Author Topic: Women hiking alone.  (Read 5787 times)

Magic girl

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #15 on: 13:28:41, 11/10/18 »
I can sort of see where hubby is coming from,where i walk are country lanes and some parts are wooded on either side.I think he worries if someone dodgy driving along spots I'm a lone female and bundles me into a car and I've sometimes seen cars parked near the wooded area but they've usually been dog walkers as there are a lot of fields along there as well.At the end of the day I'm not willing to stay cooped up indoors just because something might happen and anyway if im going to be out for longer than an hour or go further distances i just text my son who track me on his phone as we both have iPhones and i never wear headphones so I'm always aware of my surroundings x

ninthace

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #16 on: 13:41:30, 11/10/18 »
If you have a phone signal where you walk you can use Buddy Beacon on the ViewRanger app for your family to track you.
Solvitur Ambulando

fit old bird

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #17 on: 19:19:26, 11/10/18 »
I am asked all the time if it is dangerous to walk on my own. Some people always think that something terrible might happen. Nothing terrible has happened to me.


Difficult to convince a worried partner that the chances of being attacked out in the countryside are very low. I think it is more likely to happen in a town centre.


Keep on walking, he might not worry so much the more you go out, and come back refreshed and smiling.


I wrote a blog post about it in 2013
https://meanqueen-lifeaftermoney.blogspot.com/2013/02/confident-about-walking.html


ilona

NeilC

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #18 on: 09:05:05, 15/10/18 »
On self defence classes - I'd say that physical self defence is generally worthless for women unless you're willing to join a hard-sparring boxing/Muay Thai/BJJ type club and train hard several times a week, all for a situation which may never happen. I've been doing BJJ and a bit of boxing for years now and if I'm off injured for a month or two, I get my butt kicked when I return because my timing is off. I.e. it takes continuous practice against people trying hard to beat you to keep your skills up to a level where they work well in reality.  I hate to think of women walking about thinking they could beat a determined, strong nutcase of a man with the self-defence class "eye poke and kick to the nuts" nonsense. Awareness training (or just reading book about it) is actually useful - a lot of people get into trouble when they knew something was wrong but felt socially awkward doing something decisive about it early on.


There are phone apps like Witness and others which will take live video snaps send them continuously to a 3rd party once you activate it, so that you can potentially stop an attack by informing them pics of their face are already available to the police and taking your phone won't stop it....assuming you have a signal of course.


I'm guessing the actual risks are very low in most areas and much lower than all sorts of other activities we are happy to do. But I must admit I wouldn't be too keen on my wife walking alone.

Deolman

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #19 on: 08:47:19, 17/10/18 »
Have you considered a personal tracker.  I agree it would not help in the event of a personal attack but hubby would be able to track your walk from the comfort of his armchair and, should something untoward happen, would know your location.  Some trackers such as the SPOT Gen 3 also enable you to send a messages via GPS to let him know your safe (or otherwise) and can also be used to call for help in the event of an emergency.

Maggot

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #20 on: 20:17:04, 21/10/18 »
I have lots of these conversations with my wife, she is quite nervous but I hold to the theory of random attackers will go where the victims are.  It is counter-intuitive, but probably the amount of attacks on a hill in the back end of nowhere is tiny when you compare it to attacks in urban areas.  I wild camp and the good lady says 'what if you meet a nutter?'  I always point out that at any such meeting the would be attacker would actually be the second maddest person in the interaction  :D   And most of the people you meet in these situations are more likely to offer you a tot of rum, share your camp-site, and leave as a friend  O0


As for ladies self-defence, nah.  Pointless waste of money unless you are a properly serious Krav Magarist or boxer or the like, don't waste your money with a days course in a village hall.  Just unleash your fury  :knuppel2:

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #21 on: 21:28:58, 21/10/18 »
I've actually tried the poke in the eyes on someone who stabbed me although I went a bit further than poking, I stuck my thumbs right down the sides of his eyes into his eye sockets and moved them all around. I'd already disarmed my attacker and got on top of him though which a girl might not be able to do. Months later he said his eyes still hurt and he was still on pain killers for it so perhaps don't discount using a bit of an eye gouge if you're in a life or death situation and don't know BJJ or boxing, you sometimes have to fight and I think it helped me.

Maggot

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #22 on: 23:44:18, 21/10/18 »
I've actually tried the poke in the eyes on someone who stabbed me although I went a bit further than poking, I stuck my thumbs right down the sides of his eyes into his eye sockets and moved them all around. I'd already disarmed my attacker and got on top of him though which a girl might not be able to do. Months later he said his eyes still hurt and he was still on pain killers for it so perhaps don't discount using a bit of an eye gouge if you're in a life or death situation and don't know BJJ or boxing, you sometimes have to fight and I think it helped me.


One point, one question.


The point is that when shizzle like this happens to you, 8 hours in a village hall learning to do this or that with your right or left hand is useless, you just have to relax, wait for the adrenalin to start flowing and go for it with whatever is closest.  Your base fight instinct will do as good as it can under the circumstances.  It's what your teeth, fingers and feet are for.  Use the Force Luke.......


The question is, how come after he stabbed you, and you nearly clawed his eyes out, why on earth were you asking him if eyes were sore :o

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #23 on: 08:37:47, 22/10/18 »

The question is, how come after he stabbed you, and you nearly clawed his eyes out, why on earth were you asking him if eyes were sore :o


I saw him at the doctors surgery randomly and he started talking to me so we had a chat. He wasn't supposed to, it was against his bail conditions but he wasn't the sort of gentleman bothered by that. I didn't ask about his eyes he volunteered it.

Maggot

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #24 on: 21:53:23, 22/10/18 »

I saw him at the doctors surgery randomly and he started talking to me so we had a chat. He wasn't supposed to, it was against his bail conditions but he wasn't the sort of gentleman bothered by that. I didn't ask about his eyes he volunteered it.


Crikey, well I am glad you are ok!

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #25 on: 23:08:05, 22/10/18 »
Crikey, well I am glad you are ok!

Thanks.

Hopefully no lone female hikers need to eye gouge, everyone I've met in the great outdoors has been nice I'd be more worried in the city but it's a cheap dirty move anyone can pull and you might be able to run away if they can't see properly.

tonyk

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #26 on: 12:32:25, 23/10/18 »
I've actually tried the poke in the eyes on someone who stabbed me although I went a bit further than poking, I stuck my thumbs right down the sides of his eyes into his eye sockets and moved them all around. .
Ecky thump?
 

 

NeilC

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #27 on: 10:53:18, 25/10/18 »
I think we've gone a little off topic but my point wasn't that a specific attack was useless in all circumstances. I was saying that too many SD classes focus on set moves and "dirty tricks" as if they are a panacea and they're not. And, as Maggot says, a few hours in a village isn't going to cut it. That time is better spent working out how to avoid problems and how to address them with other tactics rather than "if he grabs you here, you do X" physical stuff.


So the eye poke reference was to that - the all too common teaching that it's likely to put an aggressor out of action as it's some secret power. Us humans are pretty good at avoiding eye damage naturally. A fully grown man disarming someone, mounting him and then gouging is an entirely different thing to being taught the "a kick to the knee and then a palm strike to the nose will disable him..." stuff. Sure even that stuff can work but only if you drill it, for real, week in week out for years.

And the main the reason I think this is because I think it took me maybe 2-3 years of training multiple times a week in BJJ (on top of years of Judo as a youth) before I was confident I would be able to handle a decent percentage of untrained guys and even then I could very easily get caught out with overwhelming agression or catching a punch to the jaw or something. And if there is more than one person or a knife involved then I'm not even slightly confident. So one-off courses are not likely to fair better than that I'd say.


If I was to recommend a single martial art it would be this: http://www.llapgoch.org.uk/


« Last Edit: 10:56:41, 25/10/18 by NeilC »

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #28 on: 14:04:20, 25/10/18 »
OK NeilC but you are a trained Judo expert who usually fights other Judo experts, the average attacker isn't. I can't help but wonder isn't it better to know something rather than nothing? A girl might find she has to fight an attacker. better than knowing nothing? Are these courses really that bad it's better not to bother? With all the self defence experts out there surely some of them have cobbled together something useful? I'd have thought moves to cover the attacker just standing there would be most useful as it's a position he possibly starts off with and may return to (or return to close enough) and doesn’t require lots of if he does X do Y.

I don't know what the one day self defence classes teach and it seems you do so maybe it really is better to know nothing.
« Last Edit: 19:10:27, 25/10/18 by Rob Goes Walking »

tonyk

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Re: Women hiking alone.
« Reply #29 on: 23:23:50, 25/10/18 »
OK NeilC but you are a trained Judo expert who usually fights other Judo experts, the average attacker isn't. I can't help but wonder isn't it better to know something rather than nothing? A girl might find she has to fight an attacker. better than knowing nothing? Are these courses really that bad it's better not to bother? With all the self defence experts out there surely some of them have cobbled together something useful? I'd have thought moves to cover the attacker just standing there would be most useful as it's a position he possibly starts off with and may return to (or return to close enough) and doesn’t require lots of if he does X do Y.

I don't know what the one day self defence classes teach and it seems you do so maybe it really is better to know nothing.
I have been involved in martial arts for around four decades and agree with everything Neil says.These quick fix self defence classes might  make the student even more vulnerable by giving them a false sense of confidence and suppressing their natural instincts,ie,run in the opposite direction.Boxing and any contact sport is excellent and will get you used to taking blows but even these sports have their limitations due to mainly concentrating on one opponent and not taking in the bigger picture.One of my former neighbours was an ex-pro boxer and he fell foul of this mindset when he was concentrating on the mouthy guy and got sucker punched from the side by his puny mate.Result was a stay in hospital and six plates in his head.Its that easy to get badly hurt in a fight that has no rules and no ref and no limitation on the numbers who might decide to take part.
 Eye pokes are good in theory but I have hardly seen any data on their use in the street.How many attackers have been charged with gouging out someone's eyes? I only know of one case and that was by a woman who was mentally ill and she did an unprovoked ambush attack rather than trying to do something once the attack had started.Groin kicks are another fallacy due to nature protecting the groin quite well on males and targeting it when full of adrenaline is very difficult.Biting can be very effective,albeit risky in this day and age due to infection,but if your life is in danger its worth the risk.Women have an advantage here as they can judge the aggressors intentions and if its of a sexual nature lure him in to kiss them.Once in contact with the tongue they can bite through it or target the lower lip.Both areas will cause immense pain,blood loss and panic thus giving a window of opportunity for escape or follow up by biting the nose or ears and ramming thumbs in eyes once the attacker is weakened.Applying these type of techniques takes a fair degree of ruthlessness but if the attacker is dehumanised and seen as an object the job will be easier.
 Knives,well forget it.The only real defence is to run like hell in the opposite direction,provided you even see the knife.If the attacker's true intention is to kill or badly hurt you its unlikely you will be aware of what has happened until the attack is over.Someone who shows a knife is using it as a way of control for money,goods or sex etc and it might be possible to walk away in one piece provided they get what they are after.
 As for weapons in the countryside the obvious weapon is a large stone,plenty available and no one can prove you didn't pick it up at the time of the attack so no trouble with the law afterwards.CCTV is also unlikely in the countryside.Carry the stone in your dominant hand  and use a swinging motion to smash the jaw,temple,eye orbits etc and keep the attack going until enough damage has been done.Just as effective as a knuckle duster and an attacker is unlikely to look at what a woman is carrying in her hand during the interview stage.Its usually facial contact as a way of intimidation.All this is last resort stuff and if you do your homework its highly unlikely you will end up in these type of situations.Gain intel on the areas you are walking in,look on the net for any evidence of attackers operating in the area or any on-going police operations.This is the kind of thing that will protect you rather than buying into twisty-wristy "self defence" classes.

 


 

 

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