Amanda, that would definitely drive me crazy. I may be happily ignorant but I just don't think that a woman is necessarily in more danger alone. Yes, there are the psychopaths out there looking for a vulnerable victim but to my mind that's not terribly common. I could ride by a sniper or be on a bus that gets bombed. But the risk of these things has never been enough to keep me home. I can go anywhere a man can. I just figure that if I do what I can to ensure my safety and then happily and confidently go where I please things will work out OK.

In terms of rude behavior from cars and the like, I don't think that you are more likely to get that because you are female or riding alone. I have traveled a lot alone throughout the world. I went on a trip through Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay last year and people freaked out when they heard I was traveling alone. I did occasionally travel with others throughout the trip but I honestly felt safer alone than with, particularly, a male traveling companion. With a male, I'd get ripped off, argued with, etc. Alone, people bent over backwards to help me and went to extraordinary lengths to ensure my safety. I think that males, excluding of course serial killers/rapists, are much more likely to be aggressive toward other males and they often feel sorry for and protective of a woman alone. I have nothing scientific to back that up, it has just been my experience.

Python, I trained in Taekwon-Do (ITF) up to my high green belt. I moved at that point and couldn't find a place to train. We had a strong self-defense bent to our training as well, we did self-defense as a part of every class and our belt testings. We practiced releases for all sorts of grabs and then more detailed routines for different scenarios. I had three at my rank, a grab from behind (bear hug and neck grab) an attack from the front (bear hug and neck) and an arm grab from the side or across the body. We used a lot of the things that you mentioned, but I think that the most important thing they drilled into us was to get your chin to your chest so that you can breathe and get blood to your brain. Our instructors would regularly come up behind us when we least expected it and go for a neck grab to drill it into us (with pushups if we failed). We learned a sequence of attacks with the idea that you took off whenever you got the attacker off of you. We learned some tactics that would potentially be deadly if executed correctly but of course those were further along in the sequence. We also did an elbow to the lower ribs for an attack from behind and practiced with boards so we knew we could break them. Also they taught us to slam the rear of our heads into their face as it is disorienting to the attacker. We followed that with a throw. The foot-stomping trick is a good one. A few times partners executed that too accurately and it really hurts. I can't imagine the pain of a full-force attack with a nice pair of heels on!

For those using mace/pepper spray, it is good that you are taking precautions to protect yourselves and it should go without being said but make sure that you know how to use it and when. I think it is important to practice scenarios and realize when it can help you and when it is pretty useless. What is the point where you use it? And remember that it can be taken from you, it can be used on you as well. The benefit of learning how to protect yourself and working through scenarios is that it gives you confidence that you can take care of yourself and that confidence in turn makes you less likely to be a target.

Anne