A Tempe martial arts studio is offering free self-defense classes for women to teach safety awareness and offer a taste of martial arts.
The classes will be permanently offered the second Sunday of each month at Tempe’s Chinese Shaolin Center.
Co-owner and co-operator Jake Rydberg said the center is offering the classes to give realistic street survival tips to women.
“We’d seen somebody else showing rape prevention techniques on television, and it was awful,” he said. “We want women to know how to hit and where to hit so they can protect themselves.”
Rydberg said all women, especially ASU students who often travel alone on campus late at night, should know the most basic techniques for self-protection.
“Most people who know a lot about self-defense never have to use it physically,” he said. “Just being aware is important. Awareness is the key to staying safe.”
The monthly classes are being offered for free because Rydberg and his wife, Laura Adams, the other owner and operator, wanted to make self-defense accessible to everyone.
The classes also offer attendants a taste of the studio that offers Kung Fu classes for fitness and self-defense, Rydberg said.
“If you attend one class you won’t be Bruce Lee, but you will give yourself a lot of confidence and new skills,” Rydberg said.
Though only about a dozen women attended the first class, Rydberg said the studio can handle more than 40 people and could eventually expand to two separate classes if the interest is large enough.
No matter how big the size, the classes will always remain free, he said.
“My wife moved here [and started the studio] to offer classes to ASU [students],” Rydberg said. “If we get stronger, the Tempe community gets stronger.”
The center already offers a Kung Fu-fitness and self-defense class that is only open to ASU students.
Veronica Carrillo, a sociology freshman, attended the first free class last month.
“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “There was no pressure or anything, and it was really informative.”
Carrillo said though she has never felt unsafe on an ASU campus, students, females especially, can never know what kind of a situation they might get into.
“It’s not as much about feeling unsafe as about being aware of your surroundings,” she said. “I think it’s a good thing for everyone to do.”
Jeremy Bailey, a religious studies sophomore, has taken Kung Fu classes at the Shaolin Center for about 18 months and encouraged his girlfriend and mother to take the free self-defense classes.
“Recently, especially, there’s been attacks around campus and elsewhere on women, and I feel like women should be able to fight back,” he said.
Bailey said he believes most women should learn to protect themselves in case they are ever in a dangerous situation.
“A lot of girls are never trained to fight, especially against somebody stronger than they are, and you never know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Learn more at shaolinarizona.com or attend the next free class on March 5 at 4 p.m.
Reach the reporter at tessa.muggeridge@asu.edu.
