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 saw you on the Montel Williams show the other day. Wow, what a blessing you two are. I sure wish that I could have seen something like that when I was in my early teens. I have a 12 year old daughter and a 14 year old son. Thank you so much for your time and ambition. I am sure there will be many lives saved through watching this. Thank you!!!

I saw you on the Montel Williams show recently and I was just SO impressed! The number of lives affected by your video is incomprehensible and I have to applaud you for creative spirit and willingness to take action to do something for the welfare of others.

I have a 8 nieces and I would like to show them all your DVD, so I was wondering if you would please send me a copy. I filled out the order form to make a donation. I sure hope you get enough responses so that you can get this important information out nationwide - and beyond!

First off I want to tell you I saw you on Montel & thought what you are doing is very impressive. It is wonderful seeing teenagers doing something so productive to help others in the community.

Not only does your video help teen girls & women, but I want to order one to have my young son watch it to help fight off any child predator that might try to abduct him. I really think your video should be shown to all young children as well to prepare them for circumstances that may arise such as attempted child abduction. Unfortunately we see all too often on the news what happens to young children who are caught off guard by these predators. Your video is a wonderful tool to help better prepare children to defend themselves. Again, thank you for making such a wonderful video to help others.
I will pass the word on to everyone I know.

I have just heard about the DVD from members of a city-wide committee that deals with domestic violence in the Jewish community. As we all know, date rape, abduction and other types of violence cross cultural, racial and religious lines -- they highly recommended this film for use in our schools.

Thank you so much --

I did a self defense speech two weeks ago. Another student came to me and told me she had got the Just Yell Fire DVD. A few of her daughter's friends were approached a week ago, they were lucky enough to get away. Now her daughter is taking the DVD to school for her class to watch. I'm again SO happy that you have made this movie, and I'm glad that there are girls learning to defend themselves. THANK YOU!!!

Give us the power, the ability to defend ourselves and live.

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.

Please send me a DVD so I can share it with my students. I will share it with whoever I can, and convince people to show it. With this project you have truely made a difference in the lives of hundreds of young women. I saw you on the Montel Williams show and was very impressed with your maturity and your dedication to helping others. You have no idea the ripples you have started with this project and I hope you ladies have a wonderful and fulfilling life for all the good you have done.

Dallas, My mother and I went to hear you speak in Portales and I just wanted to say that right after the program was over I text a close friend of mine who has been having problems and I told her to go to justyellfire.com. You are my new role model and I am a role model to many of my friends so thank you for giving me snd my friends the correct type of role model to look up to.

Besides being the mother of four daughters and one son, I am a retired Crime Scene Investigator. I'm very aware of the crimes and devastation of sexual assault cases, kidnappings and murder. My 13 year old son is a 3rd degree black belt in taekwondo, a black belt in Ki Gum Do (Korean sword), and a black belt in Hwa Rang Do. My 12 year old twin daughters are 2nd degree black belts as well. However, I still fear that they would "panic" if confronted with an abduction situation. I found this video to be a fantastic tool to reinforce all they have been taught. Congratulations! Keep up the great work. If this saves just one person's life, it's worth it's weight in gold. You should be very proud of yourselves!