mind body mama: Nothing Lucky About It

A few years ago I taught the Arthritis Foundation’s exercise program at my town’s Senior Center. My students in that cold basement room were ladies in their seventies and eighties. When I let slip that I also taught self defense classes they were riveted. One student was nearly bursting to tell me something.

I can’t remember the details, but I still see the urgency on her face as she told her story of survival. It was something that happened during the war, something that involved a long walk to get a treat of fresh peaches during that time of rationing and patriotic deprivation. The assault was unexpected and her response was equally swift and surprising. Did she rip off his eyeglasses or does my memory confuse her own thick lenses with her attacker?

What I know is that she fought back and lived to tell the tale.

But this survivor did not just tell me how she met an attack with courage and pluck and self determination. She also told me the story she’s been telling herself about that incident for sixty years.

“I was lucky,” she said.

I have been practicing and teaching self defense for twenty-one years. I can’t count the number of self defense stories I have heard. Women tell me their stories in self defense class, as expected. But they also tell me in karate class, in fitness class and over the backyard fence. They tell me in the supermarket and they tell me over lunch. They tell me between classes at karate camp and at the community college.

All too often they sum up the story the same way. “I was lucky,” they say.

There is nothing “lucky” about turning around in the moment just before someone grabs you from behind. There’s nothing “lucky” about telling someone to STOP and having them listen. There is nothing “lucky” about jumping up, running away, yelling before a menacing group can set upon you. There is nothing “lucky” about grabbing something close at hand and using it as a weapon. There is nothing “lucky” about crying out to a passerby for help and receiving it. There is nothing “lucky” about blocking your head during a brutal beating and avoiding permanent brain damage. There’s nothing “lucky” about learning a batterer’s cues so well that you can navigate his dark evil moods and keep yourself and your kids alive. There is nothing “lucky” about hitting out with your arms and legs and elbows even if you’ve never fought before and making contact with soft spots on the attacker’s body. There’s nothing “lucky” about strategically yielding to a demand—for property or for sexual contact—in order to protect your life or buy some time until you can make your next move.

In the self defense movement we are often frustrated by the way success stories get reported. Erin Weed documented one such case on her blog earlier this year: a woman was running when a man tried to attack her. She yelled and fought back and he ran away. The headline: “Woman Jogger Attacked in Broad Daylight.”

But our sexist socialization is glaringly obvious in women’s collective willingness to downplay the headlines we give our own stories.

We are socialized to believe that women can’t fight, to believe that we can’t possibly be successful against a male attacker, to believe that must wait to be saved because we don’t have what it takes to save ourselves.

“I was lucky,” we say. Instead of saying, “That motherfucker tried to rape me and I fought back with everything I had. I hurt him and he gave up.”

Or: “I told him to stop coming on to me and he stopped. He never did it again.”

Or: “I knew something bad was about to jump off and I got out of there. I ran faster and yelled louder than I ever thought I could.”

Or: “I had a feeling that all he wanted was money. So I gave him my wallet and he left. I was right.”

When you hear a woman telling a self defense success story—especially if that woman is you—please correct her gently if she tells you she was “lucky.”

“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” I tell them. “You trusted your instincts. You were brave. You valued yourself. You were strong. You used your mind, you made good choices. You were fierce. You are a survivor.”