Blog: Teaching Women how to Defend Themselves—and Making a World of Difference in their Lives

Fueled by a tragedy, the passion of Jamie Barton is to make a difference in the lives of women—one woman at a time. In the late 80s, a good friend of Jamie’s parked on a dimly lit side-street and was walking alone when she was grabbed, loaded into a van and taken out into the desert, brutally raped and left for dead. Miraculously, the woman survived. It was a wake-up call for Jamie.

“Back then, I was the girly girl,” she says. “I worked the high heel shoes, big hair and make-up. My friend was athletic and not at all the girly type. I realized that if she could be targeted as a victim, I surely could.” 

Jamie decided then and there that she would not go down without a fight—ever—and so she began her training in self-defense. 

While busily working her way up the corporate ladder, Jamie dedicated her precious free time to training in a variety of self defense techniques, starting with the Korean martial art tae kwon do, which is also an Olympics sport. She eventually trained with a 7th-degree black belt and, after moving to Los Angeles, completed a course with Impact Personal Safety, an intensive, full contact women’s safety program that includes techniques in how to deal with assailant attacks in real-life scenarios.

This year, Jamie made the move from part-time teacher and full-time corporate VP to full-time FemDefender. She founded FemDefend, a company based in Burbank, where she now teaches her own courses in self-defense and personal empowerment techniques. Jamie teaches women, ages 13 and up, through two-hour Saturday workshops, small group settings, and in private sessions. She will come to your home or office! 

The Saturday workshops are jam-packed, basic trainings that include select stances, kicks, blocks, strikes/punches, take-downs, grab-hold escapes, counter-attacks and more for just $50 a session. If you want an introduction to the FemDefend style of self-defense, this is a good place to start. You can see the class schedule on her website at www.femdefend.com.

If you’re in Eagle Rock today, Thursday, Sept. 6, at 1 p.m., you can also get a free introduction. Jamie is a member of the Work@Homers, the networking group about which I’ve blogged previously. On Thursday, after our regular networking lunch, Jamie will offer us a free taste of her Saturday workshops. The workshop is open to the public.  RSVP to (818) 398-4995 or to kc2la@pacbell soon as space is limited for this very special presentation.

Jamie says: “The key is not to live in fear, and the way to do that is to be prepared. It’s better to know something than nothing at all.” Jamie has a son, so she is also working on a class for kids aged five to 12 years. Contact Jamie at (818) 913-2933 or jamie@femdefend.com if you’re interested in learning about the kids’ class when it becomes available later this year.

Ever continuing to train, Jamie is enrolled in this fall’s Burbank Police Department’s Community Academy, where participants learn directly from the officers on topics such as the criminal justice system, the police hiring process, training, traffic control, patrol, detectives, air support, the Special Weapons and Tactics team, police K-9s, and much more.
“I may still look like a target but if you plan to hurt me, my family or my child, I am outfitted with the confidence that I can, without hesitation, swiftly get into protect-and-defend mode,” says Jamie, adding: “I will not go down without a fight.”

For more about FemDefend, see http://femdefend.com/
For more about Work@Homers, see www.meetup.com/WorkAtHomers or www.facebook.com/Work@Homers