SAFE Violence Prevention & Self Defence

09/29/2026

In the early 1970s, students in Santa Cruz were given a safety rule:

"Only take rides from cars with a university parking sticker."

Who had that sticker? Ed Kemper had the sticker. Ed fooled the experts.

The rule meant to protect the students is exactly what made him look safe.

Here's the lesson for anyone who teaches self-defence:

* Teach your students that one signal is like a sticker not enough to trust someone.
* Notice what makes you uncomfortable early, and trust it.
* Have your first move decided before you need it.

And it's not just strangers. Most assaults come from someone the person knows. Same strategies over a longer period of time

I share his methods and what instructors should teach from them 👇

Ed Kemper used a safety rule to fool his victims. Here's what self-defence instructors should teach about trust tactics.

09/22/2026

Some of What I Stopped Teaching & Why

I often say it is easy to teach a 20-hour self-defence course, but the real challenge is when you only have a few hours.

What do you keep in the curriculum, and what do you take out?

After 32 years, here is what I cut from my self-defense training, and the client-first approach that made me a better instructor.

09/14/2026

Most people never plan to get shoved, and it usually happens because someone got too close to you. Sometimes because they moved in quickly; sometimes because egos collide and nobody backs up.

If you're too close, some will use a quick shove to make just enough space to throw a punch. Others shove to knock you off balance, intimidate you, or control you.

Often, many will brace themselves against the shove, which might work sometimes, but it can also be taken as a challenge, and things escalate.

Intercepting works sometimes. But when the person is too close, it usually fails.

What I rarely see taught is learning how to TAKE a shove. If you learn and train to take a shove, it can buy you extra space to talk and de-escalate, offer you distance to escape, or time to prepare your defence.

Keep SAFE
Christopher Roberts

www.safeinternational.biz

09/09/2026

What Happens Before the Fight?

The self-defence scenario training begins.

Bar scene. Two guys bump shoulders. One says, "You looking at my woman?" The words get louder, and it turns into a fight.

The typical tough-guy scenario stuff. It is intense and feels productive, but it usually leads to the same outcome: a fight. Not much use for a mom walking to her car with a guy insisting on helping her, or a father with his child at an ATM machine when his intuition kicks in.

What is missing?

No objective before the drill starts. No stop word if it goes too far. No debrief after to talk about what happened.

It is sparring hidden behind a generic scenario.

You win the physical fight, so the scenario feels productive, but what about everything that happens before the fight?

The chance to avoid the conflict or the opportunity to de-escalate it.

Every scenario we teach works the same way. Clear goal. A way to scale it up or down. A real debrief after.

See how it is built, for instructors who want to teach this properly:
https://safeinternational.biz/safe-scenario-trainer-page

What is missing from the last "scenario drill" you saw?

A complete tool to help instructors run realistic, purpose-driven self-defence scenarios that actually prepare students.

09/07/2026

Some of the best instructors I know still want another set of eyes on their work. That is exactly what SAFE Certification is built for.

Shellé and Dave Friedman run LiveSafe Education and Krav Maga Australia, a leading provider of personal safety and self-defence training for corporations, schools, individuals, and community organizations in Australia. Their approach covers everything from risk awareness and prevention to simple, realistic self-defence and de-escalation skills. They are highly experienced and did not need certification to prove it.

But they came to me with a question anyway: what should staff say when a client's behaviour turns, and they need to exit safely, without making things worse?

We worked through it together. The result is a real look at how experienced instructors sharpen each other's work, all in service of the same goal: keeping people safe.

Read the full exchange:

A real SAFE Certification case study: the exact words to use (and avoid) when a client turns aggressive during a home visit. Violence prevention training in action.

09/03/2026

Can Your Students Remember What You Teach When Stress Hits?

Most self-defence training looks good in the gym. But under real pressure, it collapses because it was never built for recall.

Many instructors teach good material, but under pressure, regular people do not rise to the occasion. They fall to what they can remember.

This free guide shows 5 mistakes instructors make when students may only train once, and why teaching often breaks down under stress.

Comment SAFE below, and I'll send it to you.

08/21/2026

A US school went looking. They looked across the border to Canada.

Something interesting happened this week.

A police officer from Michigan recently signed up for SAFE Certification.

She works partly in a high school, where the school asked if she could teach violence prevention and self-defence to students. So she started searching for the right program.

What stood out to me was that the school did their own research first. After that, they told her to reach out to me.

What makes this interesting is that I am in Canada and they are in Michigan. Their research didn’t just find a local program; it crossed the border and led them to SAFE.

I’m not sure exactly how they found me. For the first 26 years of my business, though, teaching self-defence in high schools was my main focus. That history probably led them here.

Regardless of who we teach, flashy or dramatic does not enter the training. It’s simply a program that schools and people trust to teach regular people something they will actually remember.

If you teach everyday people and want a system designed to help them remember skills under stress, SAFE Certification is for you.

Take a look at the certification. The link is in the comments.

07/31/2026

Why wait till the hands are around the neck?

Self-defence most often begins before contact, so why do so many skip that step?

If you skip the pre-contact phase, you're skipping the most critical

Grab our free resources here:
www.safeinternational.biz/explore-safe

More free tools on our other pages too.

07/28/2026

She had less than 3 hours of training.

An experienced and SAFE-certified instructor in the UK, James Lally, sent me this.

He taught a women’s self-defence course. It started with the basics, focusing first on preventing violence.

The next morning, one of the women from the class texted him.

The night before, while walking home, she tried to help a drunk man get a cab. He grabbed her.

She had the confidence to make noise, get attention, and defend herself. People came to help, and she got away.

She had less than three hours of training, all on the same day.

That’s the main point.

Most people won’t spend years training, but we can still teach them simple, memorable, and effective skills in just a few hours.

Under stress, you fall to what you can remember. She remembered the simple things. And the simple things worked.

That’s what SAFE teaches, and that’s what our certified instructors share. To find James Philip Lally and other instructors, visit https://safeinternational.biz/instructors

Explore SAFE Certification: www.safeinternational.biz/safe-certification-page

06/16/2026

You pushed back? You might have just lost your legal protection.

Most people think they know the difference between fighting and self-defence. Or worse, they think they are the same thing.

Not knowing can land you in a world of legal trouble.

Here is the scenario that surprises people every time:
Someone gets in your face. They push you. You push back.
You just joined the fight.

That might sound simplistic, but it is worth analyzing.

The moment you push back without attempting to exit might diminish your argument of self-defence.

Self-defence is not about who started it. It is not about teaching someone a lesson or proving you are right.

It is about going home.

We put together 10 distinctions that every person should understand -- because knowing the difference could literally keep you out of jail.

Read the full post here: https://safeinternational.biz/post/fighting-vs-self-defence