A new women’s-only self-defence course is coming to Lincolnshire soon.
The six-week course, run by Empower Martial Arts Academy, is due to start on Wednesday, March 5 in Lincoln.
This comes after a recent report, released by the National Audit Office in January, which examined the government’s efforts to address gender-based violence in the UK.
The report stated that violence against women and girls is a significant and growing problem, and despite the government’s initiatives, it is currently affecting one in 12 women.
Dan Holloway, the owner of the academy who has been teaching fitness and self-defence for 10 years, said: “We have recently seen a huge call for ladies-only classes and have decided to run some.”
North East Lincolnshire is currently ranked as the worst place to be a girl, as found in The State of Girl’s Rights in the UK report last year.
The course aims to improve overall fitness in women and teach self-defence. “Self-defence is such a nuanced topic and entails so many different factors. We mainly teach simple gross motor skill strikes aimed to deliver impact,” Dan said.
The Academy hopes this course will help women in Lincolnshire to feel safer in their community.
Ollie Key, an instructor at the academy who’s set to lead the course, said: “It’s important to make access to classes, tools and organisations working to combat this issue as easy as possible for those who need it most”.
