- Bateman knows of what she speaks. In 1984, when she was 37 years old, she famously fought off a knife-wielding attacker who tried to cut her throat inside her Madison Park home. She fought him for more than 30 minutes, trying one thing after another until he was scared off by the arrival of her friend.
- Remarkably, the only scars Bateman seems to bear today from the attack are physical ones, including the thin white line on the pad of her left thumb where the knife landed when she put her hand to her throat to protect it.
- Py Bateman, founder of the Feminist Karate Union at the University of Washington.
- Researchers in the 1980s became interested in the subject of self-defense, enabling Bateman to teach techniques that were proven to work.
- She and other instructors are quick to note that many women survive attacks with no training at all. And not every woman is afraid. Some women come to their confidence organically and use it to hone their awareness of their surroundings. They walk confidently, look people in the eye and stick up for themselves.
- Bateman says she knew her attacker wanted to kill her. But she'd imagined such an attack - and always pictured herself victorious.
- Bateman knows that most attacks are usually preceded by a predictable dance in which boundaries are tested. Recognize the warning signs and you have an opportunity to shut things down before there's a need to get physical or resort to a weapon.
- AT FIRST GLANCE, Bateman seems an unlikely pioneer for women's self-defense. At age 66 and standing all of 5 feet 2, she grew up at a time when conventional wisdom held that women who fought back against their attackers would only get hurt worse.
- But it was Ted Bundy, the serial killer who preyed on young women in Washington and Oregon in the 1970s, who gave the movement momentum, Bateman says.
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