By Caroline Huftalen
“Everyone, whether a SCAD student or not is a potential victim. We have all been at places that probably we knew we shouldn’t have been, at times we shouldn’t have been, and with people we don’t even know around us,” said Sophia Viola, student Ombudsman and R.A.D. Systems instructor. “I think if people have not been in an attack situation or been a victim of a personal attack or a sexual assault, some of that is a whole lot of luck.”
The 12-hour training program is broken up into four sessions within two days, beginning with awareness techniques. Viola says that this is the most important part and is 90 percent of the system. The training uses what’s called a “victimization triangle” to help participants visualize the defense process. Each side is named — the opportunity for an attack, the attacker and the victim. Being aware of your surroundings will help remove one side of that triangle, the opportunity. One of the techniques, Viola said, is that participants will learn to accomplish the 4 R’s: risk recognition, risk awareness, risk reduction and risk avoidance. “If you know that information, the 90 percent, then hopefully you will never have to use that other 10 percent,” Viola said.
Being mentally prepared may be the majority of the program, but the physical preparedness, the 10 percent, is what makes up most of the training. Sessions two through four are completely physically driven and teach women how to escape and defend themselves from a variety of scenarios. Trainees are put to the test with session four, a simulation of the physical techniques that participants learned.
“When it’s a life and death situation, having done it before takes away the fear of not knowing if you can do it in real life,” Viola said. “Simulation really seals the confidence level in doing this personal training.”
Currently, SCAD does not offer the R.A.D. System for men, but there is a class based on self-defense offered by Club SCAD that is open to them.
“There is R.A.D. Systems for men, but our current instructors are not trained for R.A.D. for men. We would love to be, but it is very costly,” Viola said. “Personal safety is just as important for men as it is women, we just aren’t trained for it yet.”
Keeping men separate from the training is very important, Viola said. If a man enters the room where the training is taking place, everyone takes a quick break. According to Viola, this is to ensure that all tactics being used keep the element of surprise; men are larger and stronger than women, if the men know what is coming, they will know how to combat it.
“The majority of people who are attacked know their attacker, it’s not necessarily the scary guy that we don’t know hiding behind the tree. [They] are in our lives already . . . so I think everybody needs to be prepared,” Viola said. “My hope is that we can get everyone trained, even if it means just coming to session 1. That’s better than not having anything at all. If we are saying that 90 percent is the four R’s, and we are teaching all that in that very first session, than they have already made remarkable progress towards their own personal safety.”
The RAD System training is free to all SCAD participants. Female students, staff and faculty interested in signing up for the weekend course or more information can email rads@scad.edu.
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R.A.D. Systems Training