30. The sound of a hard target

One of your best weapons is your VOICE! Women's self defense expert Rachel Kealy shares potentially life-saving tips for how we can use our voice to prevent being attacked.

Check out the Women’s Self Defence Network

Transcript

Sally: I'm guessing you're like me and "global pandemic" was not one of the things you expected to happen this year, but Coronavirus isn't the only thing that can take you by surprise. Other humans can too. So for those of us allowed out the front door, we still need to be thinking about our own personal safety, especially with less people out and about and especially with the dangerous state of toilet paper aisles. Look, in all seriousness, you don't want to make yourself an easy target for attack, so stay tuned for this very important episode about how to use your voice to stay safe.

I'm Sally Prosser, you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters and unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Welcome to That Voice Podcast and a special welcome to you if you're bored in lockdown and stumbled across my podcast for the very first time. In this episode I'm chatting with Rachel Kealy who founded Women's Self Defence Network in Melbourne and she set it up to empower women with the knowledge to defend themselves and stay safe in public. Rachel and I met at a Business Chicks event late last year and I was really fascinated to hear how voice is our most powerful weapon. Now forgive the audio on this. I recorded it a few weeks ago and I have changed software platforms since. Okay, let's dive in.

Rachel, welcome to That Voice Podcast.

Rachel: Hi Sally. How are you going? Thanks for having me.

Sally: My pleasure. So Rachel, could you do your job if you lost your voice?

Rachel: Oh look, I could, but it would be nowhere near as effective. I think it's really important that when you're communicating with an audience that you can bring tone and it create some atmosphere and drama and you know your audience is going to engage with you so much more. And if they're engaged, they're going to take all the information in. So I guess if I didn't have a voice, I'd be just showing visuals, which, you know, it would only be part of the story.

Sally: Yeah, absolutely. And when you say your audience, can you tell us a bit more about the sorts of people that you're in front of?

Rachel: Everyone, you know, should learn how to defend themselves. So we talk to kids. Adults could be in the corporate industry, it could be a bunch of school mums, a sporting club. Absolutely anybody. And what we actually deliver is probably a little bit different to what a lot of people think self-defence is. A lot of people think, we're teaching you how to be ninjas. And at the end of the day self defence is so much more than that. And our philosophy is we just want to make sure you get home safe. We like to talk about all the things you can do to avoid a violent encounter. My husband loves giving the analogy of dropping a pebble in a pond and all the ripple effect. So the violence is where the pebble is and that ripple effect is all the things that you can do so far away from the violence to stop an encounter even happening. Situational awareness is a huge one. You know, being aware of your surroundings and then making smart choices. Parking your car or reversing your car in so that you're ready to drive off. Just lots of little things that we can actually do in our day to day life and you can implement them straight away. You don't have to go and start learning a 10 step maneuver on how to defend yourself.

Sally: One thing you said to me, which I remember - is most attackers are looking for a victim, not a fighter.

Rachel: Absolutely. So that's when we get into the whole soft target and hard target. So a soft target is someone that's got low awareness, low confidence. Their entire body language would be saying, "don't talk to me." They're probably not very confident. They don't use their voice. Whereas a hard target or somebody who's walking tall looking around - their entire body language is screaming confidence. They'll talk in a really positive tone and straight away a predator knows that's going to be, it's going to be a hard task to take them down. Whereas, you know, a soft target, if they're unaware, they want to get that element of surprise on you.

Sally: Yeah. It's interesting. Tell us a bit more about the role of the voice. So what sort of tone should we be speaking in to make us a hard target and what sort of things should we be saying?

Rachel: Okay. So when we're a hard target, we want to keep our tone very, I guess strong. But quite often we're taught not to be confrontational, to start with. You know, we're brought up to be polite. So we're trying to encourage people to be unpolite. We don't know these people. If we offend them, we're never going to see them again. We've got to start practicing to be on blood because quite often if somebody approached us and said you know, "can I help you with that?" "Oh no, it's okay." And, and that once again is a soft target. So, you know, in our seminar, we do a drill with people. It's called the Fuck No drill - we're trying to teach people to be a bit more, you know, be firm. Say we're walking into the car park and somebody approaches us and says, "Oh, can I help you with the bags?"

Say "No thank you." So our tone would be straightforward. It would be simple. And that person knows straight away what I'm saying. There's no room for question. And let's say they started to continue and they went to say, "Oh look, come on. My car's only over there. I know you look like you're struggling. Let me help you." "I said NO." So once again, it's firm, NO is a complete sentence. So there's no room for starting up more conversations basically. And then let's just say it was a normal person at this stage who was actually just trying to help. We're probably just offended them and they've walked off and thought "she's a bit of a bitch. I was just trying to help her" or a good person might also think, "well okay, I can see how she would have been caught off guard.

You know, I'm some stranger approaching her," but a predator is going to keep going. They really want to just get in there and this is where we now tell women to use their complete body language. Hands up really strong voice to turn around and say "I said fucking NO" and this is going to throw them off their game. Instantly they're going to know you're a hard target, your voice is being strong. It's been loud. Third party could now hear if someone's around, and that's one thing that they don't want. They want it to be quick, they want it to be quiet, they don't want to get interrupted, they don't want to get hurt. So the more you can project that you are not putting up with this and you're a hard target, then definitely that's going to throw them off their game. They'll be like, "okay, all right." You know?

Sally: Yeh love that. So from a voice perspective, there's three main things that we're doing. The first one is making sure the pitch of the voice is lower. And in season one of the podcast I've got an episode called Pitch Perfect and that's where I talk about not talking in the stratosphere. "Oh yeah, no worries." But talking down on earth. And the second thing is being clear. I love that. Just turning around and saying, "I said no." So really clear in the words. And then the third thing of course is the volume because if someone else can hear you, then that's one of the most important things.

I think I'm a freeze, you know how they say you're a fight or a flight or a freeze. Yes, thank goodness I've been in a situation like that. I haven't been attacked. I've definitely felt unsafe, like I'm sure most women can relate to. What happens if in that situation you freeze and you feel like you just can't make any sound at all?

Rachel: Yes. And that can quite often happen because when you do go through that your all vocal cords can get tight. And even for some people, the pitch of their voice changes. Blood's rushing and all that kind of stuff. So this is where we, you know, hope that you can still get into using the rest of your body to fight if for some reason you felt like you couldn't be verbal. But the other thing we do, which is a big part of our seminars. Because this is something that could happen, we definitely like to tell people to practice this and it's stupid, you know, it feels stupid standing in a loungeroom saying "I said fucking NO", you know, screaming and ranting because it's not something we go out and do in our day to day lives. If you think about it, if you're going to go through a job interview, you do a bit of research, you be prepared, you know you want to get the job and you know, the same thing goes for self defence.

It's running it through your mind. How would you would act, being vocal like for some people they go and do boxing and all that kind of stuff. We're not saying you have to do a martial arts, but definitely if you can just go and practice these things in an environment that's safe, then you're definitely going to give yourself a better chance that if the encounter started, you can go, "hang on, I know what I'm supposed to do." As opposed to thinking, "Oh my God, I didn't see that coming. I don't know what to do." And it's just that thought process and it's just something just to think about like, you know, you could even role play with family members. You know, if I was going to approach you, what would you do? And we definitely talk about that too with gut feelings. Most people ignore their guts.

Our eyes take in information, our gut will give us a feeling. But our brain might take a moment really to click in what's visually happening. And quite often we don't trust our gut enough and we think, "Oh, we're overreacting." So if your gut's telling you something's wrong, start moving. We actually did a seminar with some girls and mothers at the end of last year. And one of the big things that the girls thought was just fascinating was - I gave the scenario of if you're sitting at a bus stop and say there's a group of people coming and you don't feel comfortable instead of sitting there and just waiting for it to come, you actually have the right to get up, walk away and catch the next bus. And I just thought that was some sort of revelation, which is amazing, but it's just because the seed hadn't been planted. They're probably thinking "I've got to be home by five, I've got to get the 4.30 Bus." So it's all of those little preparation things constantly walking away from the threat.

Sally: I mean you're right. It's, it's the same thing with a job interview. One of the reasons I practice with a lot of clients is you don't want the first time you answer the question to be in the interview room and it's a similar thing. You don't want the first time for your voice to come out like that to be in the scenario. So you mentioned going to things like martial arts or boxing. Why is it in those classes or the Australian Open's on at the moment as well? We hear a lot of voice work when they're hitting the tennis ball. Do you think your voice helps with physical movements.

Rachel: I think you know what, it's kind of a bit of role play. Like really when you're getting yourself psyched up in the mood, it's really good to use those sounds when you're training. Because once again, you don't want it to be have to think about it if the actual violent encounter happens. So when you're training, you know, we encourage people when they're punching to go "Ah, AH!"

Sally: And look I do feel like I do a little bit of boxing like very, very once in a while in my Lorna Jane outfit. I feel like I hit harder when I use my voice.

Rachel: Absolutely. Because you switching, it's I think looking on a switch and you go, okay, if somebody is attacking me, I am gonna give it my all. And this is what I love because it's a safe environment. It's somewhere where he can practice all this, especially as women when we don't roll around like always do and have all that you know play. Especially when they're younger. So you know, you take a few knocks in a gym and and whatnot. If it was to ever happen in real life, it's not the first time it's happening. So you feel a lot more comfortable and I think it can help keep you a bit more focused and also making sounds, especially when you're making impact, it helps with your breathing because that's the other thing that happens when we go into that fight or flight. You might stop breathing cause you're just in the moment. So if you're making noises, it forces you to breathe because you can't make a noise if you're breathing in.

Sally: Breath is the power of the voice. In the same way you can choke up when you're really upset or really nervous. I guess that's why you would choke up in that situation as well.

Rachel: Yes, absolutely.

Sally: So have you had any stories where these techniques have worked?

Rachel: Well. Actually yes. It's funny. This event we did in Brisbane last year, the lady, she's got a basement car park and she said there was a gentleman down there on a motorbike over towards the side and she said I hadn't seen him before and he didn't look like he was coming or going and she had her, she has a young child and she was putting her child in the car and she just wanted to let him know that she's seen him because that's another thing we always talk about making eye contact with everybody because it's a way of letting a predator know "I've seen you", you've taken away that element of surprise. So she wanted to let him know that she'd seen him and she wasn't going to be a soft target. So she actually turned around and said, "Oh my God, you fucking scared the shit out of me. I didn't see you there." So instantly she's created noise. She's let him know "I'm not going to be a soft target," but you know, he did actually end up taking off. So we don't know how that was going to end, but at least you got home safe and that is our biggest thing that we want to happen. We want to get people home safe.

Sally: Why as women do we worry about like, "Oh I don't want to sound rude" or "I don't want to make a scene." Like why do we worry about that ahead of our own personal safety? That's crazy. Like we've got to change that thinking.

Rachel: I know. We do and it's just the way we've been raised. Like I even tell my kids now because so often still we say, you know, respect your teachers, do this, do that. But I also say to my kids, there's a level. If a teacher ever invited you into an office and locked the door, that is not okay. So you are to speak up. Because I think it's important that people use their voice when they feel that something is not right. And I guess as we grow up, we're not told to question those things. That's an adult doing that. That must be right. You know, we don't have to go around every person that comes and tries to help us. We tell them to, you know, say fucking no. And we have to learn to use our voice and my husband's a big one for saying "practice on telemarketers" they ring up "do you want this?" "No!" And hang up. So just to get you into a habit. I must stress too. You never tell somebody to "fuck off" because that is a whole different ballgame that is inviting a response and that'll escalate a situation, which is why we tell people to practice saying, "I said fucking no" or "no."

Sally: Yeah. That's worth making the distinction - "fuck off" is inflammatory where "fuck no" is you making a statement?

Rachel: It is and that's it. It's final, the end. It's a complete sentence.

Sally: Absolutely. I remember reading an article when I was younger and it's always stuck with me and it was about self defence and it said, if you get taken, like if you're in the car or if you're blindfolded and you're moved from the scene of the initial attack, that's when you really are stuffed. And they said even if you're getting threatened to shut up with a knife or whatever it is, just ignore it and just scream.

Rachel: Yeah, look, absolutely. You never want to be taken to another location. You do not want to be tied up and do not want to be dragged anywhere. So that is why so much of what we talk about is to avoid the violence because anything can happen. And even my husband and my other instructor, Jim Armstrong, who we have, they are more than capable of looking after themselves. Absolutely. But they will avoid violence at all costs because anything can happen. Like my husband says, "I can stand on a bottle, roll over and I'm on the ground." We never go in thinking, "well, I can take this guy on" or "I can take this person on." We just don't want to be in that violent place to begin with. Situational awareness. If you're walking and you see someone, ahead and your gut's saying, "Oh, I don't like the look of this," cross the road.

If they cross the road, that's your first sign that they've got ill intentions and start running. People underestimate running and a lot of times they will not chase. They would want it to be quick and easy and quiet and you start running? You could be running into crowds. You're starting to create commotion. People are thinking, "why is that person running?" That's why we talk so much about time and space as well. The more space you have away from the threat, the more time you've got to make smart choices and most of that time is "get out of there." So if you get to a lift and the door opens in your gut's saying, "I don't want to get in." Just say, "Oh sorry, I forgot my phone. You go, I'll get the next one." You don't sort of look at them as if like "Oh I'm not happy getting in with you." Most people get in the lift and they will press a button and they will turn their back to that person, you know, a lot of people don't like to make eye contact and we encourage eye contact all the time. Not to stare and eyeball someone, but definitely to let them know that you've seen them. That person could be holding a weapon and you wouldn't know cause you've turned your back. And I think people think that, "Oh, if I haven't been seen, nothing's going to happen. I'm going into my own little bubble."

Sally: Tips that you're giving us are so important. They are life saving techniques. So how can people or companies work with you?

Rachel: You can contact me at rachel@wsdn.com.au or you can look on our website, which is also www.wsdn.com.au. We work seven days a week. So if it's something you want to do during the day or after school or after work, we're pretty flexible. And we also customize. So if you have a particular industry, like when we went to Brisbane, we did it for real estate agents and they were very keen to know what they can do with property inspections.

Sally: Yeh cause they don't know what they're walking in to!

Rachel: Absolutely. And so you don't know who's coming in to inspect. And when you're doing the rental, quite often you're going in and a lot of people don't like having their rental inspections happening. And if it's an apartment it could be a one way in and one way out scenario. And from the general vibe we got from people too, no one really had any strategies in place for if something did actually happen. So by all means, if you're in an industry and there's something particularly you would like us to cover, we definitely tailor our workshops towards that as well.

Sally: Fantastic. Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I can't wait to get this edited and out there!

Rachel: Thank you so much Sally, for having me on. It's been great.

Sally: Rach is just lovely. And as you can imagine, her business, like so many, including mine, has been affected by this global crisis.

Next week I'll be chatting on the podcast to a couple of my friends who also happened to be television journalists. So for those of you who don't know, my background is in TV and radio news reporting and producing, it's an area very, very dear to my heart, and I'm looking forward to chatting to them about how they're going with this massive story and also about how they get that broadcast voice.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. Remember, I happily coach online, so don't let the virus make you neglect your voice. Get in touch.