I went to the second class of Self Defense class. The first class was done mostly sitting in a chair, studying about philosophy in order to avoid being a victim. On the second class, students went out to the studio, paring with a partner. Unfortunately the number of the students was odd number, and I was the unlucky person who did not have a partner.
During other students were practicing with their partners, I stood alone in the middle of the studio, watching other students. I didn’t like the situation. I hated not being able to practice. From time to time, the instructor came up to me and let me practice with him for several seconds. He said he needed to walk around to check how the students were doing. Later on, the instructor told me to move each pair on each exercise, so that they didn’t need to deal with practicing with three people for long. I thought, “what about me? I still have to deal with a group of three all the time. It is not fair”. When I went to each pair to join on each exercise, following the instructor’s instruction, everybody was obviously reluctant on having me in their pair. When I approached to them, some students simply ignored my existence and kept on practicing by themselves, while others acknowledged me but still took their time practicing by themselves. I felt sad; at the same time, mad. Why do I have to deal with this, even though I paid for the class? I came to the class to learn the self-defense technique, not to be treated as black sheep.
On that night, I accidentally yelled at my husband and daughter. There were not particular reasons why I got mad at them. The true reason for my anger obviously came from the class. I apologized to my family for taking my stress out on them. I needed to face with the true cause that made me upset, directly, by myself.
Several days later, I went to see the director of the class. She was thoughtful enough to offer me the refund the remainder of the class fee, and I got released from the cause of stress.
All in all, this Self Defense class taught me the importance of self-defense. In the first day, the instructor taught us to scream “Fire” instead of “Help” in the emergency. If we scream “Help”, the chances to receive help from strangers are scarce, because most people out there are reluctant to get involved in any kinds of trouble. Whenever we need somebody to help us, we need to take a proper action to get their attention to us.
three wisdom 