Fighting fear
Feb. 4—Women in Mt. Juliet will have a new opportunity to learn to defend themselves next month.
Registration for the Mt. Juliet Police Department's women's self-defense program are open for the March class series. Officer and instructor Anne Francis starts with the basics, how to move the feet so that her students don't fall, how to throw an attacker off of them and how to strike someone with their body.
"From an instructor's perspective, it's so great to watch these women gain confidence," Francis said. "Every bit of knowledge they gain just boosts them a little more and a little more. Most of the women I teach don't have any self-defense experience. They've never been in a fight. They've never even had anyone yell at them, and the first time you run into something like that, it's terrifying. It's good to see that they feel more capable of handling that kind of situation. They know that they don't have to be scared, that they can handle it."
Many of the students that Francis teaches in the program are mothers bringing their daughters in to prepare them for college and to go out into the world.
"The mothers are very concerned about their daughters going out for the first time," Francis said. "College can be really scary. A lot of these girls have never left home before. A lot of them are pretty sheltered too. We have a pretty good town, and we don't see a lot of this kind of violence, but once you get them out of the city, into these new towns, new places, with all sorts of men and other things going on, they might not know how to handle themselves in certain situations."
A lot of the class is dedicated to keeping women from winding up in a risky situation in the first place, but it also deals with what they should do if they find themselves in a situation where they feel unsafe.
"It's so amazing to see these girls realizing, 'Oh my gosh, this could happen to me, because it could happen to anyone, and I do need to be prepared," " Francis said. "It helps the mothers too. They feel more at ease about sending their daughters out into the world on their own."
Francis teaches her students to project confidence and avoid looking like an easy target to attack.
"We do not do victim blaming in my class at all ... never once would we do something like that," Francis said. "We teach our girls to not look like you're someone who's easy to overcome, to not look like they're someone who's easy to attack. A lot of girls, they close in on themselves. They walk quickly. They keep their heads down. They try to avoid any kind of confrontation. I teach them not to do that."
Strategies that Francis teaches to help her students carry an air of confidence include holding themselves up, squaring their shoulders and lifting their chins. She tells them to look around and make eye contact with people.
"A lot of the time if an attacker even thinks that you saw him, even if you didn't, that's enough to deter him from coming after you." Francis said. "It's all about projecting, 'I can handle anything. I'm not scared. I know what I'm doing. I know where I am.' "
While a college campus is a more concentrated area, Francis stressed the fact that no matter the location, someone could be at risk of being attacked.
"You could be attacked anywhere," Francis said. "You could be attacked at the grocery store parking lot, in your home, at your daycare ... you never know. It's important to maintain a state of readiness no matter where you are."
Francis started the program alongside Sgt. Lance Schneider because of her own experiences with assault.
"Sexual assault has unfortunately been a part of my life," Francis said. "When my mother was very young, she was assaulted. She was raped by a family member. It basically ruined her life. It affected everything she ever did, and it affected the way she raised her children."
While Francis' mother has passed on, she agreed to be an instructor as a way to honor her.
"I started this class to try to save anybody else from that, to try to make sure that no woman ever has to go through that, ever spread the trauma to her children, that no girl ever has to feel afraid, and to teach them that you don't have to be afraid," Francis said. "You can be strong, and if something does happen to you, it's not the end of the world. I never tell anybody to get over an assault, but I tell them, 'You can get past it and take your life back.' My mother was never able to do that. This is kind of my way to honor her life. It's my gift to her."
