In 1979, the streets feared only one thing: author Sidney Filson. She wrote HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF & SURVIVE: from one woman to another which made all other books look like frivolous indulgences. This is 151 pages of kill-danger’s-dick-with-car-keys Karate. When star scavengers are one day picking through the remains of human civilization, they will use this book as an archaeological marker to determine which woman died last.
After the title and a picture of someone punching a hand, there was nothing left to be explained, so Sidney used the back of the book for her 9″ x 12″ headshot. It’s unusual for an urban survival book, but from one woman to another, Sidney is looking pretty good. When you have Sidney’s smile, hair, and bone structure, you don’t waste your book sleeve with “further information.” Here’s some, though: this book rules and I can prove it. See, I’ve developed a system that can scientifically measure the three main features of the genre: Groin Destruction, Pre-Enactments, and Attitude. If you’re interested in further information…
The most efficient way to measure the greatness of a female self-defense book is with The 1-900-HOTDOG Tri-Matrix of Lady Karate Literature. As shown here:
Groin Destruction is the primordial ooze from which all Karate life developed. The fastest way to overcome any physical disadvantages you have against an attacking man is by smashing the flopping weak spot that led him into this mistake. Hand swings, foot bashes, fuckable tubes of mayonnaise left as distractions… a self-defense book needs to be creative, aggressive, and single-minded when it comes to the penis.
Pre-Enactments paint a picture of where you will be using your violent new powers. A low-scoring book in this category might have nothing more than a few bored men lunging at women in a parking lot. An exceptional book will feature costumes, absurd situations, and suspiciously real reactions to dick punches. It should imagine situations where you’re fighting your way out of a dentist groping or a clown emergence. A lady Karate book should remind you danger is everywhere and ridiculous and anyone who forgets it is doomed to be killed by a Chuck E. Cheese.
Attitude! describes how well the book prepares you mentally for fucking someone up. If I can stop being cute for a second, martial arts books are like sex books– every delusional idiot thinks they should write one and only much more delusional idiots think they improve by reading them. Pictures of Karate will not help you fight, and you don’t need to throw a book club into the Octagon to discover Sensei Barb’s Palm Strikes for Seniors was inadequate training for real combat. But who cares? Human conflicts hardly ever look like combat. Anyway, a book with poor Attitude will try to convince you you have the secret double chop technique to escape any grapple. A good one will convince the reader not to take anyone’s shit and to let your bitch ass attacker know that no matter what happens he’s leaving with a bite full of missing dick.
Great! Now let’s see how How to Protect Yourself & Survive: from one woman to another rates on this groundbreaking and expertly designed self-defense book rating system!
Groin Destruction: 7/10
Sidney calls her self-defense courses “Wonder Woman School” because as she says on page 118, and I *gulp* quote, “Can you imagine Wonder Woman being raped?” I should have warned you earlier, Sidney is a woman of palm heels to the groin, not words. Her philosophy is to go fucking nuts on every dick that gets out of line and to train for this, she has one student awkwardly stand still while another squares up and slaps her in the crotch. It’s a technique that will make you say, “I understand the risk I’m taking engaging with you in this way and under these circumstances, but hi there, ladies.”
Sidney suggests different groin techniques based on the location or angle of your opponent. For instance, and I again *gulp* quote, “Do not attempt to grab the groin area of a man on top of you. This is what a rapist expects a woman to do in self-defense.” One of her few faults is how Sidney seems to view the world through the lens of point Karate where even men in the middle of horrifying assaults are following some kind of martial arts game plan you can outmaneuver with your guile. Her tips feel wise, but I worry some attackers aren’t going to stick to the script. It feels like telling someone not to use a plunger to try to defeat a janitor. It’s like saying “hot dog eating champion sexual assaulters will be expecting you to slow them down with a trail of delicious hot dogs– do the opposite!” Can you guess what the opposite of a trail of delicious hot dogs is? No, that’s not it! No. No. No! No. Yes! You’re right, it’s a suitcase full o– hold on, why are you so curious?
Under most other circumstances, Sidney loves a good groin attack. And it gives me great pleasure to say I’m summing up about four pages of her book here: Have a friend lay down so you can practice stomping on a dick. I love it so much, but I can’t imagine a worse way to train than putting a fragile thing you care about on the floor to hone your stomping technique. It’s getting you used to very specifically not shattering a pelvis. What did a zucchini cost in 1979? Four cents? I bet you could build an entire penised vegetable man for about two dollars and after you’re done killing it you’d have a healthy meal for your family. Oh, I sound crazy? This lady dedicated a chapter of her Karate book to telling untrained women how to stab each other in the vagina with high heels!
By the end of the book, the groin attacks take on an almost magical effectiveness. Like when this creep tries to give a flower to a six-year-old and she responds by just obliterating his nuts. And notice Kaylee isn’t using an elbow strike to set up an escape. That’s elbow one of a seventy elbow combo. Sidney makes maybe three mentions of fleeing in her entire survival book. This is a book for women who, sure, want to survive, but would much prefer to get pulled off a disfigured cock by a SWAT team.
Pre-Enactments: 8/10
Most of the photos in the book are Sidney and her students using other women as punching bags, but the male actors brought in to play shattered rapists earn their money.
You don’t normally get performances this big from the models in Karate books. These are theatrical ass kickings.
This guy is being hit by a slap from a 110 pound woman who isn’t rotating her hips and it is shutting his fucking brain off. When he wakes up the prison doctor is going to tell him, “Hey, pal, I’m not a doctor, but maybe you shouldn’t have been grabbing women if your bones are made out of styrofoam. What’s that? Where’s your dick? Oh, buddy, ha ha you don’t want to know what happened to that. The cop who mopped it up for evidence quit the goddamn force.”
This guy is the greatest Karate model I’ve ever seen. Look at the performance he brings to “ATTACK FROM THE REAR.” Sidney is writing this deadly serious handbook on genital revenge and he is turning it into a jazz routine. During his interview for this job he told her, “Oh, sweetie, my father was a Baptist preacher, so trust me: I can play straight.” Look at him slinking up on her in his tap shoes like he’s playing Insecurity in a high school play. It’s hard to overstate how little chance White Slacks Jeffrey has against Sidney Filson.
Every part of White Slacks Jeffrey’s body explodes in orgasmic terror when you touch it.
No one will ever have greater self-esteem than the women practicing elbow strikes on White Slacks Jeffrey. Everything that touches him shatters his entire skeleton and astonishes him. His balls blast out the back of him when you slap them. But, okay, what if you’re not being attacked in a white void by a jaunty man-about-town? What if you’re doing a little bit of swimsuit meditation in a grassfield? Well, I have 16 words for you: “Close your own eyes, and poke them a bit with your finger. Imagine a full thrust.”
Women should obviously be allowed to go wherever they want as nudely as they want, but this scenario seems ill-advised. It’s almost like something Sidney set up on purpose after telling a black market trader, “Don’t worry about where I’ll find two human eyeballs. Just hand me my swimsuit and be back in an hour with the money.”
Besides her love of vulnerable spots, Sidney is a huge advocate for car key nunchucks. About a third of her book is devoted to attacks you can do with a little chain attached to your keys. Sidney is certain they are the deadliest weapon devised by woman, and if she is dangling keys from her hand, she is a category 7 murder hurricane. When Sidney Folson opens her front door, she blows apart anyone and everything in her foyer.
“Practice screaming as you strike!” Sidney spent so much time training students and readers to remove faces with car keys I worry she lost perspective on how intimidating a long keychain is to people who haven’t read her book and devoted their life to key murder. For instance, if you’re walking your dog and a group of men cat-call at you, she suggests identifying the leader and showing him all fucking six inches of your keychain.
Attitude!: 10/10
If you read a single word from the pages I scanned, you had to have seen this score coming. Sidney Filson is always seven dead bodies deep in a fantasy about killing a van of perverts. Her dating profile is just a picture of you with both ends of her car key nunchucks in your eyes under the words “NO.”
Look at how Sidney responds to someone asking about pacifism:
Sidney is the best. You were thinking of not fighting back? No, you are going to tear that piece of shit’s eyes out. You are going to beat him until he is unconscious or begging to be unconscious. “It won’t be hit or miss.” She is clumsy with her words but they somehow all come together to paint a beautiful picture of dead predators. However, Sidney sometimes gets herself a bit too worked up imagining all these terrible things. Once that happens, she’ll start freely using “c” and “n” words while she simmers somewhere between murderous rage and uncontrollable murderous rage.
Sorry about, you know, all of this, but this is the world Sidney is preparing you for. A world where hypothetical schizophrenics can keep their face… for now. The line “Walk away and show no emotion,” actually shows a lot of restraint for Sidney. Normally her side of a confrontation begins like this:
So say you’re a woman any passing astronaut would describe as bralessly sitting on a bench, and a man gets too fresh. Sidney offers two options: palm strike to the face or car key nunchucks to the hand. But we will be here all day if I keep showing you situations where she advises palm strikes or key stabbings. Instead, I want to show you the darkest, most troubling moment of the book which I also think defines her entire martial arts philosophy:
Sidney trained under a man named Grand Master Peter Urban, and the most profound thing he ever said to her was how rape would not exist if everyone took Karate. I think I disagree, but only because teaching all rapists Karate seems less safe, not more. We’ll never know who’s right since it’s only Grand Master Peter’s theory for now. Either way, it demonstrates Sidney’s approach to the world– Karate solves everything and I’m done thinking about it. After reading her book I am positive she’s right and my car key nunchucks fucking dare you to disagree with us.
