Empowerment Self-Defense helps individuals develop easy-to-use techniques such as awareness, assertiveness, and verbal confrontation skills in combination with safety strategies and physical techniques to prevent, resist, and escape violent assaults.

Peace Over Violence’s Empowerment Self-Defense courses provide psychological awareness and verbal skills, not just physical training. 

PHILOSOPHY

Our programs empower women and children to prevent crime and victimization, break the myths surrounding violence against women, and develop simple, easy-to-use self-defense techniques.

One of the first organizations in the U.S. to provide women’s self-defense, Peace Over Violence has been empowering women and children to prevent crime and victimization for more than twenty years. We offer self-defense classes to women and children in businesses, community organizations and schools.

Participation in self-defense classes encourages you to think in terms of options and choices, develops your awareness and assertiveness skills and provides practice for physical self-defense techniques. It expands the way you think about violence prevention, helps you deal with your fears and enables you to feel more empowered in your life.

Ideally, a good self-defense program should reflect these philosophical points

• Women do not ask for, cause, invite or deserve to be assaulted. Women and men sometimes exercise poor judgment about behavior, but that does not make them responsible for the attack.

• Whatever a woman’s decision in a given self-defense situation, her decision to survive the best way she can must be respected. Self-defense classes should not be used as judgment against a victim/survivor.

• Good self-defense programs do not tell an individual what she “should” or “should not” do. A good program offers options, techniques, and a way of analyzing situations, including a full range of strategy-building. A program may point out what usually works best in most situations, but each situation is unique, and the final decision rests with the person actually confronted by the situation..

KIDS empowerment self defense

Kids Self-Defense and Safety is a child abuse prevention/intervention program based on empowerment of the child through building self-esteem, awareness and assertiveness skills, and physical self-defense techniques.

Parents can’t always be there when their children face danger. Safe kids are safety smart. They trust their instincts, think on their feet and don’t hesitate to protect themselves. There are ways to train children to be safety smart. Peace Over Violence’s Kids’ Self-Defense and Safety provides children with an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills, respect their instincts and cultivate assertiveness.

The program focuses on three components, incorporating age-appropriate role-plays which encourage children take action on their own behalf. Statistics and awareness exercises help children to understand that, while being prepared is important, most people would never hurt a child. Assertiveness exercises and conflict resolution skill building exercises increase the child’s ability to prevent abuse by adults, older children, or peers, and physical techniques build self-esteem and decrease fear.

Kids Self-Defense & Safety is available for schools, scouts, church groups, recreation departments, etcetera. Adapted workshops are available for children who are deaf, blind, physically disabled, or developmentally disabled. The program is designed to be flexible in time and cost and can be adapted to meet the specific needs of our clients.

Workshops can be presented in English, Spanish or American Sign Language (ASL).

YOUTH SELF DEFENSE & SAFETY

Our Youth Self Defense and Safety classes are designed for girls only ages 12-17.

Participants will learn how to be more assertive; how to resolve conflict; to have healthy relationships; and how to execute some physical self-defense techniques. We also offer to communities in and around Los Angeles County, a program that involves youth, working with and empowering other youth, to help prevent violence throughout their communities. Peace Over Violence’s Youth Self Defense and Safety program brings youth leaders, together with adult instructors, to offer Self Defense and Safety training, youth relationship violence prevention education, and mentoring opportunities to youth and youth programs throughout our communities.

SELF DEFENSE & SAFETY FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES & SENIOR CITIZENS

Peace Over Violence offers workshops specifically for women with physical disabilities and for the elderly.

In the past few years, thousands of Southern California women and children have attended these workshops. The program is presented in four modules as a means to empower participants to prevent crime and victimization and learn how to overcome fear in their lives. 

MODULE 1: Awareness & Assertiveness as Crime Prevention Tools

MODULE 2: Developing Street & Residential Safety

MODULE 3: Financial Self-Protection

MODULE 4: Physical Self-Defense Techniques and Skills

The techniques taught are simple, easy to learn, and can be modified to each individual’s ability. Our expert instructors have provided training for persons who are deaf, visually impaired, mild to severely physically disabled and/or developmentally disabled.

Trainings are available in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language.

PERSONAL SECURITY AWARENESS TRAINING

This two hour training provides information on the realities of violence, breaks the myths surrounding violence against women, and offers vital hands-on training to build awareness and develop effective, assertive assault prevention techniques.

WOMEN WARRIOR WEEKEND

Probably the most thorough self-defense course a woman can take, Women Warrior Weekend offers a two-day intensive Empowerment Self-Defense program that culminates in practice with trained padded attackers.

Women Warrior Weekend is a progressive, innovative women’s program applying our empowerment model of self-defense. This class offers 12 hours of interactive training in awareness, assertiveness and physical self-defense techniques. Role-playing and assertiveness exercises are used to empower participants, and encourage them to participate in their own safety. Co-instructors participate as “padded attackers” to aid participants in a hands-on practice of newly learned physical self defense techniques, including strikes, kicks and floor techniques.

Participants not only enjoy the confidence of learning that they can protect themselves but, perhaps most importantly, they learn that they have a right to feel they are worth protecting.

• 12-hour Women Warrior Weekend class is $225.00 per participant

• Lifetime brush-up sessions are $350.00 per participant

• Women Warrior Day class includes the same components of Women Warrior Weekend within the course of one day. The base rate for an 8-hour class is $175.00 per participant

All classes are offered in English, Spanish and American Sign Language.

Testimonials