On October 24, the City Times news team took part in Jesse Schaper’s fitness and self-defence class for women and children.
Held every Saturday morning at the Martial Fitness Gym in Northmead, Schaper believes this class is vital for women and children to learn how to defend themselves.
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“I call this class a ‘fight camp class’. We do an hour of hard conditioning and fitness before moving on to self-defence.
“The reason I do it this way is because the majority of the time when one is attacked, you’re tired after a long day of work or been at the gym, for example.
“You need to know how to defend yourself despite being out of breath or tired or be able to run after your child if they are taken and not run out of energy.
“It’s all about stamina and learning to fight back, regardless of your state of mind or physique,” explained Schaper, owner of the gym and a mixed martial arts (MMA) amateur fighter.
The City Times journalists felt everything Schaper was referring too, starting with fitness exercises we definitely felt the tiredness before learning the self-defence but fighting through it was well worth it because it also allowed us to see our level of fitness and what we needed to improve on.
Schaper works on a colour system where each colour is a phase that you are in and explains how one would move through the colour phases during an attack.
“Especially when you have been attacked before, or if you are worried about being attacked, it’s all a psychological fear, which I find a lot easier to handle and work with using colours.
“It helps people keep this in their mind when entering a room or shop. It allows people to understand more how to work with their own fear,” said Schaper.
Starting with the fitness on a hot morning, we jumped straight into the conditioning.
Schaper taught us not only self-defence techniques but also boxing stances, to always protect your face and be quick with moving your feet.
Keeping yourself away from your attacker, showing your attacker that you are not afraid and are willing to do damage to them just as they would to you.
The class is open to anyone who wishes to learn how to protect themselves or their children.
Children can also take part in the class because Schaper believes you are never too young to learn how to defend yourself.
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“We try to make the class as personal as possible. My brother, Tyrone, is known as the Rocky of the gym.
Although he is still learning, the motivation he gives everyone here is unbelievable. He makes everyone feel safe and ready to take on anything that comes for them.”
After the fitness lesson was done and we all glugged our bottles of water, we moved onto the self-defence, learning how to get out of someone’s grip when they grab your wrists.
It was difficult to pick up in the beginning but we managed to get the hang of it before moving onto the next step – once you are out of the attackers grip.
You would then twist the arm around their back and hold them in a bending over position, this way no attacker, no matter how much stronger then you they are, will be able to stand up and get out, before you break their arm using your knee in an upwards drive position.
Schaper is in the middle of creating an app, in conjunction with Duma Protection, owned by Schaper’s uncle, Rocky Schaper.
“This app will allow people to press a panic button, where we will then be able to assist them and help as best as we can.
“It’s still a developing app but we are very excited to get this up and running.”
“We would also like to offer free self-defence classes for women and children who have experienced trauma.
“We want to assist them with self-defence to lift their confidence so that if anything was to happen to them again, this time they will be prepared. We have lots to come and hope that we can assist the community as much as we can,” concluded Schaper.
The City Times journalists felt like we learnt a lot, and even though it was one lesson we did feel a lot safer knowing that if we were confronted by an attacker, we have now learnt a few moves to get away.
Schaper taught us to move with quick feet once you have jabbed the attacker in the face with the boxing punches we learnt, to rather avoid the attacker because in most cases if you show no fear and show you’re also willing to attack and do damage, they will run, but if they don’t and come for you again, they will grab your wrists to have access to your face, and we now know how to get out of that situation too.
Overall, it was a great morning and all four of us have decided to at least do a class a month. As women we have much to be afraid of in South Africa, but with self-defence and fitness techniques, we walk with our heads held high.
