“Stay Back!”: What I Learned From The Self-Care & Safety Summit

TW // violence described, discussions surrounding sexual assault

Last Tuesday, Her Campus at Texas was invited to participate in the UT Self-Care & Safety Summit! This event, which took place on October 22nd, from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM, was designed to help college students prioritize both self-care and safety. As misogyny-affected students, most of us in attendance have personally experienced violence and being unsafe in our communities. As such, having a space to share these experiences and practice self-defense tactics created such a welcoming environment where everyone was able to engage with these difficult topics in a healthy and productive way.

Before the event, there were a number of tables where you could talk to different organizations and companies, one of which being the sponsor of that night’s event: Safely. Safely is a female-founded company dedicated to creating a safer future by empowering misogyny-affected people to feel confident and secure in their everyday lives. Safely creates high quality and super cute self-defense products designed to give you peace of mind.

The self defense portion of the night was led by Master Janell Vela-Smith and Tukong Martial Arts Austin. They covered a few different self defense moves including how to get out of a chokehold and how to flip your attacker if they grab you from behind. The most important lessons, however, could be divided into three categories. 

Be loud

Your best weapon is your voice, drawing attention to yourself is extremely important. Alerting people around that something is happening and you need help can lead to someone intervening or, at the very least, startle your attacker and give you an opportunity to run.

Remember soft targets

The centerline of the body is where people will be the most vulnerable. The aim is to distract and recenter focus to anyplace but you so you have the opportunity to run away. The eyes, ears, nose, throat, solar plexus, abdomen, and groin are all locations to aim for if you are in close proximity and need to get out quickly.

Use what you got

The fact of the matter is, you can be as prepared as possible, but chances are the real-life situation will not be the exact same as a practice demonstration. Pepper spray is great if you have it on hand, but if you’re in a pinch and need something for self defense, a pen works great, and as a bonus also collects DNA.

My mom has always instilled in me the importance of being able to defend oneself. When I was very little, she took a self-defense class that gave her tools that made her feel safer in our world. Since then, she has always encouraged me to do something similar. My first night after moving to Austin, I was approached by a very intoxicated fraternity pledge who asked me what I would do if he assaulted me right there. It was terrifying, I had no idea what to do and I didn’t know anyone at the school yet. 

These situations aren’t unique to me, in fact, a lot of us in attendance expressed very similar experiences we all shared. For such heavy topics, the night was extremely fun. Master Janell Smith was very encouraging and the self-care part of the night was a nice reward after that workout. I highly recommend all those who are misogyny-affected look into taking a self defense class, especially one that was as encouraging and positive as the Safely Self-Care & Safety Summit.

• college
• martial arts
• safe
• Safely
• safety
• self care
• self defense
• Summit