Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get Home Safely, July 25, 2000
This is a great book. Ms. Pennell offers self defense techniques and sensible advise with a lick of humor (a rare commodity these days) that even had me laughing out loud! Her intelligent and breezy tone is empowering to us all, helping us to think "Yes! I can do this!"The book is skillfully set up, divided into six well-labelled sections including How to Fall, How to Avoid Weapons, How to Break a Hold and others. The well tested techniques are painstakingly explained, with exercises to practice, suggestions (and cautions) all the way through. The illustrations are clear and suitable placed to aid in practicing the exercises. Throughout Ms. Pennell stresses, however that "self defense is not about being big and strong. It is about getting correct information to your brain so that you can be effective." Her big message is Get Home Safely and in this easy to follow book, she shows you how to do that. A big plus, and different from other self help manuals, is that she is literate and she gives her audience credit for intelligence as well, throwing in terms like "counter intuitive" and "cranium" (as well as a fair sprinkling of "nuts"). She writes as she talks, in an informal yet extremely helpful manner. She has years of experience, but she is not Ms. Bodybuilder, so her basic techniques, exercises and encouragement go a long way to give people like me, Ms. Average, the confidence to believe that with practice (practice, practice!), we too can learn the ability to defend ourselves from "the Bad Guy."
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun and full of facts and ideas, October 17, 2000
By A Customer
I read this book with my daughter and we both were able to use the strategies, excercises and smart advice that it gives starting right at the beginning and throughout every chapter. It's a joy to read, funny and bright, and a great resource. You can't play the victim with this book around: it inspires as well as educates.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally, real advice!, August 30, 2008
I can't express how thankful I am that this book exists. There are people(men or women, but mostly pompous men) who think that self defense for a woman begins and ends with shouting NO at your attacker, and then dutifully going to the hospital to get a rape-kit done. For those of us who can truly benefit from the technical information(pressure points, hip throws, how to get out of choke holds) but don't have the luxury of being able(or allowed) to attend the classes to learn it, this book is an amazing tool.
I gave it to my best friend, she keeps it with her cookbooks. After a case of beer, her husband wont take NO for an answer and screaming would only wake the kids, the only neighbors are half a mile away anyway. He doesn't do it every night and they're in therapy so she's not ready to leave him yet. Before I gave her this book, her husband would assault her and sleep it off. He would wake up with no memory of what happened the next day and she would wake up with bruises in places you can't imagine. Now that she has the instructions to get out of almost every grab and the leverage information vital for a 5'1" 95 pound woman to effectively perform a hip throw, her husband is the one who wakes up with the bruises the next day. The only memory left from the night before is hers, as always, but it's finally a memory that she can live with, at least for now.
This book may have saved my friends life, and the way it was written makes any survivor of assault(man or woman) feel less alone and definitely more empowered than a cold textbook ever could. Thank you Liz, and thank you "kara'te".
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