Urban Fit & Fearless™ provides corporate self-defence training in London and the south-east. Our sessions are tailored to your needs and suitable to anybody regardless of age, gender, fitness level or training experience.
Staff safety and well-being
Staff safety and well-being are hot topics nowadays, partly because businesses recognise that human capital is their most valuable asset, but also because of the greater emphasis put on the idea of “duty of care owed to employees".
The Good Work Standard (GWS), championed by Mayor of London, is a good example of improving standards. It encourages employers to go further than legal requirements.
This initiative puts forward worker’s health and safety, particularly for women with the Women’s Night Safety Charter (WNSC) and the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) policy.
Provide specialised training for your staff on sexual harassment and assault, with a focus on how to respond and intervene if incidents take place. WNSC, point 13.
And Urban Fit & Fearless™ can help you put this guidance into action.
Our Safety & Self-protection training will teach your staff how to spot a potential situation, how to safely respond to it in order to stop or diffuse that situation and/or escape.
"I cannot recommend the Self Defence for Hospitality staff course enough, our staff learnt so much from it. Not only how to defend themselves within and outside the workplace but also potential threat, situational awareness, defence against attack from weapons and more. What was really impressive is how Patrice and Rick showed how to deal with scenarios that happened in the environment. For example, how to deal with ‘over friendly customers’, a situation which happened to one of our staff. The ‘Attack Protocol’ was very interesting, and it dealt with something which we had never thought of, but could have potentially saved lives in the London Bridge Terror Attack if staff had been trained in it. The course was run in an extremely professional manner, with humour and good banter to make it fun to attend. Our staff really enjoyed it. I strongly recommend the course for any late night venue staff."Janet Gomes, Human Resources Manager, Antic London
Why is conflict resolution training not enough?
Violence is rarely a sudden event, so de-escalation should always be the first option. For that reason, conflict resolution skills are key. However, these skills are not enough to manage potentially violent situations because:
- Not all situations can be de-escalated and you should be prepared for violence.
- There is always a risk of physical assault and conflict resolution still needs to be done in a physically safe way. That’s self-defence 101.
- De-escalating potentially dangerous situations is a real, quite selective job called “Hostage and Crisis Negotiator”. It takes years of training.
That's why conflict resolution training must be integrated into a broader approach to personal safety that includes self-defence.
And clearly the risk of physical assault is substantial.
According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) for year ended March 2020, there were 299,000 assaults at work over the period 2019/2020. Out of these, 113,620 (38%) resulted in injuries.
Get in touch:
patrice@urbanfitandfearless.com
patrice@urbanfitandfearless.com
So, in practice, what can we do for you?
Urban Fit & Fearless™ offers a broad approach to personal safety that includes:
- Awareness of the different types of violence and aggression: i.e. understanding the trigger factors which can lead to violent and/or aggressive behaviour.
- Awareness of the stress response, i.e. the effect of adrenaline on the body.
- Situational Awareness, i.e. recognising the telltale signs of potential violent incidents.
- De-escalation strategies, i.e. conflict resolution.
- Personal-space control & Avoidance, i.e. practical stance and posture to maintain physical safety during de-escalation phase.
- Breakaway, i.e. practical techniques enabling breakaway from violent/aggressive situations.
"Training should be about preventing violence as well as dealing with it” Health & Safety Executive (indg 423:p.8)
The trauma of a violent event -in or outside the workplace- will shake the best teams and likely disrupt business operations. Investing in your staff safety not only shows that you care but also helps make your organisation more resilient.
Self-empowerment in a safe, positive and friendly atmosphere brings tremendous benefit to the workplace. In that sense corporate self-defence sessions are fantastic experiences for:
- Team building
- Spotting leadership potential
- Confidence building
- Learning useful and transferable skills
- Acquiring life saving skills
Our programme has been particularly successful as part of "empowerment", "safety" and “fitness” initiatives, namely with female workers. Contrary to the commonly-held belief, studies show that women are safer when they learn self-defence.
Corporate Self-defence tailored to your needs
Urban Fit & Fearless™ provides safe, friendly and time-efficient one-off or multi-session courses with practical training adapted to your organisation.
We already have developed several industry-specific programmes:
- Self-defence course for hospitality staff
- Self-defence course for Lone workers
For most organisations, though, the Personal safety in and outside the workplace course is a great choice that covers all the basics and the most common situations.
Learning doesn't have to be dreary so sessions are always fun and engaging
We believe self-protection goes beyond physical and technical moves, and doesn’t stop with “practical safety tips”, that’s why we always cover simple but fundamental concepts:
- Situational awareness: how to spot potential threats
- Avoidance
- How to escape safely
- De-escalation strategies
- Personal-space control
Everything is explained in concrete terms with scenarios, games and drills so it actually makes sense and sticks (let's cut out powerpoints presentations, we do all the brainy work upstream so you don’t have to).
If you want more cerebral stuff though, our team of expert consultants can provide additional modules to our courses, covering topics such as:
- Trauma response
- Dealing with harassment
- Dealing with uncertainty
- Fitness
- Nutrition
Let us know if you have specific needs or requirements and we’ll come up with a solution for your business and staff. We can cover a wide range of situations and recommend simple security protocols that can be implemented at various levels of your organisation.
Why you’d want to hire us?
What makes us different is that our programme is reality- and evidence-based.
Evidence-based self-defence means that our training is informed by scientific research into violent behaviours and the systematic analysis of large data-sets of violent events undertaken by our team.
It allows us to understand what happens in real-life situations (not training scenarios) and, in turn, to come up with the most appropriate solutions for normal people (not just for super-trained athletes).
Did you know that the average duration of a knife attack is 24 seconds?
Our 2016 research on knife attacks showed that the techniques taught by most martial art / self-protection specialists were unrealistic defence against real-life knife attacks.
Sticking to reality is at the heart of our work because what matters is our students’ safety. We want a functional and practical system that works in real-life.
90% of all physical assaults start with a right punch to the left side of the face
Being data-led allows us to identify patterns so we can focus on the most common situations.
When it comes to interpersonal violence, experience varies from one person to another. Women don’t have the same experience as men. Untrained people don’t have the same experience as self-defence instructors. And a 140-pound instructor does not have the same experience as a 250-pound one.
Individual experience is not always the best teacher.
So reality-based self-protection means that we make sure that our system works for inexperienced, untrained people of different shapes and sizes, not just the pro-fighters, security and law-enforcement professionals who test our system everyday.
And if a person can’t pull off a technique, well...that technique is not good enough and we go back to the drawing board to find a more suitable one.
Past Corporate Clients
Tailored solutions for specific needs.
- American Express (10/10/2023)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety for women. - Triple Line Consulting (06/06/2023)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety for staff traveling in foreign countries. - Kennedys Law (31/05/2023 & 01/06/2023)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety in the workplace. - Sydenham High School (25/04/2023 to 23/05/2023)
5-week women's self-defence course with a focus on awareness, avoidance and personal safety. - The Parklangley Club (22/02/2023)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety in the workplace. - Kennedys Law (14/02/2023)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety in the workplace. - Beringea (12/01/2023)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety in the workplace. - Camp Wildfire (27-28/08/2022 & 3-4/09/2022)
Full weekend activities - Introduction to self-defence and personal safety. - MagsCreative (16/06/2022)
Introduction to self-defence and personal safety. - Sydenham High School (21/04/2022 to 26/05/2022)
6-week women's self-defence course with a focus on awareness, avoidance and personal safety. - Antic London (09/11/2021 to 14/12/2021)
6-Week Course with a focus on self-defence for Pub staff and hospitality workers. - Gold Runners Society, Goldsmiths University (09/12/2021)
Introduction to Self-defence and personal safety. - Gerald Eve LLP (18/11/2021 and 25/11/2021)
Self-defence session focused on safety during commute to and from work. - Reci.pe (09/11/2021)
Introduction to Self-defence with a focus on women safety. - FitFamily Society, University of Greenwich (04/11/2021)
Workplace Self-defence training with a focus on women safety. - Google - EMEA Women (07/06/2021)
Women, violence and self-defence. Online Conference. - Gold Runners Society, Goldsmiths University (23/01/2020)
Introduction to Self-defence and personal safety. - Talbot Underwriting Risk Services Ltd / AIG (11/12/2019)
Workplace Self-defence training with a focus on women safety. - PayPal (03/09/2019 and 10/09/2019)
Unity Women @ Paypal event. Introduction to self defence. - Barclays (29/08/2019)
Workplace Self-defence training with a focus on women safety, empowerment and self-confidence. - Beringea (28/02/2019)
Workplace Self-defence training with a focus on women self-protection within the workplace and on the way to- and from- the office. - TpBennett (22-29/11/2018)
Self-defence for corporate with a focus on personal safety and self-protection. - Alvanon (18/07/2017)
Workplace Self-defence training with a focus on women self-protection within the workplace and on the way to- and from- the office. - Google London (15/09/2016)
Two seminars took place during Google "Health Week" with a focus on women safety and fitness. Great experience! - McCann London (02/06/2015)
As part of "women empowerment" programme, the seminar was focused on confidence-building through self-defence training. - Maxus UK (02/12/2014)
Team building event focused on women's self-defence and safety. - Parkour Generation (10/10/2014)
Event exploring cross-training between Parkour and Krav Maga. - Push Studios (24/01/2013)
Introduction to self-defence in East Dulwich (SE22) as part workplace self-defence training.