News: Culver City Seido's Approach to "Self-Defense"

West LA Seido Karate-do embeds its personal protection program into its on-going classes. Private instruction in this aspect of Seido can also be arranged with Kyoshi on an individual basis.
Personal protection, i.e. self-defense, at Seido uses a model of escalating stages of conflict resolution starting with avoidance behaviors, advancing to verbal de-escalation skills and finally, if no other option is left, introduction of high impact physical measures. In the first two stages, your intention is to defuse the conflict quickly and resolve the misunderstanding in a non-violent, effective manner. Only when these avenues have been exhausted would one resort to physical engagement. 

Any "self-defense" program worth its salt starts by having the student develop increased awareness of their surroundings. There's a good reason for starting here. Avoiding predators is the most effective, safest approach to self-defense in existence. Don't let anyone tell you differently. But in order to avoid the "bad guys", you need to know how to look for them. The West LA Seido program places a high value on this "widget" in your personal protection toolbox. Our program trains you in simple but effective practices that heighten and hone your surveillance skills to keep you out of harm's way.

Almost as important as the awareness of your surroundings is the awareness of yourself. Some people present themselves to the world in such a way that they attract a predator. These people are the proverbial "mugger's target." The personal protection program at West LA Seido teaches you how to present yourself in the world so that the predators lurking among us see you as a "hard target" and walk away from you without incident.

If you are to be selected as a target, for whatever reasons, predators often use verbal interactions as "stepping stones" to gain access to your personal space. Using the highly acclaimed work of Gavin de Becker,Marc MacYoung and William Fairbairn, West LA Seido will introduce you to the concepts of "closing" and "entering", terms that describe how a predator approaches his prey. Our methods will show you what to do about it.

Fighting is always the last resort. As the law enforcement community says, "If you've come to the point of fighting, you've done a lot wrong already." Fighting is an indication that your "tip of the spear" self-defense skills, awareness and verbal de-escalation, need improvement. Be that as it may, stuff happens. When it does, keep it simple. West LA Seido will train you in a simple but brutally effective approach to physical combat. Our program also informs you of what the legal consequences of violent behavior are in our society. Beware. They aren't pretty! And they're just one more reason to develop a diverse skill set to deal with uninvited aggression. Seido's program will give you those skills.