instagram page
Joanna underscore jiu Jitsu. That's probablywhere I put most of my content out
at the moment. Very good,very good. Well listen, Joanna.
(47:12):
We want to thank you for beingour guest here or my guest I should
say Orma is not here, butmy guest on Outdoors People. It was
an absolute pleasure having you on theshow. You're very, very interesting,
very I don't want to say verysuccessful person, and I'm just I think
that's amazing. You're awesome. Thankyou so much for having me. It's
(47:36):
been great pleasure being on the show. Thank you appreciate that, you bet
oh. I also want to thankour sponsors for bringing you tonight's show,
Rudebega, Battle Sports, Campground Views, d luth Pack and Jackson Kayak.
Tune in for next week's episode.How do you spell freedom with Our guest
Mina Ericson is a CW gut sayingthanks for tuning in to outdoors people.
(47:59):
See you next week.
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