Maryland Systema Offers Free Community Self-Defense Workshops for Adults

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rockville, MD — March 25, 2023 — Maryland Systema announced that its instructors are making free introductory self-defense workshops available to community organizations serving adults who may face financial, transportation, or other barriers to traditional martial arts training.

The workshops focus on practical personal-safety skills, including awareness, boundaries, positioning, movement, breathing, and responsible decision-making. Programs may be adapted to the needs of participating organizations and the adults they serve.

Expanding Access to Practical Self-Defense

The cost of classes, limited transportation, demanding work schedules, and family responsibilities can make regular self-defense training difficult to access.

Maryland Systema’s community workshops are intended to provide adults with a realistic introduction to personal safety without requiring a long-term commitment, previous martial arts experience, a uniform, or specialized equipment.

Workshop topics may include:

• Recognizing changes in behavior, posture, and distance
• Identifying exits, obstacles, and nearby sources of help
• Establishing clear verbal and physical boundaries
• Managing distance before physical contact begins
• Maintaining balance while being pushed or pulled
• Moving against grabs, crowding, and attempts at restraint
• Breathing during physical effort and controlled pressure
• Protecting another person while preserving access to an exit
• Understanding when to leave, seek help, or call emergency services

“Self-defense education should not be limited to people who can afford a long-term martial arts membership,” said Jim Eglin, founder and Chief Instructor of Maryland Systema. “These workshops give adults an opportunity to examine awareness, movement, and personal-safety decisions in a respectful training environment.”

Awareness Before Physical Action

Maryland Systema teaches that personal safety begins before a physical confrontation.

Someone may move too close, ignore a boundary, block a path, follow another person, or continue escalating after being asked to stop. Recognizing these changes early may give someone more time to reposition, create distance, seek assistance, or leave.

Participants learn to observe posture, hands, movement, tone, nearby people, obstacles, and available exits. They also examine how fear, fatigue, distraction, anger, or social pressure can affect judgment.

The purpose is not to make participants suspicious of everyone around them. It is to help them recognize when a situation is changing and act while they still have options.

Controlled Physical Training

Depending on the organization and workshop format, participants may practice responses to light pushing, pulling, wrist grabs, clothing grabs, crowding, or attempts to restrict movement.

Exercises begin slowly and use an agreed level of contact. Participants learn to keep breathing, protect their balance, identify what remains free, and move their whole body rather than struggling only at the point where they are being held.

The workshops are not competitions and do not test toughness. Physical exercises are used to show how breathing, tension, posture, and balance can change when another person applies pressure.

Participants may ask for less resistance or stop an exercise at any time.

A Realistic View of Personal Safety

No workshop can guarantee that someone will avoid injury or successfully respond to every threat. Real incidents involve changing conditions, resistance, surprise, and incomplete information.

Maryland Systema emphasizes avoidance, early recognition, access to exits, and seeking help whenever possible. Physical action is presented as one part of personal safety rather than the first or only response.

When physical force becomes necessary, the response should fit the immediate danger and stop when the need ends.

Working With Community Organizations

Maryland Systema can work with nonprofit organizations, community centers, victim-support groups, adult-education programs, neighborhood associations, and other organizations interested in hosting an adult personal-safety workshop.

Programs can be adjusted according to:

• Group size
• Available training space
• Participant mobility and physical limitations
• Time available
• Desired level of physical contact
• Specific personal-safety concerns
• Organizational policies and responsibilities

Maryland Systema currently provides training for adults aged 18 and older.

About Maryland Systema

Maryland Systema provides practical adult self-defense training based on awareness, breathing, movement, balance, controlled contact, and responsible decision-making.

Training includes positioning, boundaries, strikes, grabs, restraint, ground movement, weapons awareness, multiple-person situations, and protecting others. Exercises progress gradually so participants can work at an appropriate level of speed, resistance, and contact.

Maryland Systema offers regular adult group classes in Rockville and Takoma Park, Maryland. Private lessons, workshops, and specialized instruction are available throughout the Washington, DC area.

Organizations interested in discussing a community workshop can visit marylandsystema.com or contact:

Press Contact

Jim Eglin
Founder and Chief Instructor
Maryland Systema
301-326-9146
jim@marylandsystema.com