Rachel Honeyman on Women’s Self-Defense, Confidence, and Empowerment
In this episode of ROAR, host Danielle Davies talks with Rachel Honeyman—martial artist, web designer, and founder of HoneyBeBold—about reclaiming power through self-defense, confidence, and community.
Rachel shares how her martial-arts training inspired her course, Fearless Femmes, and how she helps women rebuild confidence, trust their instincts, and move through the world with strength instead of fear.
💥 Topics we cover
• The link between confidence and safety for women
• How to rebuild trust in your intuition
• Why empowerment means being prepared, not paranoid
• What to look for in a self-defense instructor
🎧 Special offer
ROAR listeners get 20% off Rachel’s Fearless Femmes course using code ROAR → honeybebold.com/services/fearless/fearless-course
00:00 Introduction to Roar with Danielle Davies
00:23 Meet Rachel Honeyman: CEO and Self-Defense Advocate
00:45 The Importance of Self-Defense for Women
01:12 Rachel's Self-Defense Course: Fearless Femmes
01:57 Creating a Safe Environment for Women
04:33 The Three E's of Self-Defense
07:12 Situational Awareness and Real-Life Examples
14:02 Building Confidence and Trusting Your Gut
22:37 Empowerment and Taking Charge of Safety
24:48 Women in Leadership: Addressing Problems and Making Changes
26:42 A Personal Story: The Start of My Jujitsu Journey
29:33 The Importance of Self-Defense for Women
32:10 Creating a Self-Defense Course During COVID
33:44 Evaluating Self-Defense Information and Techniques
46:13 Finding the Right Self-Defense Instructor
50:22 Course Information and Final Thoughts
To get in touch with Rachel
YouTube:
Email: hey@honeybebold.com
LinkedIn:
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Instagram:
Listen to ROAR with Danielle Davies: Women, Culture & Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. New conversations every Tuesday.
Full Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically from the audio (without punctuation) and lightly cleaned up. It may contain small errors.
I'm not where I'm hey I'm Danielle Davies and you're listening to ROAR a show that amplifies the voices of women breaking barriers leading change and making real impact keep listening for bold ideas and stories that inspire you to find your voice and make some noise today we're speaking with Rachel Honeyman CEO and founder of Honey B bold a branding and web design agency and in addition to the work Rachel does to empower women in business she also helps them be bold in their lives by teaching
Self-defense using her martial arts background welcome Rachel thank you so much I'm so glad to be here I am so glad to have you here thanks so much for being part of this I and you know we were talking about how on the ROAR podcast I want to talk to women who are leading change for women in many different ways whether it's through activism traditional activism or advocacy or politics or theater or writing or in this case self-defense which I think is such a great and
Cool offering that you have can you just tell us a little bit about the overall structure just before we get into it like what exactly you offer yeah so my primary offering these days because my I would say the focus of my work is kind of in The Branding and web design space most of the time so most of the ways that I en engage in the self-defense work these days is through my course I have a streaming digital course called Fearless fem that anyone can
Do anywhere they are but I also teach one-on-one classes locally I'm in Long Island New York and here and there I travel for seminars so I really it's something that I'm very passionate about and I am always looking to do more of and find new ways to teach these skills to women and it's just for women that's correct right yeah so I just teach women I really am very focused on making it a very safe environment a lot of women who come to me for self-defense
Training many of them have you know unfortunately had experiences that are perhaps traumatic and so I don't want to ever make the environment unsafe in any way and so that's why I keep it to women only can we talk about this too because you know you mentioned on your website the statistics of women and violent crime and so you know some people my son used to take karate a million years ago and it was an activity it was something he could do and he could be
Proud of and he could earn his belt and that was awesome for a little kid but I remember one time the Sensei teaching them and picking them up and running out of the building and telling them to scream fire and I was like it's actually teaching them a really hard skill set you know how to get help if you need it and so you don't always think of self-defense some people might think of it as exercise even you know part and it is but how do
You see it in terms of the broader realm of advocacy for women yeah so you know it's so interesting whenever the topic of self-defense for women comes up one of the common refrains is well we shouldn't be teaching women how to defend themselves we should just be teaching boys and men to not attack women and I say well yeah obviously like we should be doing that too and I wish we lived in a world where we could just I could wave a magic wand and there
Was no violence against women anymore but unfortunately we live in a pretty scary world and women are faced with violence and potential violence every day you know I think that all of us walk around with some level of fear that's kind of just underneath and is there all the time we always are aware that this is a possibility some women don't want to think about that but I'm a very strong advocate of we need to face the reality in order to deal with the reality and
To empower ourselves to be able to face that reality in a in an empowered way so yeah I think that it's it's super important to have those skills and to understand what you need to do to get yourself to safety and that's really my Approach I kind of look at this in a three-pronged approach I call the three ease of self-defense because it's it's a nice round nice round number but it actually really works so my Approach is evade Escape engage so we always look at
Evading situations we want to avoid situations that is the number one thing that I am teaching women is to avoid getting into a bad situation to begin with then you know how do you escapee a bad situation if you're ever faced with one right how do you get out of a bad situation you know you're cornered someone comes up to you someone is approaching you how do you get yourself to safety and then the final leg of that is engaging how do we actually fight back
How do we defend ourselves how do we harm our attacker if we need to and that's kind of the difference in my approach to self-defense for women from a lot of a lot of stuff that you see online unfortunately is so focused on the you know you need to like hit them in the right spots and it's all focused on like how do you fight back right which is important although a lot of what's being taught is garbage that's my personal opinion but I think that
The focus really needs to be on how do we avoid this to begin with how do we get ourselves to safety and then how do we engage again in order to get ourselves to safety not to become a fighter it's so interesting because I was going to ask that next I was looking at it from the outside in as this is a physical thing a physical a way to physically protect myself and feel physically stronger but really it's doing the mental work as well and the
Emotional work as well could we I mean without giving away your course or maybe it's can we dive into these three e a little bit more like can you talk about some of the strategies now I just want to use this information but also you know it's it's interesting too and we've spoken before today too about like I have a teenage daughter so she's 15 and you start to see and you don't start to see you're always aware but you're just like hyper aware as they
Go out in the world a little bit more on their own and independently of all these different ways and you're thinking evade like you just see the potential for harm in so many things and without being you know a helicopter mom or hovering and not letting our experiencing It's just sometimes can be really hard do you have any if we talk about the three e a little bit more maybe you could give our listeners a little bit of insight would you mind diving into a little
Bit yeah for sure so yeah the first e evade really comes down to situational awareness and that's I spend you know when I when I give a workshop you know let's say I give a 90minut workshop probably at least 20 minutes of that is spent just talking about these situations and talking about the mindset and talking about situational awareness and it's really it's really a reframing that many people are not you know just aren't thinking about so as an example right texting we are always on
Our phones texting on our phones I am I am just as guilty of this as anyone else but one thing that I have worked really hard on is when I'm for instance walking from the grocery store to my car it's a you know three minute walk right may maybe I parked far and it's a f minute walk I am really careful to not take my phone out of my bag because I know that if my phone is in my hand I'm going to look at it
And I don't want to be looking at my phone I want to be paying attention to my surroundings when I'm at the gas station and I'm pumping gas I have my phone on me but I'm not looking at my phone I am pumping the gas and I am constantly scanning this situation and I can share a story shortly about recently where that actually saved me I could have wound up in a very scary situation and I was able to get away because I was paying attention
To my surroundings and this happened just two months ago something like that you know it's it's being much more aware of what's going on around you does that mean you're never going to you know lose sight of what's going on no we all have a million things going on this is not about reaching for Perfection and I think that's sometimes where people can get overwhelmed by these ideas because they're like well I'm never going to be paying attention to my surroundings all the time no of
Course not but it's also about like the example I always give is when you go to the grocery store or to the to wherever right you're going and you're parking your car it's paying attention to where am I parking my car am I parking under a Street Lamp are there cars around am I you know tucked behind a corner where no one's going to see me you know it's paying attention to those things and it's a it's kind of like the prepaying attention right it because
When you're coming out of the store you're much less likely because you're going to be busy holding a million bags and all of that you're much less likely to be paying attention to those things than when you're proactively parking your car and making those choices so yeah I think it's just that's that's to me the most important piece of avoiding bad situations is really learning to start paying attention to what's going around going on around you which is crazy because just thinking about holidays and things
Coming up you know it just gets more chaotic and you become less able to kind of Center unless you're making that effort yeah and it's it's not easy that's that's that's really why I focus so much on it because it's not easy it's not something that you can just flip that switch and it's now okay now I pay attention no this is this is something that you know I've been I've been doing martial arts for nine years now and I like it's something that I'm still
Improving all the time I'm still improving it's something I'm still working on all the time and sometimes I lapse and sometimes I you know and sometimes I'm better about it and those moments where if this is a good time for me to share that story I can share that story something that happened a couple months ago so I I was pumping gas I actually had just finished Jiu-Jitsu class I go to a 6 AM Jiu-Jitsu class that's why my hair is wet right now because I
Just came from class and I stopped at a gas station like literally up the block from my from my Jiu-Jitsu gym and I'm pumping gas and it's so it's like 7 a.m. or something like that it was still pretty dark and not you know people aren't around is this a gas station you've been to before I had not stopped there before but it's like it's a very busy street it's it's right there it's you know and I was on empty and I needed gas I'm pumping
Gas and thankfully I was following my advice and I was scanning you know the area and I see this guy pull into the gas station in a he's in a truck and he's staring right at me like making eye contact with me and he pulls in such a way he didn't pull up to a pump he pulled up in this weird way kind of at an angle in front of my car and something like I just had this gut feeling something is off and I all
Of a sudden had this voice in my head saying I need to get in my car before he gets out of his car and so I put the put the pump back I didn't even screw the tank closed I ran around to the side of my car and I'm getting into my car right as he's getting out of his car and he's looking still making eye contact with me the whole time I get in my car I close the door lock the door and I was
Able to drive around him and I you know go around the corner and I look back to kind of just see what's going on and he got he had he got he was getting right back into his car because he had only stopped cuz he saw a woman by herself pumping gas at an empty gas station and he saw an opportunity and oh my gosh that's so scary yeah and these things happen all the time all the time and I don't know if he was going
To just come and you know say something and not necessarily even you know touch me who knows but you know he could have also been planning to kidnap me or rape me or who knows what his what his plans were but he saw an opportunity and he pulled over and he had no reason to stop at that gas station other than to take advantage of that opportunity and because I was aware and paying attention to what was going on and one other key Point here the
Probably most important thing that I that I teach my students is that gut feeling that we get as women we get this gut feeling and most of the time we ignore it because our society tells us to ignore that feeling and it tells us oh you're being hysterical you're being crazy and we and we internalize that and we say it's nothing right how often do you do you have that feeling and you say it's actually it's crazy that you're saying this because now we're like yes
All the time all the time you have it and at first the first thing that struck me when you were telling the story is how the guy was staring right at you and not breaking eye contact and I'm thinking when that happens to me because that happens this is a universal thing that affects women it's not like it's anything rare or you know when you hear people say oh if that happen it's not if it's when you're there are always going to be situations where you're
Feeling where you're being made to feel intimidated frightened ill at ease maybe nobody's actually physically doing anything but you're always aware that they could be and you're out of luck but when that happens when you know that first eye contact is made or something I feel like I'm like I'll look down because I get anxious but it's would you recommend that no look at the person do did you break eye contact yourself what did you do I did not break eye contact I looked directly at
Him and I when I made that decision to put the pump back and get back in my car I maintained eye contact the whole time because I wanted him to know like I am I am avoiding this whatever this is I'm avoiding it you're not you're not going to mess with me today and you know that is something that probably it really did take me years to build that level of confidence I don't think that's something that just any you know that oh just decide that
You're going to like be that level of confident but I think that the key thing is if you get a gut feeling that something is off pay attention to it the biggest thing that I always tell my students is like we have we have such a need to people please right and we have such an we I mean I think that many women I'm not going to say most women because maybe that's not the case but I don't think that I'm in the minority when I
Am I am a people pleaser and it's very hard for me to make someone else feel uncomfortable right but if I'm walking down the street and I see a guy walking towards me even if there's like nothing there's nothing there's no actual danger here but I just feel a little uncomfortable walking by a guy and like when I'm by myself so I'm going to cross the street and he might notice that I'm crossing the street and so what like who cares like and he might be
Offended it is so crazy because it's not just that you don't want to it's not just that you wouldn't offend somebody it's how hard we work not to offend somebody at the expense of our own safety like oh I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable but I would really like you to stop touching my leg like right yeah my gosh that's so that is and it took like you said it takes years to get to this point is that how you work when people come
To you are they are they anticipating this like do you let them know in advance that this is going to be the because I really do feel like this is the critical information here yes of course like you're right the physical stuff how you can stop somebody that's great but let's just hope we never even get to that point and work on these first two steps first but I do think even the thing as much as you know evading that making that eye contact and having
That confidence to do that does seem like something that would take work do you recommend how do you how do you recommend that people do that because the class doesn't go on forever how do you build that confidence yeah so most of my most of my students I assume I'm going to see them once you sometimes I have people who come who come to me more than once but and you know do we do a series or you know sometimes they're interested in private lessons and
So we'll continue but when I run like a you know intro self-defense Workshop I'm assuming that I'm only going to see this group of people once and so the I really I really try to you know yes we go over techniques like that's that of course we're going to go over techniques and there's going to be some physical aspect to it but I say over and over and over again like the most important thing is for you to come away with principles and those principles are
You know the most important thing pay attention to your gut protect your head right like th that's that's also really important we the our head is that's our computer if it if we get knocked out like we're we're in trouble so pay attention to your gut protect your head look for ways to get to safety and if people Come Away with just that like I I've won I've done a good job how do you build that it takes practice so that's the other thing that I
Really that I really try to convey is that you know you're going to have you know an hour with me two hours with me maybe we'll work together you know we have a 100 hours together doesn't really matter like you need to be practicing this in your day-to-day life and so it's just little things it's little things like okay I'm gonna commit myself to when I'm pumping gas I do not have my phone in my hand you know and I'm not scrolling on my phone I'm
Paying attention to what's around me it's it's an activity that takes all of three minutes right like it's it doesn't take long to pump gas so P making that commitment can make a really big difference you know again paying attention to where you're parking that it makes a huge difference and so it's these little things it doesn't it doesn't take hours of practice it takes those moments of practice throughout your daily life that really start ingraining that building a habit yeah it you know and I
Didn't necessarily plan to get political but especially you know in our current political environment we just recently had a guy out west saying I believe he's out west saying you know your body my choice so we've got like kind of a significant rape culture happening and so I feel like it's more important than ever to be on guard and I don't want to prevent myself I don't want to prevent my daughter from doing things and exploring the world you want you want that for yourself and
For people it's but you have to have these things kind of in place to be able to do it correct yeah and I think that is when I've seen that going around this you know your body my choice and it's like it's it was such a like affirming you know unfortunately affirming thing like this is we need to be empowered in our bodies and to be able to say I have the knowledge and the skills and the tools that I need to prevent that from happening
To me and to prevent that from happening to my daughters and to prevent that from happening to my friends right like it's it's something that we can't because this is becoming so pervasive and acceptable and acceptable like it we have to stand up and take charge and this is really our ability to feel secure in our bodies to hold to take charge of our safety and not to put that in someone else's hands and I think that when women a lot of women avoid thinking about
This I do encounter that quite a bit where I have women who are like I this is too scary like I don't want I don't even want to think about this and I get it like it's it's scary it's really scary to think about this stuff but if you don't you are you're you're in a bad situation because you are leaving your Safety and Security up to someone else and I can't stand for that like I just can't stand for that I think that every woman
Needs to take charge of her own safety and as a community of women we can help each other feel empowered in you know in our bodies and in charge of safety you know it's interesting too because that's you're saying like let us have our own empowerment a as we should and it's such a unfortunately newer concept that it's still exciting about a week and a half ago I spoke to Lisa canella she's the founder of what's going to be the first female liner and the name
Of the company is Lou luwi and it's short for let us wear it like we will take care of our ourselves you can't just rely on the guy you know you know maybe you've got a really great supportive partner and he's like super protective great but that doesn't mean you're attached at the hip you need to be able to protect yourself at all times and I you know I think of my husband is very protective of my daughter my son is protective of my daughter but
That doesn't mean she you know that doesn't mean she's not going to go explore the world on her own so you've got to really step up and do for yourself yeah absolutely so you know an interesting thing years ago I was really active in politics and I interviewed a lot of female politicians women politicians and it was Tammy Duckworth actually who said senator Tammy Duckworth who's awesome she said something like and I'm paraphrasing here there are a lot of men they run for office and they
Say stuff like and I'm totally generalizing but you say you know oh I could see myself running for office I could see myself being the president and for women again this isn't Universal but it tends to be that a lot of women end up running for office or advocating for something because they've seen a problem they've seen a gap and they want to step in and fix it and I think you know I think it's Patty Murray senator Patty Murray is originally started Ed off and
I could be wrong here with expiration dates on food you know there didn't used to be expiration dates on food when you went to the grocery store and you'd have to kind of you know barter and you know talk to the guy stocking things to be like hey is this really fresh like I need the fresh stuff I don't I can't have it go bad and there was no real way of knowing you know they'd have twist different color twist ties for codes and things like
This until somebody stepped up and this seems like a very small problem to have now because we don't have this problem our food is labeled how old is this milk up it expired 5 days ago we know this but it's because a mom who was doing the shopping for her kids and her family for the week finally stepped up and was like enough is enough somebody has to label this and somebody advocated for it and made the change so I see again this is not Universal
But women seem to be in a position where we're stepping up where we see a need can you tell us what you saw that even got you involved in this or did it start off did it start off as something like you're like oh you know Jiu-Jitsu this seems like something interesting or was there a reason that you got into this in self-defense if you don't mind me asking I don't mind you asking I so the reason I started Jiu-Jitsu and Jiu-Jitsu is only one of
The martial arts that I practice but it's the primary one but the reason I started was 10 years ago so about a year before I started Jiu-Jitsu I this is like gonna sound it's going to sound like very familiar right from the stories that I've told so far and the advice I've given so far I went to a grocery store Whole Foods and it was at night it wasn't it wasn't like midnight it was probably like 700 p.m. but it was like this time of year
So it was dark and I was walking back to my car and I as I'm walking back to my car I feel this like prickle on the back of my neck something is telling me that like something's off like someone's following me something's off and I did what we talked about and I said it's nothing there's it's nothing there's nothing I'm just I'm being crazy like let me just get to my car and like unload my groceries so I'm unloading my groceries on the passenger side
Of the car and I turn around and lo and behold a man had was cornering me at my car and he was talking to me and in and it wasn't in English I don't remember what language he was speaking I was surrounded by Spanish so it definitely wasn't Spanish because I would have recognized that it was some other language and he's talking to me but I couldn't understand what he was saying but like I understood what he was saying you know what I mean like he
Was trying to make an advance and I froze but I somehow like I can't really tell you the details because I don't remember at now and like it happened so fast but I somehow got myself like around to the driver's side and I left the parking lot I got home like you know it was like a blink of an eye like I probably ran a million red lights and like I just you know I was like so terrified and knowing what I know now I think
Like this was obviously not a good guy right like who follows a woman back to her car late at night like this is you know not a good guy but he probably wasn't actually planning on hurting me because if he had been planning on it there's no way I would have like gotten out of that situation so I just got lucky basically I got lucky that this guy didn't have those intentions necessarily and you know I got lucky but it really put the fear in me
Where I said if things had escalated like I have no tools I have no idea what to do I have no idea how to how to defend myself and keep myself safe and so I ran home and I immediately reached out to one of my best friends who now is my instructor actually jarlo Alano and he's been doing martial arts for decades and he's one of my mentors with women self-defense because he's been teaching women self-defense for many many years and I said you know what
Do I do like where do I start so he said start with Brazilian jiu-jitsu because it's a grappling sport which is basically it's mostly groundbased and it's all about using leverages so using your body and using physics basically to that a smaller person can over overpower a larger person getting a larger person off of you know that sort of thing and so it's it's a really good place to start for women in particular and I'm a very small woman so it was you know really good
Place to start and then over the years I it took me about a year to actually like to actually start and then over the years I've kind of filled in some additional you know some standup striking and weapons work and really I have a pretty well-rounded approach now but I still Focus primarily I'm Brazilian jiu-jitsu but that was like how I got into it personally and then I it took a few years like of me practicing it myself where I said I need to I need
To teach this to other people like I just most women just have no idea what to do most women are in that situation where if they were faced with something like that they just would freeze and they have no idea what to do and how to how to keep themselves safe and I just had this need to share that with other people and so I had this idea for this course years ago probably I don't know when exactly but I've had this idea for this course
For a long time because I looked around online and I said there's really nothing there's a lot of like bad information online there's a lot there are a lot of you know popular self-defense accounts on Instagram or YouTube or whatever that are really teaching dangerous techniques like they're te like if I if I used that technique I would get myself killed you know like it's really there's very bad techniques being taught online and what finally pushed me to make the course was it was the early
Days of covid and you just started hearing more and more reports of domestic violence you know increasing and I just I couldn't stop thinking about these women stuck in a house with a violent man and not knowing what to do and I couldn't I couldn't like live with people not having access to the information that they need to keep themselves safe and so then it wound up to taking a little bit more time to actually make the course because it was Co so I couldn't actually
Do it at the you know right then but I wound up making this course and I actually released it just about a year ago and I really focused on how can I give the most crucial information and the most crucial techniques that will help women stay safe like that was really my focus was just my ultimate goal in everything that I do with is keeping women safe and helping women you know feel empowered in their bodies and feel empowered to keep again keep themselves out of
Bad situations get away from Bad situations if they wind up there and defend themselves if they need to you know when you were talking I'm thinking about how you're saying there's like a lot of bad information out there and I'm thinking you know as we've got on one hand like this kind of blooming and acceptable rape culture going on you want to think you com at it with like this movement of empowering women to defend themselves evade any kind of danger the whole nine yards and
I wanted to say how do you see that evolving that positive side but is it evolving or is it being kind of overrun by Bad actors you know and not necessarily that they're bad actors but maybe they're just misinformed and they're they're sharing information that is you know like you said actually more harmful than good I mean I don't think anybody who tries to research that is they're obviously trying to learn something that's going to keep them safe and the fact that it could possibly make
Them their situation worse is terrifying yeah I I like to think that you know most of the people sharing bad information just don't know that they're sharing bad information the system that I am trained in is like very focused on pressure testing everything so really putting things to the test putting techniques to the test and making sure like this would work if you have a larger stronger person trying to attack you right and I think most people who call themselves self-defense teachers don't necessarily take it
Through that process so you know they'll they'll teach something that will work really well against someone who's like a very you know passive participant and like helping them show the technique but the minute you add in some pressure and you add in like more real life type of scenarios aggression right like it just it just doesn't work so I don't think that people have bad intentions I think it's just that people don't you know haven't taken the time to really like put their the techniques they're
Teaching to the test and make sure that they actually work I think also I mentioned this earlier but I think that there's there is a too much emphasis on teaching women you know striking techniques for instance like how to hit your opponent in just the right places I think you know again like I'm a big a big advocate if you need to use violence against a an attacker you should absolutely use that violence because this is someone who is trying to you know whether they're trying
To rape you or murder you they are trying to hurt you in a very serious way and we know this we know that you know someone who rapes a woman is not so won't won't care that much about killing her either right like there's so there's the the violence against women can escalate so much and you know sometimes you might have you might have family members with you know you've mentioned your daughter and like I think that people don't like to think again people don't like
To think about this and I get it but it you have to be ready to meet violence with violence if you need to but if there's too much emphasis on the on the fighting back without focusing on getting yourself to safety you're actually putting women at harm because that needs to be number one number one needs to be I need to get myself to safety you know and the like harming your attacker needs to be secondary to that if you don't need to then you then
You shouldn't because you need to you need to get yourself to safety so whatever you need to do to get yourself to safety that's the that's the goal it is it is interesting too because the evasion techniques almost sound like they could be a class on their you know that sounds like it could be a class on its own when you were telling me the story about which I'm so sorry that happened you and how terrifying but that the guy started talking my initial thought was
Well was he talking nice like even if you couldn't understand him was he being nice or was he being antagonistic and aggressive right from his language because one of the things that I noticed is if somebody is being polite or they haven't really breached that societal marker of like apparent harm even if you're shackles are raised you're still being nice back like you're still being polite so even if somebody comes in your space and you have that feeling of you know this is not right if
They're still saying ma'am I just was wondering if you both you are not yet trying to evade you might be start you know like I said you might be starting to feel those skin Pricks but you're not necessarily taking the steps to get yourself out of the situation because you're being so polite because you are being such a people pleaser so that it's just I feel like the evasion techniques are just needed across the board I mean there are some women who are I'm sure there
Are plenty who who have it down and kudos to them but for those of us who don't and you know I am always so guilty my husband will be like it doesn't matter if they're being nice like there are nice Killers like they might act like this but that's not who they are so it's interesting I think the evasion thing could be not the evasion thing but learning to evade is such a priority and I'm so glad you focus on it yeah I mean I'll just
Say a couple of things on that you know if someone first of all this guy was actually not being aggressive he was he was being nice he was being he was in my space though and so that's number one is it doesn't matter how nice someone's being if they have crossed that threshold of being in your space and the most important thing is if they can if you can touch them they can touch you right so if someone is has crossed that boundary you already need
To need to have your guard up and so I teach like we put our hands up right if someone is if someone is getting past that boundary you have your hands up and you're just signaling to them like you got to back up like you're you're in my space you got to back up and having your hands up really has you at the ready for a lot of the techniques that I teach but it's it's like such a simple thing but it's just kind of like
This is you are you are entering my space and I don't feel comfortable with this and you don't have to be aggressive right you can be you can be super polite and be like you know but just you're signaling to them like this is not okay and then you're aware that they're doing it you know you're not yes yeah and then the other thing I'll say is that sometimes even the something that seems innocent can should be setting those red flags off so the B the
Best example I love to give is if someone stops and asks you for the time you should you should automatically say something is up here because everyone has their has the time in their pocket 24 hours a day right we all have we all have our phone on us all the time and we all have the time constantly right and if you don't have a phone you have a Fitbit or an Apple Watch or whatever like no one needs the time anymore it they just don't
And if they if they happen to their phone died they don't have a watch you know what you don't want to be taking the minute to look at your to look at your watch because you don't know what their what their intentions are maybe it's totally innocent but you can just be like sorry I don't have it and keep walking right it's and you don't have again you don't have to be rude about it you don't have to be like get away I don't like you
Right like it's it's it's a simple thing if someone you know stops and asks me for the time I'll just say sorry I don't have it and I'll keep walking and as I'm walking I'm looking over my shoulder and I'm seeing if they're following me right like I'm just I just am aware I'm aware that this is the reality we live in a world where we have to be aware of this does that mean that I think this is important to say does that I walk
Around with fear constantly or that like I keep myself from doing things no like it's not about that and that's I think the key is when you really embody this this sense of empowerment it's a it's about making smart safe choices right like there are certain things that I won't do I won't walk you know in a dark alley by myself at night like I just I won't do it there have been there have actually been times where you know I there's there's a there's a
Need to go down a dark alley and I'll just say nope not doing it right like I just won't do it I I live in Long Island you know close to Manhattan and I had to go into the city I don't know a couple months ago and it was dark and I was by myself and I just walked the long way because you know back to the train because I was like I'm I just don't want to walk down a street that like there too many
People around and like who knows and you just so you make smart safe choices and being aware of the smart safe choices to make doesn't mean that you're like keeping yourself in your house and not leaving and you know being afraid all the time right you still you still go and do the things that you want to do but you but you but you're smart about it and you're paying attention to what's going on around you and you're paying attention to that gut feeling and when
Something feels off you get yourself out of that situ situation and again it can be as simple as crossing a street or you know just saying no thanks and continuing and walking right it doesn't have to be this constant like I'm I'm like nervous all the time and I'm aggressive all the time and if anyone like comes and talks to me or says hello I'm gonna you know punch them in the face right like it's not that's not what it's about it's it's really just having
That sense of like I trust myself I trust my gut I trust that feeling and I and I trust myself to make safe choices well and I feel like the more the more training you have in terms of listening to your gut evading and also learning all the tools that you teach the more empowered you feel the less you feel like that like you know I'm staying in my hand my guards up and I'm GNA walk to the car and I'm ready to go you know
You are more empowered because you do know what to look for and you are being aware and you know I think it would empow give you a lot of freedom and Empower you to kind of go see what you want to see and go do what you want to do because you know you've got this skill set in your pocket and you these very important life skills so let me ask you one more thing if somebody so you offer an online course and if people are
Close to you they can get you sometimes but say somebody's far away and they really want to do work with somebody in person do you have any recommendations for what they should be looking for especially because you mentioned you know there are people who maybe haven't thought through the and again with best intentions but maybe they haven't thought through the efficiency of what they're teaching and do you have recommendations for what to ask for what to look for yeah I mean I think that there are
It's hard to say like as a blanket rule because you know it is kind of like there are different systems and all that but I think that kind of things to look for are number one unfortunately there are a lot of men who teach self-defense to women who shouldn't be teaching self-defense to women and so again it's it's about paying attention to that gut feeling if you go and you try out a class and you get a weird vibe from the teacher like don't go back
Don't go back like it's unfortunate that there are there are a lot of people like that shouldn't be teaching you know I'm a big fan of women you know looking for a female teacher if you can but like my teachers were you know were and are men and I trust them and you know so I'm not against working with men at all but it's also about looking at who their students are so do they have a strong group of female students who you know embody that
Sense of empowerment can you speak to some of their students and get a sense of what to expect and then you know it's just a matter of really finding the right like environment that fits with you and that you feel comfortable in some environments are going to be you know more feel more safe and comfortable for women than others and so I think that a lot of a lot of times you know if you if you look for you know if it's a women self-defense class
Obviously like their students are going to be women but sometimes you know you might find self-defense training that's within a co-ed environment which is totally fine but you want to just make sure that it's it's an environment that is safe and accommodating for women if you have also if you have any history of trauma that you know make sure that you speak with the instructor and make and kind of gauge like are how supportive are they how understanding are they are they going to push you
To do things that you don't feel comfortable with you know there are some positions that I teach that can be very triggering for women who have been assaulted and I always say like I am not going to make anyone do anything that they that they feel uncomfortable doing and I'll explain like why we're focusing on this you know why are we focusing on this position what's the benefit of it and if you if this is too triggering like that's okay you can go and and you
Can watch or if it's too triggering to watch that's also okay like you need to feel part of empowerment is also not just you know beating yourself down in order to feel empowered right it's it's also advocating for yourself and saying like I feel safe doing this I don't feel safe doing that and sometimes it's easing into things that may feel unsafe now but maybe in a few months they'll feel a little bit more safe if you're in the right environment you're awesome I totally I
So because I was thinking there was a self-defense course offered near me before and it was men and then a really great person that I know but I felt like I would be physically intimidated and because of that it's almost like you need that safe space to learn these techniques because if your if your shackles are already raised while you're going into it how are you going to kind of let it permeate through you know you're already if you're already feeling anxious about it how are
You g to be able to listen for when you're feeling anxious do you know what I mean yeah absolutely I really I really appreciate your time I know you have a coupon code for your course too for our listeners do yeah so you know obviously if anyone is in person in the New York City area and would like to would like to work together you can send me an email at hey honeyb bold.com if you're not local or if you are local but you know don't
Feel like coming up to Long Island that's okay you can U check out my course at honeyb bold.com Fearless dour and the coupon code is ROAR r o a r okay I'm that's and that's gonna give you that's G to give you 20% off the course that's great thank you for that I'm gonna get this code from you when we hang up to just so I can put it in our show notes so there's no mistake and can you tell me does that expire or when
That might expire if it does yeah so it's h it's going to expire December 31st at the end of this year and that's that is solely for logistical purposes because I'm switching to different course platform so that coupon code will expire December 31st if you happen to hear this after December 31st and you are interested just send me an email and I'll I'll hook you up and Rachel if you if you do this course do you have access to it all the time like is it
An ongoing access yeah it's it's it's a self-paced course and you have access to it always and you can always you know reach out to me with any questions available for support and I also do Zoom sessions occasionally people will buy my course and then they'll want to do a little bit of additional you know one-on-one if they're not local then we'll do it over Zoom to kind of go a little bit deeper and do you just out of curiosity travel for workshops like if people
Booked you for like a workshop yeah I was actually in Maryland a couple months ago so yeah I do I do love traveling for workshops so happy to set that up if anyone is interested that's good to know very good to know well thank you so much is there anything that you wanted to share that we didn't go over no I don't think so I think this was this was such a great chat and I you know obviously I'm you can tell I'm very I'm very
Passionate about this so I'm I'm grateful for the opportunity to share this with your listeners no we I really appreciate it and I'm sure anybody who listens will too so thank you so much have a great day and I will have all of Rachel's information on our show notes so be sure to look for those check out any links and I'll get your Social Media stuff as well thank you so much.
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