Concrete Jungle Self Defense
In a survival of the fittest world, it pays to be the most fit
By Steve Enders
Jessica Laughlin is about to take all of her pent-up aggression out on this poor soul who chose the wrong time to mess with the wrong woman. The man, in this case, is actually a torso-sized punching bag, but for the 10 seconds it's going to take her to pummel the thing, it doesn't matter. It's good that the bag's not a person. If it were, she'd quite possibly kill the guy.
Laughlin, a 19-year-old senior at Saratoga High School prepares to launch her tiny 4-foot, 10-inch frame into the bag with a series of blows that Hulk Hogan would be proud of.
OOF!
She drops her knee into the imaginary mid-section of the man, who is lying on the floor because she just unleashed a flurry of elbows and knees to the previously upright assailant.
After the devastating knee drop, Laughlin collapses to all fours, and leans over the "face" of the bag, immediately whipping three succinct forearm throws into his chin.
WHAP-WHAP-WHAM!
She bounces up, filled with adrenaline and a newfound sense of safety.
It's got to hurt. Laughlin's wincing classmates pause to imagine just what receiving those blows might feel like.
"I'm going to college in Los Angeles, and I've heard it's not such a good area," she says. "With my features, it'd be pretty easy to hurt me."
Not anymore though.
This isn't your stab-him-with-your-car keys self-defense class. It's not "Model Mugging" or the new aerobic health club craze of "cardio kickboxing."
This is Concrete Jungle Self Defense, eight weeks of classes that teach one to "Think like a bodyguard. Fight like a Marine."
Peggy Redpath, a 51-year-old from Campbell is taking the class for the same reasons as everyone else.
Before learning of the classes here, Redpath says she drove all the way to Santa Rosa just to take an introductory self-defense class.
"And I just always put it off," she says. "I had a certain amount of fear in just learning how to do it."
But two weeks ago while walking her dogs, Redpath says she confronted a motley group of young men loitering near Westmont High School. Even though the group was looking at her with what seemed to be ominous intentions, Redpath says she had the confidence to continue her walk as though they weren't even there.
Enter Cordelia Clancy--herself a slight, soft-spoken and kind-looking gentlewoman who lives in Saratoga. But pity the man who pulls the wrong move on her--he would pay dearly for it.
That's the approach she and her partner, Mark Wightman, are hoping to teach other young women and men, right here in Saratoga.
Clancy is nimble on her feet, testament to her 15 years practicing and teaching the most hardcore fighting techniques. She's a certified black belt instructor of Tukong Moosul--what she calls an "eclectic" martial art, used today by the South Korean Special Tukong Attack Unit. They're the guys who occasionally tangle with their North Korean enemies in jungles along the border of the two nations, she says, often in hand-to-hand combat behind enemy lines.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
It's not a pretty sight, but Cordelia Clancy, using her partner, Mark Wightman, as a model, shows that a hair stick can prove an effective weapon of self-defense.
Tough Girl
Clancy is also a certified executive protection specialist--or more simply put, a bodyguard.
She landed in Texas after moving from London in 1987, where she began training in Tukong Moosul. From there, it was on to Saratoga and West Valley College, where she and Wightman started teaching a self-defense class six years ago.
Since then, the classes have been augmented with some of the top CEOs and executives of Silicon Valley's largest companies. She and Wightman also train law enforcement and military personnel and various local municipal departments, including code enforcement officers.
Maybe people will think twice when personally protesting those sometimes pesky metermaids.
Wightman and Clancy also team up with local Tim Williams to teach outdoor survival training in the Santa Cruz Mountains. To date, nearly 700 people have gone through the Concrete Jungle classes.
When Clancy demonstrates how to gain the upper hand on an assailant, her thin arms ripple with muscle as she smoothly and flawlessly goes through the complex movements.
There's a certain satisfaction to watching her work through the martial arts-inspired motions. She also gives those who watch her a kind of "I could do that" sense of pride.
After performing a lightning-fast sequence of simulated moves on Wightman, Clancy automatically bounces on the balls of her feet like a cross between Bruce Lee and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
It's almost enough to make someone think twice before tapping her from behind on the shoulder for fear of getting a tooth knocked out--or worse.
Stepping up to partake in some of the action isn't easy work, either. The timing has to be quick; the moves require good balance, and it takes a ton of energy to throw the blows into the bags.
On the bags, students work up quite a sweat. For a first-timer, the end of class brings sore elbows and knees and tired muscles.
"If anyone gets hurt, it's always us," she says. "We're very careful with our students, but we encourage them to really go for it on us so they get the full-force, fighting back experience under their belts."
Clancy says she's had her nose broken twice, and currently sports a fashionable cartilage tear in her knee, not that the injury is apparent. She and Wightman have also both suffered from whiplash and concussions.
In their classes, students shouldn't expect to study techniques for exercising the proper "motorcycle stomp," where a victim scrapes the edge of a shoe down the shin of someone who's attacked from behind. They're not going to be taught where to point a can of pepper spray, and they're not going to learn how to properly voice a loud and throaty yell that might fall on deaf ears.
Instead they're going to learn, quite simply, how to hurt someone who has attacked. And they're going to hurt them so bad that the attacker isn't going to be able to get up and continue the treacherous plan.
"The human body is a Swiss Army Knife," says Clancy to her 15 students, a mixture in ages, backgrounds, colors and sexes. "You've got to take the guy out."
Clancy's method--think like a bodyguard--instructs people to try and avoid problems altogether, if possible. But if things begin to turn sour, Clancy teaches that you should make the first move and throw the attacker off his guard. Then, if necessary, take him down as soon as possible.
She says that a former student once exited Vallco shopping mall and saw a suspicious-looking man standing against a wall. After looking at the man right in the eye--taking away any element of surprise he may have been planning--she continued on toward her car. Seconds later, sensing he was close behind, the woman spun around into a fighting position she had learned. The man was right on her heels, and was shocked when she showed no fear. He backed off and ran away after deciding that maybe she wasn't worth the trouble.
And in class two weeks ago, Clancy showed off a mold of someone's teeth who had been hit with a beer glass before he could start a barroom brawl. The blow stopped him dead in his tracks, she says, while passing around the toothless model.
"I take my inspiration from the female of the species throughout nature," she says. "She is peaceful 99 percent of the time, but if you try to mess with her or her young, she'll take your head off."
She adds that men are often surprised by what she does.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
The uninitiated might think a can of Pledge was for cleaning furniture; Cordelia Clancy and partner Mark Wightman show that the canister serves a purpose as a weapon of self-defense as well.
Violence pays
The self-defense methods, many of which are just plain gory, are justified in times of needed protection, she says.
"If it's going to be you or him, it's got to be him," she tells her students, trying to lessen the imaginative force of crunching bones and squishing organs.
"I once had a guy say to me that self-defense training gave women a false sense of security," she says. "I suggested to him that yes, unrealistic self-defense training would do that. Then I showed him a few of our moves and he changed his mind in a hurry."
Classes usually begin with a warmup session and a repeat of things already learned, including eye gouges, "panther strikes" and palm strikes.
The means are brutal, yet effective. Digging the eyeballs out of an oncoming attacker isn't a pretty thought, but it's probably going to stop him if it's executed properly. After all, he can't attack what he can't see.
The same goes for a perfect kick to a major joint, like the knees.
A "panther strike" to the throat can be equally devastating, as can the palm blast to someone's nose.
Clancy calls it "Smartfighting." The idea is that Hollywood-style punches and kicks aren't going to cut it in real life. Punching someone in the head is only going to lead to broken knuckles. And when is someone ever going to have the chance to pick someone up and throw him or her across a table or out a window?
"Common sense is not that common," Clancy says. "One of the principles of Smartfighting is to use a harder weapon against a weaker, vital target. It's basic physics. That way, the target gives, and not your body's weapon. The bad guy gets hurt, you don't."
The eyes, the groin area and the joints are just a few of the suggested targets. Moves to get to those spots on people's bodies with limited damage to the defender are also taught.
"Our method of training gives people a tangible experience of their strength. In order to do that, the training must be realistic, or you're missing the whole point," Clancy says.
Photograph by George Sakkestad
Saratoga High School senior Jessica Laughlin learns that size need not be an issue in defending oneself.
While Clancy doesn't like to give away all of her secrets for the class--you've got to sign up to learn them all--she says that the final session is a doozy.
Clancy covers herself with protective gear, turns out the lights and "jumps" her students in the dark. They don't know where the attack is going to come from, but to graduate as certifiably self-defendable, they've got to inflict damage on the assailant and get out of the situation.
Clancy says that it's during these sessions that she usually gets hurt.
Sounds rough, but it really is survival of the fittest in the concrete jungle that is the big city. For information, check Concrete Jungle's web page at http://www.cjselfdefense.com.
Saratoga, California Since 1975
