Self-Defense is the countermeasure to a threat to one's health and well-being… defending yourself from harm basically. As a female college student in a large city, I've had to wonder far too many times how exactly I could disarm and escape confrontational situations. While self-defense may not be completely efficient, it definitely is a useful skill I ask all women to consider learning.

There's no end to learning or revising this skill. I've been to self-defense classes where the main philosophy is escape and not confrontation and I've been to classes where they train you to efficiently identify targets and execute them to stop blood flow to the brain, incapacitating the attacker. While I will never claim that I feel completely safe and at ease, it has definitely trained my eyes to take in all possible escape routes the moment I enter a room and all possible targets that I can hit to incapacitate someone with minimum damage to myself.

I might not be an expert combatant, but I believe these classes have given me more skills to survive. At the end of the day, it's a matter of survival and knowing some basic self-defense might make or break a situation. I would like to go out at night, to a party or just the grocery store without having to worry about my safety, but unfortunately that's not a possibility so learning how to take care of myself was the only way. I can't exactly stop being a functioning human because of fear can I?

To make this article worth your time, I'll be mentioning 3 tips/strategies I learned from my classes and ones I feel are important and easy to implement.

While some of these might seem extreme, it is a precaution I have to take. I am not a physically imposing figure so self-defense classes, which are tailored for everyone, is my best bet to live a little relaxed. Invest in this skill. It can be a matter of life or death.