At the Bagnolaise Boxing and Culture Club, “increasing demand for self-defense”

Patrick Profeta uses a mannequin to explain self-defense techniques. C.B.

Patrick Profeta teaches self-defense techniques to his students of all ages in his Boxe et culture bagnolaise club.

“I have more and more requests for self-defense” notes Patrick Profeta, head of the Boxe et culture bagnolaise club. Parents worried about their children who are being harassed at younger and younger ages, women who no longer walk down the street in peace…“There are all types of public. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, but it must be self-defense, it's in the Penal Code. It is legitimate when it is proportional, immediate and necessary" recalls this former municipal police officer.

“A combat sport is different from real life”

During the recreational boxing sessions he gives in the club room at the Saint-Exupéry sports complex in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, the sports instructor teaches his students self-defense techniques. “Self-defense is not a martial art. I teach what attitudes to adopt, how to behave when someone pushes you, blocks your path, makes fun of you, cuts you off in a car… How to react for a woman when someone grabs her buttocks ? It's different between doing a combat sport and real life".

Patrick Profeta even invested in a "bob" for body opponent bag, a mannequin with a sinister head on which students can practice. “We visualize the aggressor and the aggression” explains the boxing instructor. On his whiteboard, he also gives a mnemonic device to get out of an aggression, “the radar”: regulations, atmosphere, defense, attack and the most important: withdrawal!”.

The classes at the Bagnolaise Boxing and Culture club resume on Tuesday, September 17. Classes for children, teenagers and adults. Information: tel. 06 43 13 40 11. I subscribe to read the rest