A Women’s Self-Defence Workshop in Mérida: What the Four Hours Cover

Most women’s self-defence classes spend the first hour on statistics designed to frighten you. This
one does not. Fear is a poor teacher — it narrows attention exactly when you need it wide.

This is a four-hour workshop for women who want practical skill, not a lecture about danger.

Saturday 17 October · 1:00–5:00 PM · Mérida, Yucatán · for women · no prior training needed

Reserve your seat →12 seats · MX$1,500 MXN · MX$500 deposit holds your place

What the four hours cover

The same system we teach in the dojo, adapted to the situations women actually face — which are usually
not fights, but unwanted approach, unwanted touch, and being followed.

• Distance and awareness — the part before anything happens. What you can read in a
  stranger’s position, hands and pace while you still have every option open.
• The boundary — saying no clearly, holding a boundary when it’s ignored, and what to do
  the moment someone closes the distance without permission.
• Breaking a grab — wrist, arm, clothing, hair. The mechanics that work when your hands
  are shaking and you’re not warmed up.
• Getting out — the exit is the goal. Ending up in a fight you could have left is a
  failure, not a win.

You’ll drill it against resistance — not against a compliant partner who already knows what’s coming.

The part that decides the outcome happens before contact

The same material we teach in the free monthly seminar runs through this workshop, because it is the part
that actually decides outcomes — and it happens before anyone touches you.

We work with the four states of awareness: green, yellow, orange, red. Green is home, the
sofa, the familiar street. Yellow is noticing that something has changed. Orange is a specific person whose
position and attention now matter to you, with your options still open and your exit already chosen. Red is
an active threat, where the decision is made and the response starts.

There is an uncomfortable rule that comes with the four states, and it is the one people get caught by:
it is not the state that gets you hurt, it is being in the wrong state for the setting. Green —
relaxed, unbothered, phone in hand — is correct at home. The same green, same phone, on an empty street at
night is how you get chosen, because being in the wrong level of awareness for the setting is what makes
you read as a target.

You’ll practise moving between those states on purpose, and reading the one shift that matters:
the change. Someone’s pace. Their hands. Where their attention keeps going.

The whole system: 5 – 3 – 2

Everything above hangs off one framework, small enough to remember under pressure:

• 5 cues to read — attention, distance, position, hands, and change. Individually most of
  them mean nothing; the pattern is what tells you something.
• 3 zones of distance — observation, boundary, contact. Nearly every useful decision
  happens in the boundary zone, which is exactly where most people have never drawn a line.
• 2 responses — protect, and exit. Protect means a balanced guard with your head covered
  and your feet under you. Exit means moving to a clear route and disengaging. Distance is the only thing in
  a confrontation that buys you time, and it is the one most people give away politely.

The mechanics you leave with

Four hours is enough to learn the mechanics, feel them at speed, and leave with something your body has
actually rehearsed. So the workshop is mechanical, not philosophical.

The basic set — what you use before anything has happened. Stance and balance with your
feet under you. Hands in a place that is useful instead of frozen. Distance you control rather than distance
you surrender. A voice that carries the boundary without escalating it. Unglamorous, and most of the work.

The powerful set — what you use once someone has closed the distance. Breaking a grab on
your wrist, arm, clothing or hair — most people have never been taught how to get out of an arm grab, and it
is a mechanical problem, not a strength problem. Creating damage where it counts. Then moving, because the
point of the damage is to make the exit possible. These are real mechanical solutions, and they are drilled
against resistance, at speed, in street clothes.

See it before you book it

The framework above comes out of our free monthly seminar. These clips from September’s session show
exactly how it is taught:

• The whole system in 50 seconds — 5 cues, 3 zones, 2 responses
• The four states of awareness — green, yellow, orange, red
• Wrong awareness in the wrong setting makes you a target
• The five pre-attack cues, in detail
• “That’s close enough” — the boundary you have to hold
• The arm grab nobody can break (and what to do about it)

Three moments from the seminar that make it stick

A taxi queue in Las Vegas. Two men, ordinary distance, nothing said. The queue let him
test them — he moved, and one of them followed. Twice. That is not a coincidence, that is a diagnostic: the
distance was the test, and following twice was the answer. He moved to where the bouncers were, non-verbally,
and the situation ended without a word being exchanged.

A woman followed through a casino. She did the thing most people never think of: she
walked into a family. A group of strangers is a safer place to stand than an empty corridor, and it worked —
the follower had nowhere to take it. If she had been on her own, it could have gone very differently.

A hand on your arm. In a room full of adults, almost nobody can break a simple grab,
because nobody has been taught the mechanics of it. That is a gap in training, not a failure of courage —
and it is one of the first things fixed in the four hours.

There is one more that lands harder than it sounds: you don’t need a right to leave. If a room,
a table, a conversation or a street feels wrong, getting up and moving is a complete answer. It does not
require certainty about anybody’s intentions.

Why four hours

Because skill doesn’t survive contact when it’s only been demonstrated. Four hours is enough to learn the
mechanics, feel them at speed, and leave with something your body has actually rehearsed.

No prior training needed. No fitness requirement. Wear what you’d normally wear to walk around town —
this is trained in street clothes, because that’s the situation.

The details

One price, honoured for partners. If a partner or community group gave you their own link, that price is what you pay — those links stay live. The $1,500 MXN above is the public price, and it no longer changes.

Seats are capped at twelve, deliberately. Everyone drills, everyone gets corrected, and nobody spends the
afternoon watching.

Reserve your seat →12 seats · MX$1,500 MXN · MX$500 deposit holds your place