
The womens group in North East Lincolnshire has been established for some time and supports women to new friendships and to introduce meaningful activities to enhance their well being. The group take responsibility for agreeing on activities and identifying things they would like to do. Feeling safe is so central to rebuilding your life and can be linked to how good you feel in general that the group decided that some training in self defence would help them feel safer and would be good fun to do as a group.
The group looked for a qualified local instructor and was lucky enough to find Andy Abernethie. Andy is the lead instructor (Sensei) and owner of the Samurai Hearts Martial Arts club based on Freemans street in Grimsby. Along with the appropriate instructor qualifications Andy holds five black belts in various martial arts so the group felt that he was well qualified to teach them!
Andy and one of his assistant instructors (Sempai) Tom Devaney took the session. The feedback was very positive, everyone felt they had learned something and had a good time in the process.
Andy said "It was great to be asked to deliver this self defence session for the womens group, they were a great bunch and asked lots of questions which tells me they enjoyed what I was teaching. They also got stuck in to the techniques that were being taught. I had enquiries about going back to doa few more sessions which we are currently discussing and hope to progress in the future"