THE SEPS APPROACH

The SEPS Approach To Women's Self-Defense

The SEPS (Situation Effective Protection System) is a contextually based approach to personal safety and self-defense. Rather than teach a set of rules/”do’s and don’ts” (e.g., don’t walk down dark alleys, don’t run with your earbuds in etc.)which may only be applicable to certain situations and scenarios, using the SEPS framework individuals can learn how to predict, identify and avoid violence before it occurs. Predatory individuals and other offenders follow certain common processes when looking to commit offenses and if these can be understood and identified then it is possible to avoid being physically victimized. This is the first part of learning how to defend yourself successfully, as even if you are unable to avoid a physical confrontation you are at the very least better prepared to deal with it. It is this self-protection piece that enables physical self-defense to be effective – without it you will be caught off-guard, and it is unlikely that you will make any self-defense technique(s) you have learnt work. By being able to recognize when somebody represents a threat to you – even when they are not being “explicit” in their actions, behavior, and demeanor – is an important component of effective self-defense training.

Our program works by explaining two timelines: the offender’s and those they target. For both to intersect, and for a violent offense to be committed, both parties must go through various stages and phases. It is by understanding these that it becomes possible to recognize how our timeline affects our chances and the risk of being victimized, and what an offender must do, and the stages they must go through in order to gain access to us. When we understand these things, we have the ability to predict and prevent violence e.g., if we can identify and prevent an offender from completing a stage/phase, then we are able to move off their timeline and avoid ours intersecting with theirs. By using criminological research to understand the common behaviors that different offenders engage in, it is possible to identify these and educate people as to how to recognize them.

The physical self-defense component of the SEPS Program is effectively a distilled Krav Maga program, which teaches, simple, instinctive responses to violent attacks and threats. It is not designed to be truly comprehensive, in that no solutions to weapons are taught, but it focuses on the most common ways in which women are attacked and assaulted e.g., looking at escapes from controls and holds which are used to arrest and prevent movement etc. These solutions to physical violence are taught as in-person classes and seminars, whilst the self-protection components of the program are taught online (this site contains this material). If you are interested in taking an in-person class, please click here to find out when our next women’s self-defense class/seminar is being held. All of our regular in-person self-defense classes are taught at the Krav Maga Yashir Boston training facility, located in Woburn, just north of Boston (off of I-93 and I-95). The address is listed below (there is free on-site parking at our facility. If you are interested in learning more about SEPS creator and developer, Gershon Ben Keren, please click here.

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