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I taught women self defense for 11 years. I've sparred with countless men. I've wrestled and beat men who are 180-220 lbs plenty of times. But I'm here to tell you if a man in the street decided to do something to me, I'd have close to ZERO chance of stopping him. And it has nothing to do with being overpowered. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I am not able to physically defend myself. I can. So I need to tell you what happened to me earlier this year. I taught my Tuesday class and locked up around 9:30. The lot behind the gym was empty. I want to be honest with you about that, because I know what people assume. There was nobody in it. I checked. I always check. I have checked that lot four thousand times and I checked it that night exactly the way I checked it every other night. Keys already in my hand. Walking quick. Nothing in my ears. There was nobody there. I got to my car and I got the door open. And I heard one footstep behind me. That was the entire warning I got. One. Then there was a hand over my mouth and an arm across me and I was being pulled backwards off my feet. I need to stop here. Because this is the part I actually need you to understand. I did not fight him. And I don't mean I fought and lost. I mean nothing came out of me at all. I need you to know I was not calm. I have never been that frightened in my life. Not close. And nobody looking at me would have been able to tell. Everything went slow. That's the thing people always say about it and it is exactly right. Slow, and very clear. I wasn't blacked out. I saw all of it. I could see my car door hanging open. I could hear my keys on the ground where they'd landed. I knew where his weight was. I knew which way he was leaning. I knew the move. And I was trying. That's the part I can't explain to anybody. I was trying the entire time. My hands stayed open. I never grabbed his arm. I never went for his fingers. My feet were off the ground and I did not kick one thing. I made no sound. Not a muffled scream. No sound at all. My throat did not do anything. In my head I was screaming. Out loud there was nothing. It would be easier for me to tell you that everything flew out of my head. It didn't. I didn't forget one single thing. Eleven years of it was sitting right there the whole time. It just didn't go anywhere. Then there was a car coming into the lot. Headlights across the both of us and an engine and tires on the gravel. He let go and he ran. He was gone between the cars before that car had even stopped moving. I never saw his face. Not before, not during, not after. I couldn't tell you one thing about him. Not his height, not his build, not what he was wearing. He was behind a car parked a few spaces down from mine. That's the one thing I've worked out since, because there is nowhere else he could have been. He was standing behind it looking back at my car, waiting to see who the car belonged to. You cannot see that. I have checked that lot four thousand times and there is no version of checking it that finds a man standing behind a car in the dark. There was no decision in any of it either. I keep looking for one, because a decision is something I could have made differently. There isn't one. Nothing in me chose anything. And I'll say this next part plainly, because it's the whole reason I started the way I did. He was not stronger than me. I have beaten bigger men than him more times than I can count, and if you'd put the two of us on a mat I'd have liked my chances. It never got as far as strength. It never got anywhere near strength. There was no fight for me to lose. I did everything right that night. That's what I can't get past. I checked the lot. I had my keys out. I was quick. I wasn't on my phone. I did every single thing I have spent 11 years teaching women to do. And it made no difference at all. Some man I have never met and never will pulled into that parking lot to pick somebody up, and he ended it, and he has no idea he did anything at all. That was not me. 11 years, and I had nothing to do with how that ended. I didn't teach for 2 weeks after that. I couldn't stand in front of a room full of women and tell them what they were going to do. Not anymore. Not after what I did, which was nothing. So I did the only thing I know how to do when something makes no sense to me. I went and found out why. I spent about 4 nights reading women write about what happened to them. The threads where somebody posts about being attacked or r*ped and 200 women answer underneath with their own. I was looking for what I did wrong. A mistake is a thing you can fix. If I could find mine then it doesn't happen again and I go back to work on Tuesday. I never found it. A woman who used to get in fights as a teenager. 22 years old, working a shift, a guy came up behind her at the computer. She stood there and didn't move and didn't say a word until he was done and gone. A woman smacked by a stranger downtown in the middle of the day with people all around her. Wrote that she'd made it her whole life without a man touching her like that and she just completely froze. "my instructor used to tell us to scream. have you ever tried to scream in a nightmare. thats the closest thing to it i can describe" The same sentence over and over in different handwriting. I always thought I would fight back. And underneath every one of them, the same 3 questions. Why didn't I scream. Why didn't I hit him. What is wrong with me. Every one of them was looking for her mistake too. Here is what actually happens to your body when you're that scared. Your hands go first. Anything small, anything you have to be precise for, your fingers stop cooperating. Then you can't focus on anything close to your face. Your hearing goes narrow. You can't hold a thought long enough to finish it, so the plan you've had in your head your whole life isn't there when you go looking for it. And your voice goes. You open your mouth and there is nothing in it. Every one of those happened to me behind my own building. It has a name. Tonic immobility. There's a study of 298 women, done at a clinic within a month of what happened to them. 7 out of 10 reported going still and being unable to move. Nearly 5 out of 10 said it was total. I had never heard of it. 11 years, and I had never once heard those words in my life. I knew women froze. I'd said it myself, in a room, out loud. I thought it was panic. I thought it was what happens to somebody who hasn't been prepared for it, and I thought preparing them was my job and that I was good at it. It is not panic. It's a reflex. Your body does it to you and it does not ask you first, and there is nothing on the other side of it to train. That is what I had wrong for 11 years. I have a black belt. I have put men on the floor who outweighed me by 60 pounds. None of that lives in the part of you that goes first. So think about what we hand women. Pepper spray. Dig it out of the bag, get the cap off, aim it at a moving person. That's 3 jobs for the fingers I just described to you. And none of it does anything until he is already close enough to touch you. A taser. She has to get close to him. Then she has to stay close to him. And me. 11 years of me. Every technique I own starts at the moment he already has hold of you. Every one of them is a plan that begins with him getting there first. I didn't own one thing that reached him while he was still over there. Then I stopped thinking about me and started thinking about him. He needs nobody to know. That's the whole thing. That's the only thing he needs. He picked the place. He picked the time. He picked a woman on her own behind a building at 9:30 at night. He wasn't afraid of me. He was never afraid of me. He was afraid of being seen. And that's exactly how it ended. A stranger pulled into that lot to pick somebody up and the man who had hold of me let go and ran. The stranger never did anything. He never knew. He was parking his car. It was the light and the sound. That's all it was. Headlights and an engine, about 4 seconds of it. That's how I ended up reading about SheSafe at 1 in the morning. The woman who started it was 24 when a man followed her for 3 blocks walking home. She did every single thing you're supposed to do and none of it changed anything, because there is nothing to change. Then a car alarm went off in a driveway she was passing. Somebody's Honda. Nothing to do with her at all. He turned around and went the other way. She spent 2 years trying to work out why a noise that had nothing to do with her did the one thing that nothing she owned could do. It was never a noise. It was attention. For 6 seconds that street stopped being a place where nobody was looking. So she built something that does it on purpose. It's 2 pieces. About the size of a car key fob, on a ring, and the ring goes on your keys. Your hand goes around it and you pull the two halves apart. That is the entire thing you have to do. There is no button. Nothing to unlock, nothing to aim, no sequence, nothing to remember. 130 decibels. That's a jet engine about 50 feet away, going off in your hand. He doesn't just hear it, he feels it through his whole body. A white flashlight strobe fires at the same second the siren does. Push the two halves back together and it stops. I had one question before I bought anything, and if you've read this far you're having it right now. If you freeze, how do you pull it? So what can a body still do. Almost nothing. But there's one thing. Your hand closes. Gripping is about the oldest thing you have. A baby does it the day it's born, before it can hold its own head up. It sits underneath everything else and it does not need your fingers working, or your eyes focusing, or your voice to come back. You close your hand and you pull. That's the entire ask. And here's the part I didn't expect, which is the reason I actually ordered one. Two things go off at the same second, and they're aimed at two different people. The siren is aimed at you. 130 decibels coming out of your own hand is not something a body can ignore. Mine came back. My legs came back and I was moving again before I'd decided to be. The light is aimed at everybody else. A white flashlight strobe going off the cars and the windows and the front of whatever building you're standing outside of, over and over, and it doesn't stop until you put the two halves back together. That is the exact thing he spent the entire approach making sure would not happen. He can take a noise. What he can't take is a parking lot full of people turning around to find out what it is. So he goes. And most of the time she sees him. That's the thing about all of this that nobody says out loud. He's across the lot. He's half a block back. He's been behind her for two streets. She sees him every single time. That's the entire reason trust your gut became a thing women say to each other. And she owns nothing that reaches him. Before I ordered I went and read what other women said about theirs. "pulled mine when a man started coming at me between the cars at a gas station, he was still 4 or 5 cars away. he turned around and got back in his car. nobody came out of the store. nobody had to" "used it at a bus stop when a guy wouldnt take no. two people came out onto their porches and just stood there looking at him. he walked off" "what got me is that my pepper spray only starts working once hes already close enough to touch me. never thought about it like that in my life and now i cant unthink it" "had one on my keys 8 months. used it exactly zero times. the change is i dont plan the walk to my car anymore, i just walk to my car" That last one sat with me for a long time, because planning the walk to my car is a thing I have taught, and it is a thing I have done every night of my adult life. I did one thing with it before I put it on my keys. I took my Thursday class out into that lot and set it off. I wanted them to hear it standing where I'd been standing. And I wanted to see it myself, because reading about it is not the same thing. I pulled it apart in the middle of the lot at 8 at night. A man came out of the side door of the unit next to mine still holding what he'd been doing, and stood on his step looking at us until I got the two halves back together. That's the part I'd want anybody to see. Not how loud it is. A man put his work down and came outside on an ordinary Thursday to find out what was happening in that parking lot. That is the exact thing the man behind my car needed not to happen. It was September before anything happened again. Grocery store, about 10 at night, a lot I've parked in a hundred times. I'd put the bags in and I was walking the cart back when I saw a man come up the row. On his own, not carrying anything, not heading for a car. I turned back toward mine and he changed his line to come with me. Not fast. Not running. Just coming. And I felt it start. That's the part I could never explain to anybody who hasn't had it. I knew what was happening in my body before I'd finished working out what was happening in the parking lot. My legs went heavy. My mouth was already gone. I could feel myself going away from myself and there was nothing I could do about it, and the only thing in my head was please, not this again. I didn't decide anything. My hand was already around it, because it lives on my keys and my keys were in my hand. I closed my fist and I pulled. It is a siren. There's no other word for it. It came out of my own hand and it did not stop, and the whole row went white, then dark, then white again, off the cars and off the front of the store. He came off it like something had hit him. Both hands went up by his head and he stopped dead and took two steps backwards. And then my legs came back. That's the honest order of it, and it's the thing I did not believe until it happened to me. The noise brought me back before it did anything to him. I was moving again and I had not decided to be. A woman further down the row stopped with her hand on her trunk and stood there looking. Somebody up by the doors turned around. A car coming down the lane stopped in the middle of it. He looked at the woman. Then at the doors. Then at the car sitting there with its lights on. And he turned and went back up the row and out onto the road, fast, and he did not look at me again. Nobody came over to me. Nobody walked across that lot. I don't expect it and I've stopped waiting for it. But every single one of them was looking at him, and that is the only thing that has ever worked on a man like that. I got the two halves back together and the lot went quiet. Then I sat in my car with the doors locked and cried for about 10 minutes, and I'm putting that in here because I don't want anybody reading this to think it makes you calm. It doesn't make you calm. It just means it's over, and you're the one who ended it. I teach Tuesdays and Thursdays and I'm not stopping. Everything I teach still works. And every single bit of it still starts after he already has hold of you, and I say that out loud now, at the front of every course, before anything else. Thank you for reading this far. I hope some part of it was useful to somebody. If your keys are sitting on a counter near you right now, go and pick them up and look at what is actually on them. - Dana https://www.tryshesafe.com/products/shesafe P.S. I want to come back to how it actually works, because I looked at it the way I look at any piece of equipment somebody hands me. It's two pieces. You pull them apart. It isn't a button. That sounds like nothing and it isn't. A button asks your fingertip to find one specific small thing and press it accurately. Fingertips are the first thing to go. That is the whole substance of what I read those 4 nights, and it is what happened to my own hands in that lot. Two halves ask for a fist and a pull. You could do it with gloves on. You could do it without looking down at it. You could do it with your hand shaking the way mine was shaking. I pulled mine apart about 40 times in my kitchen the day it came, which is what I do with anything I'm going to tell a room full of women about. The two halves take a real pull. They don't fall apart. That's deliberate, so it doesn't go off by itself in the bottom of a bag against a set of house keys. Somebody sat down and thought about a woman's hand in the worst 4 seconds of her life, and then thought about her purse on an ordinary Tuesday. I have spent 11 years around gear designed by people who only ever imagined the first one. P.P.S. A word on where it goes, because this is the part people get wrong. It goes on the outside of your keys. Not in your bag. Not in the zip pocket. Not clipped inside anything. For 11 years I taught women to walk out of a building with their keys already in their fist. I want to be straight about that now. Keys are not a weapon. I have never once seen keys do anything to a grown man, and I said otherwise for a long time. But the habit was always right. The hand going around something on the way out the door, every single time, without thinking about it. So keep the habit and change what's on the ring. Mine hangs with my house key and my car key, and when I walk out of my building my hand goes around it the same way my hand has gone around my keys my entire adult life. That's the whole protocol. Nothing to pair, no app, no subscription, no account, nothing anybody has to set up for you. You plug it in twice a year and otherwise you forget it exists. In that lot in September I never went looking for it. I never made a decision at all. P.P.P.S. I'm going to say this one plainly, because it's the only part of this I actually feel strongly about. In 11 years of teaching, I can count on one hand the women who signed up for a course before something happened to them. They come after. Almost every single time, they come after. I used to think that was sad. Now I think it's just how people are built, and I did exactly the same thing myself, which is why I'm allowed to say it. I had 11 years and a black belt and a room with my name on the door, and I bought my first one at 1 in the morning, after a man already had his hand over my mouth. There is no date circled on a calendar telling you today is the day. That's the whole nature of it. Every woman I've told this to has said the same six words back to me. I should get one of those. Then a week goes by. Then a month. Order it tonight while you're still thinking about it, or don't. But be honest with yourself about which one of those you're doing. P.P.P.P.S. The guarantee, in case you skimmed. 365 days. Any reason at all. You don't have to have used it. You don't have to have a story. You don't have to prove one single thing to anybody. If it's been on your keys for 8 months and you decide you don't want it, they send the money back. I read that and assumed there was a catch, because I assume there's a catch. There isn't one. P.P.P.P.P.S. I keep a box of them on the desk at the front of my room now. I have never once in 11 years told a class to buy something. Not a mat, not a glove, not a book. I tell them now, at the start, before any of it, and I tell them what happened to me behind my own building first so they know why. Here's what I didn't expect. Not one woman has asked me why. Every single one of them has told me something back. A woman in her fifties told me about a man who used to wait outside her work in 1996 and follow her to the bus. She'd been coming to my classes for 3 years and I had never heard it. They already know. They've always known. They just didn't have anything on them that reached. So get one for yourself. Then get one for your mom. For your daughter. For your sister. For the friend who closes up on Fridays and walks out to her car on her own. Or don't, and hope. You choose. - D https://www.tryshesafe.com/products/shesafe