In a world where one out of three women will fight domestic abuse sometime during their lifetime and 2,000 children go missing each day, we need to teach all females and children to “fight like a girl.”
Founded 17 years ago, the Fight Like a Girl program teaches women how to use their strengths and develop both physical and mental defenses.
Kym Rock, founder of Fight Like a Girl, was herself a victim of domestic abuse and is also a cancer survivor, who at 5-foot-2 went on to become a seven-time world karate champion.
Rock says “the program teaches girls and women to think smarter and develop the essential skills and awareness to keep themselves out of dangerous situations and to get away from an abuser, abductor or attacker.”
She now travels the country speaking with and demonstrating skills to groups of women and inviting them to become trained professionals who can teach the program to others.
Her knowledge and expertise may have helped a Minnesota woman, Angela Champagne-From, who in a recent KSTP Channel 5 broadcast, recounted how she was brutally stabbed with a hunting knife in broad daylight in a parking lot in downtown Minneapolis and survived.
Champagne-From said she doesn’t like to think of herself as a victim and wants to empower other women so they don’t become one.
Now she’s teaching others by sharing her story of how she says she “fought like a girl” and it saved her life.
She said, “I scratched, screamed, bit, hit my horn, mule kicked him backwards, reasoned with him.” And he finally backed off after leaving her with a 10-inch gash in her stomach.
The attacker was later identified by surveillance photos as a convicted sexual predator with a rap sheet a mile long, but at the time he was dressed in a business suit carrying a briefcase.
Her attacker told her, “You’re lucky you’re a fighter.” She said it was the best compliment an attacker could give a victim.
Anne Yatch, a self-defense expert also featured in the TV clip, says every woman needs to know she can fight and win, just like Angela did. Yatch says confidence wins fights.
Both women said they believe all women should have some kind of self-defense training. There are tools women can carry, including a “defensive flashlight,” which is 25 times brighter than a normal flashlight and can blind an attacker.
Most attacks are really about power. Champagne-From says she never surrendered her confidence that day in the parking lot, so her attitude was just as useful as her self-defense skills.
And, with the Anna Marie abuse shelter as proof that violence toward women exists right here in our community every day, the Newsleader sets forth a challenge to bring “Fight Like a Girl” training to St. Joseph and for all women to take part.