Fighting and Writing

Today I’m really excited to share my guest post on The Gift of Writing with you.

As some of you may know, BK (before kids) I was a self-defense instructor in Manhattan for six years at a company called Prepare Inc.

I loved my job. I loved watching my students, women and children, learn how to save their own lives, physically and psychologically. Those years were formative for me. I learned so much about strength, power, and resilience – my students’ and my own.

Find out how writing is like self-defense here, “Fighting, and Writing, for Your Life.” I am so curious to hear what you think!

And for those of you who might want to take an actual self-defense class, the studio where I taught is still going strong. Check out their website if you’re in the tri-state area (of the US), or the national one, to see if there is a class near you. There’s one in the UK and Israel, too. I’m also always up to chat about it, if you want to know more.

Finally, this post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t include some actual footage of me kicking butt. (Skip to minute 2:35 to check out 10 seconds of my five minutes of fame. I’m still waiting for the rest.)

The clip is from the deleted scenes of the Jodie Foster movie (that you probably don’t remember or even heard of) called, The Brave One. I had the chance to film this during my last year of teaching. Fun and surreal. Directors actually yell, “Action!” and you really do sit around for hours.

Hope to see you at The Gift of Writing!

P.S. As I’ve recently learned, Canadians spell self-defense with a “c,” so that is how it’s spelled on the site.

11 thoughts on “Fighting and Writing”

When I was just out of college, I took a self defense course. Just yesterday, I was thinking that it’s probably good to take a refresher since (ahem) college was a few years ago now. How often should people retake a self defense course?

Love the clip of you kicking butt! 🙂 It must have been a really cool experience!

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Dana | April 4, 2015 at 2:40 am

I think a decade warrants a refresher, even if just something brief. I truly believe in the whole muscle memory concept. I miss my days of fighting, which sounds funny, but amid the routine of it, and the performance, because I was an instructor, there were bursts of real adrenaline and energy that is hard to come by in a day job. Though I feel it in a different degree with writing.

Thanks for watching my clip 🙂 it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience!

Sent from my iPhone

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- Minuscule Moments | April 4, 2015 at 7:32 am
  
  Loved it Dana you are an amazing writer, i left a comment over there and shared the piece.
  
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- Dana | April 5, 2015 at 1:37 pm
  
  Thank you so much Kath!
  
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Wow Dana love it!

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Dana | April 5, 2015 at 1:43 pm

Thank you Janice! 🙂

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You’re such an incredible writer.
I’ve never learned anything self defense but it’s nice to think that size doesn’t matter and it’s nice to think about people gaining confidence and life skills.
Perhaps I should do it!

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Dana | April 5, 2015 at 10:18 pm

Thank you so much Tamara! You’re so sweet. I’m biased of course but I highly recommend taking a self-defense class 🙂 I even have a friend in the Boston suburbs who teaches classes! Though not sure how close/far that is to you.

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