Women learn life-saving techniques at defence class in Dubai

Ahmed Ateek demonstrates krav maga techniques at a self-defence class at Oryx Fitness. Reem Mohammed / The National

Walking home one evening, I notice a man following me. I cross to the other side of the street, and hear his footsteps close behind. Suddenly, he pulls me backwards by my hair. I scream for help, but no one hears. The last thing I see before I lose consciousness is the glistening of the knife in his hand.

It’s the sort of nightmare that all women dread will happen to them. It’s also a scenario that the women who’ve enrolled in a new self-defence course in Dubai have been role-playing, to find out what they could do to save themselves from being attacked.

Their teacher is Ahmed Ateek, an Egyptian who incorporates krav maga fighting technique into his classes.

Ateek has lived in Dubai for 11 years and has been teaching krav maga for the last three of those. On his T-shirt reads a message, “We do bad things to bad people”, which seems to suit him well. Despite his warm smile and calm persona, Ateek is a fearsome force to contend with and his classes are not for the faint-hearted.

“Krav maga is a great martial art to help women defend themselves,” he says. “What you learn here, you can implement in real life. There are lots of situations that ladies can face, such as someone grabbing your hair or your clothes, sexual harassment, or someone trying to kidnap you, and there are ways that you can prevent these things from happening.”

Living in a relatively safe country like the UAE, it’s easy for women to become complacent. But according to the United Nations, 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives.

Ateek points out that 50 per cent of his attendees are French, and that the spate of recent terrorist attacks in their home country has led them to want to learn self-defence tactics. “It’s in their minds,” he says. “When I ask them ‘Why are you learning self-defence?’, they say ‘Because I am from France’.”

When asked what he advises people to do in the event of a terrorist attack, Ateek’s advice is simple: “hide”. “Be in a crowd, then it’s more difficult for someone to attack you. Don’t be alone. You don’t need to be a hero, you’re not going to save the world.”

The self-defence classes were started up two months ago in Dubai’s Al Barari neighbourhood by Oryx Fitness, a new fitness company which also offers classes in swing and vinyasa yoga, Pilates, Zumba and TRX Extreme.

Ateek’s clients currently range from close-protection security officials to Emirates Airline cabin crew. As well as hourly mixed classes, three-hour bi-monthly workshops are held for women.

“Most of the women who attend the workshops travel regularly for their job. We also have women whose ex-boyfriends are hassling them, and those who have faced domestic violence,” says Ateek. “These women want to know how they can defend themselves from such things. If you find yourself in a closed room with someone who can abuse you, or if you are on the streets and someone tries to grab your bag, you need to be able to take every precaution.”

Ateek teaches his students to open their hands out in a gesture of peace, and try to talk to their potential attacker first, before engaging in any combat manouevres. “You can say ‘What do you want from me? I don’t want to fight. Do you want my money? Ok, take my money.’ If you have money, give it to him. Don’t fight with someone who has a knife, especially if you don’t know anything about knives.”

Ateek admits that what he teaches in one day won’t make anyone an expert. “Every day, you will only learn one or two new things. But there are perhaps 10 different techniques to learn when it comes to knives, and the same is true with a pistol and a stick.”

The core concepts of krav maga are to counterattack as soon as possible, and in doing so, to target the body’s most vulnerable parts – the eyes, neck and groin. Although this martial art borrows techniques from aikido, judo, muay thai and wrestling, it’s different to other martial arts and there are no rules when it comes to krav maga.

One regular attendee is Judith Price, the American author of a trilogy of suspense thriller novels, the Jill Oliver series. Price was drawn to the class because in her last book (which covers themes such as human trafficking, serial killers and the CIA), one of the lead characters, a Turkish intelligence broker called Yildiz Aslan, is a krav maga expert. “Because I had to do so much research on the character, I started thinking this krav maga actually sounds really cool,” says Price, who currently lives in Dubai and runs the site abudhabiwoman.com. “I walked into the class and found the instructor and two women weighing no more than 100 pounds, who were my daughter’s age. I thought if they can do this, then I surely could too.”

In one of her first classes, Ateek lunged at Price with a stick while wearing protective headgear, which she admits gave her quite a fright. “I was scared at first, but he taught me the move to stop him from hitting me. When somebody is going to attack you, they’re going to try to hurt you, and it’s very empowering to know how to avoid that. I may be a grandma, but I can now defend myself against a grown man.”

One of the men who Price sometimes defends herself against in the mixed classes is Saeed Ali, a 24-year-old Emirati from Dubai. Ali wanted to sharpen his self-defence skills after he and his family were attacked while on holiday in Europe. “One guy tried to attack us in a subway station, it was a big issue. I was with my uncle, my father and my cousins, and we couldn’t run away because he was holding a big knife.”

Although the incident occurred seven years ago, Ali says there are times when memories of the attack come back to him during the classes. And if the same situation were to arise again, he’s sure he would react differently now. “My awareness level is becoming higher and my reflexes are becoming faster, because of taking these classes.”

The next self-defence workshop for ladies is in May, and another will be held in July. Dates will be announced on www.oryxfit.com/. The three-hour workshop costs Dh200, and the mixed classes, which are held on weekdays, cost Dh85 for one hour.