Participants learn and drill effective awareness, verbal, and physical techniques and then practice using their voices, managing their adrenaline, projecting calmness, making moment-by-moment decisions, and delivering strikes and kicks with full-force,  just as they would need to do in an actual attack.  By the end of the Core Program, participants have repeatedly used their skills to assess danger, set boundaries, and respond effectively to verbal and physical attacks.

What are distinguishing features of IMPACT self-defense training?
For more about the IMPACT system and chapter locations, visit impactselfdefense.org

• Teaching through realistic scenarios
• Teaching verbal skills and the use of the voice
• Teaching full-force physical techniques
• Teaching safety skills in a supportive environment
• Sensitivity to trauma
• Strategies with people
• Self-defense is for everyone
• Commitment to women's leadership
• Collaborating to prevent violence and support survivors 

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If you are looking for a course for a teen or tween < 16 yrs old, click here to learn more about IMPACT for Girls.

Teamwork, women's leadership, and women and men working together is central to IMPACT
The training is conducted by a female-led team of instructors. The Lead Instructor plans and facilitates the program,  teaches self-defense skills, and serves as a personal coach for participants in the self-defense scenarios. Suited Instructors serve a dual role in the Core Program, assisting in teaching (e.g. demonstrations and drills) and wearing body armor they play the role of a mock aggressor, giving participants an opportunity to practice all their skills in an adrenalized-state. Class Assistants are volunteers who have completed the Core Program. They provide additional support for the women in the course.

“Our goal is to move toward a world where women and men work together as equals. Within a society where men are often presumed to be leaders, modeling a working relationship where the female instructor is the lead and a male instructor functions within that paradigm, without being threatened by it, is critical to achieving that goal.”
—Mark, Suited Instructor

What makes the IMPACT Core Program empowerment-based self-defense training?

• Self-defense training is placed within a social context, meaning that rape and sexual assault are recognized as social issues not an individual problem. 
• Perpetrators, not victims, are held accountable for violence.  Women do not invite, cause, or ask to be assaulted.
• Finding the power and resources in one's own body is central. Physical self-defense is more than strikes and kicks and includes stance, breathe, body language, getting away.
• Participants learn and practice a range of tools and strategies to increase their choices when faced with uncomfortable, intrusive, or dangerous situations with people they know as well as with strangers

For more about empowerment-based self-defense, see our blog on What is Empowerment Self-Defense? 

What are the physical and emotional well-being requirements to take an IMPACT program?

• If you have a temporary injury or condition, such as pregnancy, healing from surgery, or a sprained limb, wait to take the class until you no longer have this injury or condition.
• If you have a chronic condition, please let us know about it and we will work with you (and in consultation with your health professional) to make it possible for you to take the course. We encourage you to register.
• If you have been sexually assaulted, consider waiting 6-12 months before taking an IMPACT course. A good wait time depends of course on you and your situation, so please talk to us about what will work for you.