Notes on the journey: Self Defense as Self Sovereignty
- Lauren Lopp
- Reading time: 8 min
A practice of embodiment, empowerment, and sovereignty
"How would you feel about becoming a self defense instructor?"
The question came eight months into my martial arts practice.
Within that time, I had already started to see that my approach to martial arts was different from most of the men I trained with at the dojo. From conversations I had with them, I knew their goals oriented around technique, form, and speed. They wanted to be able to do the thing, do it well, and do it fast.
Where as my only goal is to make it out alive.
Would I love to be able to pull off some techniques in a spar? Absolutely. I truly love the art forms and how performing certain techniques feel in my body. But the truth is, I’m sparring with martial artists who are all bigger, stronger, faster, and more skilled than me.
And they are mostly men.
(If you’re reading this, I know you get it. I need not say more.)
So, not only did I have no desire (or the energy or the strength) to go round for round with them in a spar, my tactics were, and always would be, more direct, efficient, and brutal than theirs. I was going to go for the eyes, the throat, the groin—cheap shots, if you will—every single time, as quickly as I could.
It can come across as ruthless aggression, but the truth is much further from that. It’s not aggression for aggressions sake. I’m there to take down my opponent and get out of there as fast as I can because I’m terrified of my inability to do so, of my inability to protect myself.
So even though the dojo is my brave space—a place of courage and cocreation, curiosity and growth—in my mind there is no separation between what happens on the mat and what could happen out on the streets. I’m constantly aware—and not always by conscious choice—that what I do in the dojo is preparing my mind and body for what could happen out there.
Throughout this journey of showing up on the mat, something else, something I hadn’t expected, but maybe had always known I would find there, began to evolve and take shape.
The dojo became a liminal space of integration for me—the meeting of mind, body, and spirit. A somatic practice as effective, if not more so, than any other somatic therapeutic modalities used to heal and recover from trauma, such as SE and EMDR.
My practice had grown to become one of reclamation—of embodiment, and of my sovereignty.
Not only was I learning how to defend myself, I was learning how to hold my own ground, hold my own space. How to be in my own body and how to remain there, when my default was to dissociate.
Especially when triggered and under fire. How to navigate—in real time—my triggers and needs and boundaries.
For me, my triggers come twofold: What goes through my mind is: What happens when I can’t withstand the onslaught? Because it’s never the first hit I can’t take. Or the second. It’s the continuous blow after blow.
While simultaneously unlearning the fear of punishment I have of defending myself. Which often manifests as physical withholding or downright paralysis.
A Brief Background
To give you a brief background, I have a rather redacted history with both embodiment, and by extension, boundaries. My history with empowerment and sovereignty? Non-existent.
Like many who have experienced complex trauma, I can’t remember a lot of the things that have happened to me. Large chunks of the story are missing.
Growing up in ever-shifting households with a rotating door of cast members, intense moments of chaos were often followed by periods of stability and mundanity. And somewhere along the way, I’d learned that outbursts of emotion—however warranted—were not to be tolerated.
I was always “fine.”
“Lauren? No need to worry about her. Lauren’s fine. Lauren’s always fine.”
I can tell you, Lauren was definitively not fine. Lauren just learned how to keep it under wraps.
Take complex childhood trauma and mix it with religious indoctrination and I found myself in the perfect storm of what would become the next fifteen years of my life—an adolescent romance that indentured me into a ten year long psychological torture chamber/mind prison of a marriage, where not only were my boundaries and needs absolutely not tolerated, they were unequivocally demolished and systematically punished.
My relationship with my needs, my body, my boundaries, my sovereignty became non-existent.
Boundaries? Never heard of her.
Self sovereignty? Don’t make me laugh.
A Perfect Alignment
So, when my instructor asked me if I was interested in becoming an ASSERT/ Empowerment Self Defense instructor, it felt like the natural next step on my journey to reclaiming my sovereignty. A perfect alignment.
Basic self defense, to me, are the instinctual responses our body has to keep us safe—fighting, running, freezing, fawning. Reactions that are not always within our conscious control. Reactions I was all too familiar with.
Empowerment Self Defense, on the other hand, is a response, not a reaction. Through a series of evaluations and choices, we learn how to shift the locus of control back to conscious thought, where all parts of our brain (and self) are functioning.
Empowerment Self Defense comes from a place of inner centeredness, deep seated Knowing of self-worth, and belief that not only is any violence— physical, psychological, or otherwise—perpetrated against us unacceptable and intolerable, but that we can and will do something about it.
Self defense says, I have to defend myself.
Empowerment Self Defense says, I can and I will defend myself.
This requires two things: One, and the most important is: mindset—the belief and willingness to defend yourself.
And two, the capacity (competency) to do so.
Straightforward and simple. But not easy.
This practice requires us to show up even when we’re scared, especially when we’re sacred. To build our capacity to be with ourselves, to inhabit our bodies, on moment to moment basis. To create our baseline so we can know what it feels like when our lines are crossed.
And to not only know what it feels like for our lines to be crossed, but to build our ability to recognize—in real time, in that very moment—when our boundaries are being crossed; when the attack is imminent, when we are being disrespected, gaslit, minimized, etc. To know what that feels like in our bodies, and then, to honor that feeling.
And then to do something about it from a place of empowerment.
From the mindset, belief, and deep inner knowing that we are worth defending.
The mark of true power, of true sovereignty, is knowing when and how to wield it. And a willingness to do so.