STREETWISE SELF-DEFENSE
Introduction
Basic Techniques
Strikes Against Vulnerable Areas
Using Your Personal Items as Weapons
How to Prevent Injuries
A Word About Nutrition
CONCLUSION
About the Author and The F.U.M.A. “Crusade Against Crime” Organization
FOREWORD
When one waits long enough, he is sure to receive what he waited for. This volume is the result of many years of contact with children, and is filled with information that is specifically geared to children of all ages. Additionally, it addresses safety problems in a way that will interest parents, thus generating a desire to understand the various problems facing children today. Throughout the book we find ourselves emotionally experiencing each problem and viewing children’s daily lives in a far different manner.
Each chapter is loaded with important commentary and advice, which, if followed, will shield children against the everyday dangers of kidnapping and assault—to name a few problems. The clear manner in which the author explains each problem and how to prepare for it is what makes this a most unusual volume. Problems that may arise when leaving a child home alone are discussed with clarity from a professional’s outlook, which provides the reader with a wealth of knowledge for coping with any situation that comes about. Problem areas faced by children are described in a lucid manner, followed by advice and suggestions relative to preparation and defense against any intrusion. Virtually every imaginable safety area is covered. One of the most vulnerable parts of any child’s day is the time he or she spends traveling between home and school. Every day, children must make their way through a myriad of traveling situations throughout which they must be aware of where they are, where they are going, and the people around them.
The author has cleverly taken problem situations and shows how to first protect against intrusion, then defend against any breach. This makes Streetwise Safety for Children a valuable asset to any parent. Indeed, I would recommend it to anyone in any profession. It has value to parents, older children (capable of reading it), security personnel, teachers, school bus drivers, and others engaged in transporting or teaching children. For parents it becomes a training manual with full coverage of any potential danger to their children. Each chapter is fully explained with emphasis placed on specific situations. At no place in this book is there a situation or condition that is not covered from beginning to end. Such subjects as lighting, locks, telephones, and alarm systems are described in a manner that the uninitiated should digest with ease.
Mr. DePasquale comes well equipped to write this book. He is internationally known and recognized as a fine instructor with over 30 years of experience in martial arts. He has instructed peace officers throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Italy and Mexico. He holds a martial arts rank of Nidai Shihan in Yoshitsune Waza Ju-Jitsu. He has been the subject of articles in newspapers, magazines, college periodicals and organization periodicals. He has also appeared in nine martial arts motion pictures made both here in the U.S. as well as in the Orient. In addition he has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, such as “Regis Philbin,” “Yo MTV Raps,” “Nickelodeon,” “Attitudes”and network news, speaking about F.U.M.A.’S streetwise safety and self-defense techniques and seminars.
Experience as a security officer has afforded him a “hands-on” opportunity to work as a bodyguard, executive security engineer and protection consultant. I cannot recommend this volume more highly. The reader will find that it offers simple, down to the point solutions to serious problems.
BY MICHAEL DEPASQUALE SR.
Dai Shihan Yoshitsune Ju Jitsu
United States Army Criminal Investigation Division
Polygraphist
Retired Railroad Police
State Licensed Private Detective
Founder International Protection Systems Inc.
Lecturer, Terrorism And Explosives
US Government Security Agent
Streetwise Safety
for Children
by Robert c. Suggs, Ph.D.
FUMA Crusade Against Crime Coordinator
Groups of high school students lie in wait for students of Elementary School X, at bus stops and along walking routes, attempting to sell the children drugs and threatening them if they do not make purchases. A couple of determined little girls turn the dealers over to police and then live in fear of retaliation for weeks.
A “cool” youth tall, well-dressed, and a role model in his own mind, attends Elementary School Y. In his school bag he carries a knife, to awe his school mates; a couple of condoms, to hand out to friends; and a wine cooler for lunch, to help reduce the terrible anguish imposed by mental challenge. A year later, before finishing 6th grade, he has been incarcerated for a lengthy term on assault and battery, but his place has been taken by imitators.
In a fight over turf between drug dealers at an upper-middle class high school, students bring guns to school in preparation for a shoot-out. A youth sees a fellow student hide a gun in his locker; he is threatened with death if he reports the presence of the weapon, but does so anyway. Although the threat is never carried out he and his parents remain fearful for his life.
Drug dealers at a suburban high school dress ostentatiously in expensive preppy clothing, attend rock concerts and “raves,” drive good cars, and openly brag about the amounts of money they make in their business, despite the constant presence of police patrols, who appear totally ignorant of their activities.
A well-known high school football star is arrested for the armed robbery of a group of friends in a local fast food establishment. For the school administration the only important question raised by his act is: should he be allowed to play in the first game of the season?
A group of upper middle class teenagers get drunk on New Year’s Eve and decide to “torch”the local high school, causing $3 million in damages and resulting in the suspension of all school operations for over a year. One parent claims that this act was a legitimate free-speech protest against a “repressive” school regime — which failed to provide an indoor smoking area for the arsonists!
Members of a ring of elderly homosexual child abusers and pornographers — linked regional-and national by E-mail—hang out at shopping malls attracting young men with promises of gifts and money. They are apprehended and convicted, but refuse to divulge the fate of one of their victims, who has disappeared without a trace.
A class of 4th and 5th grade karate students is being briefed on a serial rapist known by police to be operating in the vicinity of their school. The instructor finishes his presentation, and students’ hands begin to go up. Within a few minutes, 4 out of 5 of the girls in the class have told their classmates of male relatives and family “friends” — sexual predators — who their parents have warned them to avoid!
In an anti-abuse training session, a martial arts instructor gives suggestions on how to cope with threatening adult behaviors. From the back row comes the plaintive question: “What do you do when the person bothering you is your father?”
THE SITUATION
These few relatively commonplace examples from only one person’s experience and knowledge illustrate the increasingly vicious world surrounding a large percentage of American children today, and the apparent inability of authorities to cope with this situation. The schools, the streets, the shopping malls, and even the once sacrosanct home, abound with threats to our nation’s most important resource — our children. Law enforcement seems to be blind, or hobbled by courts, and standards of right and wrong seem infinitely negotiable. There is no indication that this world is going to miraculously