LIVE The Story

The Creators of LIVE: Lessons In Violence Evasion

Theresa Murphy and Dennis Mahoney are the authors of A Different Ending: Lessons In Violence Evasion and the creators of LIVE: Lessons In Violence Evasion. An alternative to the memorized fighting techniques taught in standard self-defense classes, LIVE is a new and unique system of movement designed specifically for women’s natural capabilities to escape and survive violence.

The Story of LIVE: Lessons In Violence Evasion

In the mid 1990’s Dennis attended a woman’s self-defense clinic sponsored by one of the local police departments. Usually the only thing available to women at the time were the free, one hour, punch and kick classes being taught at martial art schools. The majority of these self-defense courses are about fighting not escaping.

Most self-defense courses tend to be designed by men and generally utilize fighting concepts derived from three different areas: techniques and set forms from traditional martial arts; punching, kicking and grappling from competitive sport martial systems; and pain compliance techniques from law enforcement.

Each of these martial systems is effective for its original purpose and the people creating self-defense classes based on them all have an earnest desire to help women. It’s just the principles being applied may not be the most efficient answer for women. From our experiences, it is just not possible to teach someone to fight in that short of a time.

The first speaker at the seminar (a man) spoke about the importance of prevention; all the things women should do or not do to prevent violence. There was a woman seated next to Dennis in the auditorium and he heard her mumble, “I did that” after each suggestion.

The next speaker (another man) was a martial arts instructor from the area who proceeded to teach three or four set techniques about when they grab you here strike here and so on. The woman mumbled again something to the affect of “doesn’t work when you’re smaller”. It became clear to Dennis this woman had been through some type of violent situation.

The final speaker (yes another man) was a police officer who spoke of what you should do if you are raped, not showering, going to the hospital, 911 procedures, etc…

The woman at this point, exasperated, said quite clearly “I want to know how to get away. When is someone going to teach that?”

At the end of the clinic Dennis introduced himself to her and told her he may be able to help her learn how to escape. She was skeptical because he was a “martial arts” instructor, but she listened and for the next hour they worked on some simple principles of escaping.

Dennis hadn’t prepared anything at that time; they just worked off her questions wherever they led. When they were done she told him she had learned more about escaping in that short time than with all the other classes she had attended before.

It had worked. Now Dennis had to figure out how to teach this to others.

He created a seminar that focused on woman’s natural abilities to escape from their attacker not fight them. It used principles that were simple and effective but he wasn’t satisfied with the results from his first attempts.

No matter how gentle Dennis moved while demonstrating, showing that he was using natural body movements not strength, women still doubted whether or not they could do the same.

More importantly there seemed to be a communication gap between Dennis and the women. Dennis was unaware of the extent of the fear that women live with everyday. He did not fully understand the restrictive effect it has on their life and how paralyzing it can be for some. For this to be successful he needed to find a way to bridge the gap. So Dennis did the most unlikely thing for a man but the smartest thing he could have. He asked a woman.

Theresa started training with Dennis and his group in January of 2000. Three weeks later Dennis was running a women’s seminar and asked his students to help. He asked Theresa if she could tag along to watch and help even though she knew nothing of the art or his approach to the seminar.

Theresa agreed for two reasons, first she was curious how and what he would teach women and second she thought it might be useful for the women there to see a woman in the training group. Even if she were the least experienced it would give them someone to identify with.

The day after the seminar Dennis called to get her comments and feed back on what had been taught. Theresa was surprised, because before when she had helped some of her other instructors none of them had been interested in her opinion.

There were times when Theresa could not make the techniques being taught by these instructors work. If Theresa questioned the effectiveness of what was being taught, she would get “You needed to practice more” or “You’re just not doing it right”. Because it worked for them they never thought to question the technique or ask for her opinion on why it wasn’t working. Dennis actually listened and took what Theresa suggested seriously.

He explained that he had been working on this idea for a women’s seminar for over five years but he needed a woman’s input on what was important to women, their concerns, their fears and how best to convey the information to them. Dennis said that he also thought that it would be more believable and attainable for women if there were a woman demonstrating and teaching.

Theresa agreed and told him that was one of the reasons she attended. He then asked her if she would be interested in working together. Theresa accepted because she was a victim of violence. She knows the fear, the darkness and the separation that go with being attacked and she did not want her daughters or anyone else’s daughters to ever go through that.

The Creation of LIVE: Lessons In Violence Evasion

Unlike most everything available LIVE is a true blending of science and personal experience. The principles of escape and evasion that Dennis has learned over the years were filtered through Theresa, not only as a woman but also as someone who has experienced violence.

For two years attacks from actual stories, experiences and crime statistics were reenacted. Theresa was put through the situation as close to real as possible to see how she would react and what she was capable of doing. In the beginning these sessions were, mentally and emotionally, extremely painful for Theresa and then later, as she got better, quite often physically painful for Dennis.

The principles from these discovery sessions were tested over another two-year period in developmental seminars with hundreds of women. From the research, testing and interviews with these women an answer emerged. That answer is called LIVE: Lessons In Violence Evasion.

See LIVE in action