R.A.D. Teaches Women Important Self-defense Skills

Longwood University Po­lice Department (LUPD) hosted a Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) class for women who are students, faculty, staff or a member of the surrounding community.

According to the LUPD web page, the objective of R.A.D. is to "develop and enhance the options of self defense, so they may become more viable considerations to the woman who is attacked." The class was broken up into four different sessions that lasted three hours each night.

There are an estimated 213,000 victims of sexual assault; rain.org reports 44 percent of these victims are under the age of 18 and 80 percent are under the age of 30. R.A.D. is a program that provides women only with self-defense techniques and maneuvers. It begins with awareness, prevention, risk reduction and risk avoid­ance, and ends with hands-on defense training.

LUPD Sergeant Ray Os­trander said, "It teaches them things to look out for and gives them techniques on how to get out of a situation."

Apartment Manager for Residential and Commuter Life Jennifer Paulett says there is more to the classes than self-defense. She said, "You have a lecture part to go over avoidance, reduction, recognition and awareness, and those things make up 90 percent of your self-defense. The education component is really important."

R.A.D has been at Long­wood since 2000 and is taught by Ostrander, Paulett, Sus­tainability Coordinator Kelly Martin, Part-time Patrol Of­ficer John Thompson and Se­nior Emergency Coordinator Melissa VanRomondt.

Paulett and Ostrander be­came R.A.D. instructors in 2010. Ostrander said the rea­son he wanted to become an instructor is because it was something he loved to do. Paulett said self-defense is something that she has al­ways be interested in learn­ing more about and became interested in being an instruc­tor when Thompson brought it up to her a few years ago.

Thompson became an in­structor in 2004 and was the head of R.A.D. at Longwood before Ostrander took over. He stated, "I enjoy help­ing people and when I was working in investigation, you worked with a lot of sex­ual assaults and rapes and it made me realize I wanted to do something to help."

Paulett, Ostrander and Thompson all said there are several rewards for be­ing an instructor of R.A.D. for young women. All three of them agreed the most re­warding part of instructing the class is simulation night.

Ostrander and Thompson agreed that they both enjoy watching the facial expres­sions on their students' faces on simulation night. Thomp­son said, "When they're do­ing the moves, they know that they are more powerful than they were the first night they started." Ostrander add­ed, "We're very proud on the last night."

Paulett stated, "A lot of times you will have a few re­ally shy and timid girls, and when they start employing techniques on Ostrander in the body suit, you can just see their eyes light up and how powerful they feel."

Ostrander said there proba­bly will not be another R.A.D. class offered until next fall, but if you have a group of friends who are interested in taking the class and can find a twelve-hour block that is split into two six-hour class­es, three four-hour classes or four three-hour classes, you can contact him.

There are multiple ways to contact Ostrander if you are interested in taking a class. He said, "You can contact me through R.A.D. at Longwood on Facebook or the campus police Facebook page. We would like to have at least six girls, no more than twelve, but we can accommodate more with additional notice."

Any female student, fac­ulty member or staff mem­ber is allowed to participate. Members of the community who are around the ages of 15 and 16 are also able to take the class as long as they have consent from a legal guard­ian.

All of the R.A.D. instructors at Longwood highly encour­age any female students or faculty members to take this class. It is free and the team of instructors will work around your schedule. At the end of the class you are awarded a certificate, which allows you to participate in any R.A.D. class in the United States or Canada.

Junior Jeanne Howe, who took the class this semester, said, ""I had a really good time! Officer Ray said we could come back and do the test again next semester and I think I may do so just to keep what I learned fresh and practiced. Plus, it was a lot of fun throwing some real blows, so why not?"

Freshman Catricia Ashley also took the class this semes­ter and said she recommends all girls to take this class. Ash­ley said, "Most people think they are safe, but whether you need it or not, it's good to have self-defense."