Last month, Hermanson invited Fighting Chance Seattle to the Tukwila Community Center to give a self-defense training course to the ladies from our women’s group, Women of Hermanson (WOH).

The “Designed for Survival” program, taught by Fighting Chance Seattle’s owner and head instructor, Jordan Giarratano, provided a mix of soft skills and hard skills with a focus on awareness, identifying unsafe situations, reacting immediately, and basic physical self-defense practices.

The program began with Jordan explaining how to set boundaries and to simply say yes and conversely, how to say no (it’s harder than you might think!). Once the basic self-defense principles were reviewed, the classroom tables and chairs were cleared away for the hands-on portion of training. This is when the fun began! The women donned boxing punch mitts and learned how to harness their power to punch and fight off an attacker. Overall, the women learned the value of embracing their fears, trusting their intuitions, and how to use their bodies as a weapon, should they ever need to defend themselves.

For more information on Fighting Chance Seattle, please visit their website: www.fightingchanceseattle.com

The Women of Hermanson group, WOH (pronounced “whoa!”) was started in the summer of 2017 with the purpose of providing Hermanson’s female employees with a network to interact with each other socially, empower each other professionally, and inspire the next generation of women in construction through networking, mentoring, and community service.