It's never to late to learn self-defense

Lutis is a martial arts center in Pacific Palisades offering classes for adults and kids, including women's self-defense. And now that daylight saving time is over, it's getting darker earlier. It's depressing, but people may be thinking more about personal safety as well, especially when they leave work or school, they're walking to their car. So here to talk more about it and to show us some moves, Maria and Anna from Lutis, along with Justin. Good morning. Hi, welcome you guys. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. First of all, tell us all about Lutis. Yeah, Ludus is a Martial arts gym. We're in the Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades. We've been open for about two months now. Brand new. Brand new. We opened with the village on August 15th. That's great. Yeah, it's good to be back to the community, come back into the village and enjoy the Palisades again. We offer jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, women's self-defense. Anna runs our women's self-defense program, and Maria runs our kids' program. Oh, nice. I love that. We're going to talk a little bit about what you're seeing as far as the need for people. Do you see a rise in women wanting to take self-defense classes? No, we definitely do. We were just talking. We actually have about a bunch of trials tonight coming in for a women's self-defense class at 6 p.m. I do think that has to do with the time change and getting dark earlier. People don't feel as safe walking to their car or leaving work at night, and we love having that class at Lutus. And Maria, it's really important too for kids, right, to know what to do if an attacker comes, try to take them or try to grab them from behind, both women and kids. So what can you show us? Okay, maybe let's talk first about the different layers of defense we have. So if someone is approaching me and I don't want them to get closer, of course, first I'm gonna use my words, I'm gonna be like, back off, leave me alone. However, if they don't stop right here, I have a second layer of defense that I can use, which is a kick. And a kick can have really good stopping power to stop the attacker before they can even get so close that they can touch me. So if someone is coming towards me, I'm just gonna throw a kick. And I can kick whatever I want, I can hit her stomach, I can hit her thighs, I can hit her knee. I don't worry too much about technique, I just kick them as hard as I can and then try and get out of the situation. However, if that doesn't work and they get so close to me, one scenario can be that they actually grab my wrist right here. And when that happens, they usually try and move me and try and pull me. So what I wanna do is I wanna make it as hard as possible for them to move me. So I'm gonna get into a good stance, like a split stance. I'm gonna lower my center of gravity, just make myself as heavy as possible. And then I have to break this grip right here. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab my own fist and then I'm gonna use my entire body to break this grip. Because I'm assuming the attacker is gonna be way stronger than I am. So I have to use whatever I can. So I'm gonna be rotating my hips, rotating my entire body to break this grip right here. And then instead of just taking off and running, because the attacker might come after me and grab me again. I'm gonna throw some kind of counter. So I'm going to be throwing maybe To the face or maybe just even a flat hand to the face and then that's really scary, though. It's not second nature, right? Unless you take classes like this and make it reactive. Yes, you have to drill that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times because you'll be in a panic situation. Right. Yeah. And that's interesting. You said to grab your own wrist. I wouldn't think to do that. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. And so obviously when you're running away, what if they're chasing after you and grab and they grab you from behind? So if that happens. Right here, if they kind of like bear hook me from behind, they're probably gonna try and drag me. So again, I have to make myself as heavy as possible. I'm gonna just bend my knees, lower my center of gravity, make myself heavy. If the attacker is way bigger than I am, they're still gonna be able to move me. So I'm gonna wrap my leg around their leg right here to stop them from moving me. Okay. And then I'm gonna take my knuckle of my middle finger. I'm just gonna hit their hand as hard as I can until they let go. And then once again, if they like go, I want to throw some kind of counter right here, can be flat hand to the face, can be kick again, and then try and get out of this situation. Wow. Well, what if you're in heels? Take them off, right? Take them off. Use the heel, jab them in the eye. You know what makes me nervous, and my kids that are a little older now, but I always felt vulnerable when, let's say you're in a parking lot at the grocery store, and you have to put them in the car seat, and you're at a point where really anything can happen, right? That always makes me nervous, so any advice for situations like that? Be aware of your surroundings. Scan your surroundings before you even approach your car. So always know what's going on around you. Also park under well lit circumstances, right? Especially with things getting dark these days. And then like the doors all open at once, right? You wanna make sure that doesn't happen. Exactly. A lot of things to think about. And I think we're also so distracted by our phones these days. Of course. You're walking, you're watching something, you're listening to something. You're on a call, you're posting something. So, those are just things to be mindful of, yeah. And do you teach kids the same exact techniques as you were just showing us in the kids' classes that you offer? In the kids' classes, we usually do a little bit more like jujitsu, sport, sport jujitsu, but we always talk about self-defense, yeah. It's so important. Yeah, it is. No matter who you are, unfortunately, it's the reality of where we are right now, right? Well, thank you all for being here. Appreciate it. Congratulations on the opening. That's really great news. Sign up at ludusmma.com. You can also follow them on Instagram. So that's L-U-D-U-S, ludus underscore L-A. Give them a follow and check them out. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having us. I know the wraparound thing, I like that. Get low.