Comments

Teaching girls that they CAN defend themselves

I am interested in becoming a certified trainer for Just Yell Fire. I gained my Master's degree in Library Science last May with an emphasis in children's and youth services, and hope to find a job soon as a public librarian. With the amount of contact I will have in that field with young and teenage girls, as well as contacts with schools and other libraries, I would like to find out how to become involved and help promote your program.

I have been training in aikido as a self-defense art since June, and will be testing for my first rank soon. The more I learned in aikido, the more it made me aware of how girls and women in America are socialized about violence. Movies, television, and popular media seem to promote the belief that girls and women cannot win or escape in a situation where we are under attack by a man. Recognizing this made me interested in finding out what programs were already available to promote girls' and women's self-defense. I discovered Just Yell Fire by Googling "women's self-defense". I was thrilled to find that someone has begun a movement to counter that socialization early in women's lives, beginning with teaching the girls who are most at risk that they CAN defend themselves and escape an attacker, even if their attacker is much larger. I myself am only 5'1", and the techniques that eliminate an attacker's advantage of greater height are also especially applicable to me.

I live in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and I would like any information available on training for certification for Just Yell Fire, either locally or in neighboring states if necessary. Many thanks to you, Dallas, and everyone else involved with Just Yell Fire for your caring and hard work.

I currently teach grades 6 8 Health classes. Violence prevention is a topic that is included as part of the 8th grade curriculum. Last fall a student told me of your web site and DVD. I previewed your video and thought it was absolutely excellent. I was able to show the video to four classes totaling approximately 120 students. At the end of the quarter when students filled out their course evaluation, 68% of all students felt that the Just Yell Fire video was the most important part of the course.

Needless to say, due to the importance of information included in the video and the overwhelming thumbs up, I want all 268 of my students to have access to the important and possibly life saving information included in the video.
Thank you for all your doing to keep kids safe.

I want to start out by saying thank you for making this video, I think it will help a lot of young girls defend themselves from an attacker. I have several nieces that I want to see this video so that maybe they will know how to act if they ever find themselves in an unthinkable situation. I wished I had known about something like that when I was a teenager/young woman. I was date raped when I was twenty years old and I did not think there was anything that I could do because I went with this guy on my own free will. I tried to fight back but it was not enough. Please send me this video because I want the girls in my family to be prepared.

I first read about the video "just yell fire" in last weeks People magazine, and immediately went on line to get more information. As a gynecologist, I have seen firsthand the lifelong devastation of sexual assault. As a martial artist, I understand the importance of empowering everyone to be able to defend themselves. I am encouraging all of my friends, family, coworkers, etc. to visit your site, and learn more about this important message. I also hope to teach some of these skills at our next office meeting. Thank you, Thank you, for making this video.

Hi there, I saw you on the Montel show today and I have to say KUDOS to all of you who were involved in the making of this video!!!


You have strength and hearts of gold for spreading awareness of this kind. I have 3 daughters, aged 14, 8, and 6, and I can't stress enough as to the worry that I have on a daily basis being their mother, I worry about them walking to and home from school, about playing outside, and even being in a public place with their father and I, all it takes is a split second for someone to grab them.
You are all in my prayers and God is holding a special place for you all.

I am watching just yell fire right now and I am going to tell my counselor at school about it and chances are he will show this to are entire school and thanks for doing this!

I am a junior at Gettysburg College in PA. I don't know if you have been watching the news lately, but there has been a murder on our college campus last Thursday. One student (a male senior) strangled and murdered his (ex-)girlfriend of one year (a sophomore). It really shook our campus hard, along with myself, even though i did not know either one that was involved. After breaking down a little tonight, i realized, crying was not going to change the past; nor prevent incidents, assaults, nor murders like this from happening again in the future.
What will? Taking action!
I found your contact information after googling 'self defense for women classes' and wanted to get in contact with you right away. I was hoping you could hold self defense classes for female students, or any woman (faculty, staff or students) on our campus to help protect us if we were to ever get ourselves in this type of situation. It is very scary to know that an innocent 19 year old young woman was strangled, stabbed and murdered by someone that loved her for a year. Not even a stranger, or a crazy drug addict rapist on the street! Her boyfriend! Someone she trusted and loved! How scary is that? She was not able to get away, she was not able to defend herself. She died because of that.
But you... you have the power to give us woman that power. You have the ability to give us woman the ability to defend ourselves. To win. To live. And to help with our recovery of her death on our campus. I believe that immediately holding these self defense classes on our campus will prove that Emily Rachel Silverstein did not die in vain.
Please help me, help us. Give us the power, the ability to defend ourselves and live.

I will be sharing this with my daughter and my nieces, as I have 9 - and they all could definately use this information. This world is full of predators looking to take advantage of our young innocent girls, I know, because I used to be one myself. If I would have had the knowledge ahead of time - things might have turned out very different for me. My hope is, that your DVD will help my girls to be aware of their strengths, and their surroundings, and be in control of their situation, should something happen to them - God forbid.

Thank you for making this important DVD, and supplying it to the public.

Good luck on your CNN Heroes nomination!!!! You deserve it.

I can't begin to tell you how relieved I am to see that our youth are concerned about this topic. I am a troop leader for Girl Scouts of the Rio Grande, in El PAso, Texas, and a detention officer for El Paso County Juvenile Probation Department. I currently run the Studio 2B Program ( Girl Scouts) which is a program designed by girls for girls at the Juvenile Probation Department. It appears that our youth are fed up with abuse and rape. One of the focus series books is called "Take Charge" and it is about rape and abuse. In the book it also recommends to "yell fire" for the same reasons you described. Your video , along with my group will be most helpful and impactful. I will definately forward your link to Girl Scouts of the Rio Grande.

This morning I had the good fortune of checking in on the "everything self-defense" blog by Tom Callos. I must say it was a pleasure to view "Just Yell Fire". I can't believe that I have never come across this tremendous piece on women's self-defense. Your daughter, Dallas and her friend are truly ambassadors on a subject that is only taken to lightly.

I have been teaching martial arts and situational self-defense since 1978. Only since 1997 has my school focused on the anti-abduction of children and the protection, rape prevention, and quick escape for women. We have implemented much of the information that is offered on this DVD through sources such as John Hall's "Date Escape" and Tony Blauer's "Rape Prevention".

The key that makes "Just Yell Fire" so solid is "who" is presenting this film. The two girls, the police officer, and Dallas' instructor give the targeted audience a much better presentation. It will be so much easier for girls and parents to pay attention and to stay interested.

I truly look forward to scheduling and evening with daughters and parents so that we may view "Just Yell Fire" together. I'm not sure if it's possible for me to download and burn the video to DVD. But I will give it a try and I look forward to sending as many parents as possible to your website.