Model Mugging

Model Mugging or Impact is a form of self-defense training that aims to better prepare women (and, less frequently, men) for real-life attack situations.

Model Mugging History

Matt Thomas founded the concept of teaching women to defend themselves with full contact fighting against a male instructor wearing protective padding. In the summer of 1971, Matt was a student studying Karate in Southern California. One of his classmates was a female student and second degree black belt who had won martial art tournaments for sparing and Kata. Kata is a specific set of continuous beautiful martial art movements that help develop balance and coordination.

One night the female black belt student entered the dojo in the middle of the black-belt circle. She was visibly upset. She said she had been raped and that despite her fighting skills, she had been unable to defend herself against the attacker. She was walking to her car one evening when she was attacked. He grabbed her, threw her on the ground and straddled her. She was ineffective when she punched the assailant in his stomach and even thought that she held her punch, just like she had been trained in point tournament fighting. He severely beat her, and then raped her. She felt as though she had disgraced the school and her fighting art.

This stunned Matt and all of the other students because here was a black belt whom they had all seen perform beautifully in the dojo, yet who was totally powerless at the moment when she needed her skills and power. Everyone was silent, waiting to see what the master instructor would say, and how he would explain why one of his best students was so unprepared for a real-life battle. But the master did not explain, instead, he agreed with her. Her instructor had the old traditional martial mindset that his school and fighting art was the best. In her "failure" she had shamed everyone, disgraced his school, and their fighting style. He said she needed to train harder. She ran away crying and Matt went after her to try to offer some kind of support, but as he turned around the master's eyes told him that if he left, he should not return; later validated by explicit instructions from his sensei not to return for being disrespectful.

Matt, who had watched this woman train with such grace and skill, suddenly questioned the effectiveness of the martial arts when used against a real-life attacker. Matt felt the martial arts and the school had failed this black belt student by letting her believe she could adequately defend herself when, in fact, she could not. She was taught an art, but she was not taught how to defend herself against the kinds of attacks women are subjected to.

Matt did not return to the dojo and while finishing his last year at Stanford University he researched over 3000 assaults against women and spoke with numerous survivors. He discovered commonalties in the ways rapists attack women. Rare at that time, he studied security camera videos of bar fights and prison fights to determine modern male/male attack patterns and from written law enforcement accounts. Comparatively he confirmed males attack females differently than males attack other males. Men will fight other men in different predatory or territorial attack patterns, but a male attacking a woman will normally throw her to the ground with the intent to degrade her through sexual acts. A man learns to fight territorially from the standing position, and is not accustomed to fighting on the ground unless he has experience and training in ground fighting, like high school wrestling and grappling. When a rapist forces a woman onto the ground, he is not planning to fight her. His intentions are that of conquest and humiliation.

Ironically, a woman is actually stronger when fighting from the ground, because she is able to use the strongest parts of her body, her legs and hips against an assailant’s upper body strength. A woman who fights a man from the standing position cannot realistically compete with his greater upper body strength. An average woman’s upper body strength is 30% of an average man’s. Men are commonly taught to fight from a standing position, even though many fights will end up on the ground, they are not going to be comfortable on the ground unless they are a wrestler or grappler where they are trained to predominately use their upper body strength. If a woman is trained to fight on the ground, she can gain a significant advantage if attacked. Matt double majored in biology and psychology earning his bachelor and master degrees in 4 years with both academic and departmental honors. He studied the most efficient ways to teach, such as Albert Bandura's Role Model Mastery overcoming fear of snakes and flying; Dan Millman's Peaceful Warrior humane coaching style of teaching with joy and laughter; Colin Pittenridge's Animal Communication; Karl Pribram's Neurophysiology of Learning; Ernst Hilgard's State Conditioned learning; Phillip Zimbardo's Cognitive Dissonance; Klaus Bensch's rigorous applications of the Scientific Method; Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey; and later at Harvard Medical School, David Shapiro's Biofeedback in learning.

Martial Science: After his research, Matt offered a self-defense class at Harvard Medical School in 1972. A student was stabbed in between the library and the dorm so some of Matt's co-students asked him to teach a self defense class, where he immediately implemented the information he learned from studying assaults against women and men incorporating modern instructional strategies in the format of the course, which Matt has described as martial science. He taught the course realizing the lives of his students depended on the validity of what he taught them. Scenario Based Self-defense also known as Reality Based Self-defense (RBSD or RBMA) is just one part of the martial science process.

In his first course Matt taught the techniques based on how women and men are really attacked while developing empowerment through role model mastery. He taught his students the counter techniques to the positions that rapists commonly place women in and the strategies necessary to stop an assailant from predatory and territorial attack patterns. At the end of the course he covered himself in primitive protective padding and tested each student by attacking them in order to test their ability to defend themselves in a more realistic, full contact, full speed, high adrenalin scenario. They all failed!

The reasons these women failed were that they felt inhibited about hurting him. They felt uncomfortable about hitting because they were brought up with the mindset that "girls" are nice and did not hit or hurt people. Even though they were taught the proper techniques, most of them just froze in fear and were unable to overcome the "freeze response." He extended the class and re-attacked his students and they overcame their inhibitions and began responding effectively.

During the first fight at graduation, Matt was knocked unconscious. This demonstrated two points, the first fight techniques worked and second he needed better body armor. Through the years of teaching this revolutionary program he was injured over forty times and knocked out twenty-two times.

Matt developed a protective suit that is now referred to as the "padded assailant." The modern equipment allows the instructors to get up and walk away after each fight, uninjured. Injury is extremely rare considering the full contact devastating strikes instructors receive while teaching their students how to really fight. Not only is the equipment the best, the training Model Mugging instructors receive in how to properly wear it reduces the chances of injury to their students and themselves.

Model Mugging provides women with the emotional empowerment, physical skills and experience, while developing the winner’s mindset to protect themselves realistically against single, armed, and multiple attackers.

Techniques and Training

Model mugging training involves students role-playing and sometimes fighting through a variety of assault scenarios. Students are taught physical defenses, methods of avoiding or defusing potential assaults, verbal defenses, and decision-making under the pressure of such situations.

During the simulated assaults, heavily padded instructors, often referred to as muggers, accost, grab, or directly attack a student, who may respond (if they believe a physical response is appropriate for the situation) with full-force attacks to the padded instructor. The emotionally charged nature of the scenarios combined with the full-force nature of the fighting tend to create an adrenalized state similar to that of someone facing a real assault. The adrenalized nature of the training is intended to teach the student how to think clearly and respond in adrenalized situations.

External links

• [1] For more on Model Mugging Self-defense
• List of Impact/Model Mugging Chapters
• Alternate list of chapters