How IMPACT Works Overview

The IMPACT full-contact form of self-defense has its origins with a group of martial artists who decided in the early 1970s to develop a new form of self-defense for women—one that was relevant to the needs and capabilities of women, acknowledged women’s issues, and made use of training methods that introduced more realism and better results.

Their research and consultations with survivors of assault, convicted assailants, law enforcement personnel, engineers, and experts in education, psychology, sociology and physiology established the following fundamentals which form the basic philosophy behind IMPACT’s training:

1. Women and men are assaulted differently. Assaults against men tend to be territorial, while assaults against women are more predatory. By “predatory,” we mean an overwhelming, engulfing attack, often prefaced by the potential victim being observed and an interview or verbal assault.

2. Women and men have different areas of strength. Men are stronger in their upper body (shoulders and arms) while women’s strength is in their lower body (hips and legs). Thus, physical defense techniques that work for one gender may not work as well for the other.

3. The way you train is the way you will fight. In effect, the more realistic your training, the more likely that you will respond as you were trained when in a real-life situation.

4. Most women are reluctant to hurt another person. Even if a woman is being hurt by another, she is hesitant to fight back. This can make women slow to respond in an assault situation. We shift this mindset to “attack the attacker.”

5. Adrenaline changes everything. Dialing “911" is simple enough, but in an emergency when your adrenaline starts pumping, hitting those three numbers in that precise order can become the most impossible task you’ve ever attempted.

Realizing that individual progress varies, IMPACT Personal Safety creates a supportive atmosphere of non-competition in each class. Support, acceptance, and validation are key components in our courses. Our instructors will never compare a student to his or her classmates and will only advise students based on personal progress. Students cheer each other on and begin to learn from each other through the unique scenarios presented every time they step on the mat.

Many graduates claim that IMPACT training is the most valuable and applicable information on personal safety that they’ve ever received.

Although IMPACT is best known for its dynamic fights, we strongly believe that fighting is a last resort. In fact, our emphasis on verbal skills is a strong component in our training. Rarely do IMPACT graduates need to use the physical techniques they learn. But, in situations where fighting for one’s life or safety has become a necessity, nearly every graduate of our program—women, children, men—needed just one or two blows to either scare off their assailant, or disable him enough to allow a safe escape.

You learn to choose target areas on the simulation “assailant” that will get the best results — targets that will render him unconscious or incapacitated. You learn to overcome your natural freeze instinct, make decisions in the moment, to think for yourself, and not to have to rely on “what my teacher told me.” You will also learn to use the strongest parts of your body in the most efficient ways possible. You will learn the feeling or IMPACT of delivering a full-force blow to someone.