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Summary: An amazing journey: transformation thru women's self defense
Review: Women can defend themselves? What a concept! This book is brilliant. It is more than just an overview of full contact defense for women and children, it's a manual for changing lives. Can you imagine what it might be like for a woman not to be afraid to walk down the street for the first time in her life? Snortland's mix of hard facts, biting humor and keen passion make this concise book a joy to read. When she's not shocking you out of your stupor, she's knocking you off your seat and making you roll on the floor doubled up with laughter. It should be on the mandatory list for every college freshman. Female and male. For women, it's a transformational door to the possibility of being safely dangerous. For men, it's notice that there are now consequences for violence towards women. I give this book my highest recommendation.
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Summary: In Defense of Ms. Snortland and Impact...
Review: You should buy and read the book. If you've read these other reviews, you know why...Impact may not be the "best" self defense system for women, in that if a woman wants to master brazilian jiu jitsu, krav maga, or one of the other "sound fighting systems" ...then she could be a more effective fighter than if she took Impact alone. Indeed, after the years of judo and san soo I'd studied, the Impact men's class I took gave me relatively little in the way of new insights or techniques. However, of the self defense schools I've seen, Impact does the best job of directly addressing the types of threats and violence women face in our society, and does so in an environment explicitly supportive of women instead of subtly slighting women as do so many other combat systems. Impact also seems to do the best job of quickly making someone competent, committed and confident enough to be able to defend themselves. (For example, Impact's use of padded assailants for more realistic training means that the 25-hour Impact "Basics" class will be far more useful than the endless air-kicks and air-punches that most traditional martial arts schools have new students perform.) By all means, do your own research on which self defense systems to study. Even if you do decide to take Impact, I'd encourage you to then go on and learn more, to master one or several of those other sound fighting systems ... But in my oh so humble opinion, Impact is still the best place to start -- *especially* for women. Oh yeah, and buy the book already.
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