WAVE teaches practical, supportive, empowering safety, assertiveness and self-defense skills to women, girls and others targets for gender-based assault. WAVE programs are based on the practice of mindfulness, or being fully aware. WAVE programs build the external awareness required to avoid and to defend ourselves against assault, the internal awareness enabling us to tune into our own intuition, or “early warning system,” and awareness of the contribution we each can make toward creating safer, more peaceful communities. WAVE combines the spiritual centering, discipline, power and exhilaration of many self-defense arts with the practical skills and attitudes needed today for survival, personal safety and peace of mind.

All WAVE programs emphasize awareness, intuition, street smarts, confident body language, safety practices, verbal assertiveness, respect for self and others and a strong calm inner spirit. WAVE’s workshops and classes teach effective physical skills to defend against assault, including rape. Workshops and classes often include practice in dealing with harassment, intimidation, and abuse, as well as assault. WAVE programs are participatory, energizing, hands-on and inclusive. Our instructors respect the diverse range of experience participants have had with violence. WAVE creates a safe and healing environment for its programs and builds a supportive community among participants in even its shortest programs. Thus the sobering process of learning to defend oneself against assault is balanced by connection, laughter, and fun.

Studies show that self-defense training improves the mental, emotional and physical health of participants. When the instructor’s attitude is peaceful and positive, rather than militaristic and negative, the training imparts newfound confidence and determination to protect one’s own personal safety, while also promoting respect for others. WAVE programs reinforce participants’ self-esteem while teaching how to avoid, deter, de-escalate, escape from, resist, and above all, survive assaults. The most concrete result is that participants in WAVE programs are less likely to be victimized. Participants in the full-length training develop a sense of confidence beyond mere “self-defense” skills.

If you are interested in learning more or scheduling training, please contact Debasri Ghosh at 215-564-5301 x122 or click here to email. If you would like to learn more about all of WIT’s community education topics, click here.