What does a Menswear Brand have to do with Women's Self Defense? I'm so glad you asked! {#Video + #Photo}

I have been a student of various forms of Martial Arts for many years, a few years back an injury brought my training to a halt, stopping me midway from achieving 'black belt' status. During College a Women's Self Defense Class was offered on Campus, and sadly this was prompted after a Rape had occurred on Campus. Female students were rightly alarmed, and the first class had a ton of attendees. The Class utilized a few forms of martial arts including Tae Kwon Do and dove tailed them into realistic attack scenarios. The class became very popular and what started as a Self Defense Training Class grew into an actual Tae Kwon Do organization on campus, which I became the Public Relations person for and I organized events, class schedules, belt ceremonies and was pretty much the liaison between the organization of the Dojo, the campus administration and the student body. Aside from my paid internship with The Bronx Observer and my work at a local Bank (I had to work several part time jobs to put myself through College), this was a labor of love that I took on because I really loved what the class was doing for myself and for all the women students. We all left class feeling empowered. Not to mention our instructor did very rigorous warm up exercises as well. Never in a million years did I think I'd have to apply my newly acquired training in a real world scenario, but I did. I was attached on my own College Campus and the person did not expect how well trained his 'victim' would turn out to be. I broke his jaw, fractured two of his ribs, and I broke his nose and left his eyes swollen like two giant footballs!

 

And I owe getting out of that building alive and safe entirely to my training. I still carry those lessons with me to this day. I have actually been wanting to train again, but I am not sure my docs will let me go full on in just yet, I'll have to ease my way back to where I was, but when I received an email from a Menswear company, asking me if I was interested in taking a class that is part of an international movement of providing Self-Defense lessons for women, I hit reply and answered yes in the blink of an eye! Literally!

 

I had tons of questions so they sent me over more information, and I was counting down the days in my calendar!

 

 

 

ABOUT FODADA

There are some things in life that help validate why you were put on this earth and for  me,    becoming a father was that life-changing event. The amazing responsibility of becoming a father and raising my sons has become the most overwhelming and demanding yet rewarding experience of my life. Last year I realized that I needed to celebrate this experience and so I created fodada. I wanted to create a company that could provide a tangible product that could then be leveraged to funnel exposure, support and funding for programming that is relevant and dedicated to fatherhood and families. ~ Bobby Barzi,  Chief Dada, Fodada

In the few months of our existence we have far exceeded what I thought was possible, further validating the need to recognize fatherhood and celebrate its importance. I have to admit, I am humbled with the amazing emails and notes I have received from dads, wives, sons, daughters and individuals about how they love their dads, what this has meant to them and how much they love the clothes.

 

And yes, the clothing! Let’s not forget about that! We continue to look for items that will feel great, look great and add a bit of a style to anyone’s closet. We love seeing celebrities in our clothes and we appreciate product write ups in publications.

 

Our brand has now become a symbol of the great experience that fatherhood is and how much it impacts a family. With that, we have charged ourselves to associate with organizations and causes we believe a dad would be interested in supporting, like: Autism Speaks, Giving Children Hope, Working Wardrobes, and the American Heart Association. These organizations are just a few that we have or will be collaborating with. These associations have also helped inspire campaigns such as Color for Cause and Adopt a Dad.

 

About fodada's International Women's Self-Defense Day

 

We are also passionate about programming initiatives that directly impact a dads life. Our largest to date has been fodada's International Women’s Self Defense Day. In 2012, fifteen U.S. cities, along with Paris, France, Madrid, Spain and Adelaide and Melbourne, Australia conducted free self defense classes for women, aimed to help empower the women in a dad's life. This event was fully sponsored by fodada and was free to all attendees.

And then Hurricane Sandy hit, knocking the New York Metropolitan Transit System Down. Many stations were flooded and not running just a few critical days before, I kept checking the transit reports and the weather reports every second as I was not about to let anything deter me from getting to that class. With the economic crisis this country is still in, things are very dangerous, there has been tons of pickpockets and violence on the rise, especially where I live, so I wanted to polish off my old skills and head over to class to hopefully learn some new tricks and participate in attack scenario situations to learn the skills necessary to get yourself out of the situation and to safety.

The New York City class was held at New York Combat Sambo, and while the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy slowed things down a bit, a brave and intrepid bunch set out to New York Combat Sambo to learn some new Self-Defense Skills!

Here is a video of the group in action:





On November 4, 2012 Fodada sponsored its first annual International Women's Self Defense Day. Martial art clubs in 15 US states and 6 countries offered free classes. This clip is from New York Combat Sambo Women's Self Defense Day Class.

 

 Center(Seated): Stephen Koepfer, Owner/Head Coach

 

Here is an after photo of the entire group post class! (Think you can spot the butterfly? Look carefully, mama butterfly is there too!)

I greatly enjoyed taking this class and think it's phenomenal that a menswear brand thought to put something like this together. It truly speaks to their overall approach to keeping the entire family unit happy and safe.

I'm definitely ready to start training again!

Butterflies, if you train, share what you are doing to keep fit and safe!

 

˙·٠•●♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥●•●•٠·˙˙·٠•●♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥●•●•٠·˙˙·٠•●♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥●•●•٠·˙

FTC Disclosure: Our editors attended a free Women's Self-Defense Class at New York Combat Sambo, the event was part of a larger international initiative sponsored by Fodada Menswear, we did not have to pay to attend the class, however we have not been compensated for re-capping the experience, and all opinions are 100% my own.