Wax On, Wax Off

A few weeks ago I went to meet a writing client in her store, and I noticed that next door was a karate studio, or dojo. They had pamphlets out about their free women's self-defense classes, and I just had to check it out!

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I know next to nothing about the martial arts. Like many other people, what little I do know comes from movies and TV. In other words, my prior knowledge of the subject consisted entirely of, “Wax on, wax off.”*

So when I recently discovered that the local dojo holds a free, monthly women's self-defense class, I wondered whether it was even something I could do.

Certainly, it seemed like something I should sign right up for. After all, I'm a small woman (5'2” and 95 pounds) who often runs around town by herself – shopping, doing errands, meeting clients, and so forth – and so I'm often in a potentially vulnerable situation. Let's face it, all of us are inevitably, at least occasionally, in a position to become a victim.

And I do not want to be a victim.

On the other hand, I had some reservations. I also have some injuries from an auto accident that left me with some weaknesses – a serious spinal injury for which I've had surgery and pretty severe psoriatic arthritis (a cousin to rheumatoid arthritis). I really wanted to go, though, and so I did, figuring that at the very least I could observe and see what was involved before deciding to participate.

There were a few other people there in addition to the instructor, but they seemed to be more advanced students who had just come to help out, in addition to the man who was playing the attacker. However, besides myself, there were only a couple of other students.

So, I took the plunge.

I informed Sherese, the instructor, of my injuries and that I might not be able to do everything, and she said we could work around it. And we set to work.

I had no idea I was going to get such a workout!

It wasn't long before I was breaking the grip of Arthur – the lovely man who was playing the attacker – and striking back with hands or elbows, kneeing, or kicking him in places that are vulnerable (and not necessarily where you might think!). You see, the goal of this class isn't necessarily to learn a particular discipline, such as karate, or even to learn how to fight. The goal is to avoid being injured: in other words, the goal is to get away.

Remember that saying, “She who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”? That pretty much sums up the philosophy here.

We went through several scenarios of how someone might attack and strategies for responding. And as it turns out, “wax on, wax off,” isn't really that far off. 

The principle it works on – muscle memory – is valid. Or, in other words, you need to practice. Having competed in figure skating as a teenager, I am very familiar with this idea. If you do something over and over again – such as a long program, or, in this case, the basic response to any physical aggression – it becomes second nature. Something you can almost do in your sleep.

I can't count the number of times that I ran through my skating programs in an early morning practice without actually thinking about it, suddenly finding myself at the end. Ever drive somewhere and then not remember having done so? Only knowing that, well, there you were?

Same idea. “Autopilot,” they call it.

You just have to keep practicing until you do it without thought. You should just react.

This being a new discipline to me, I had to acclimate myself to the positions involved. Balance is very important, and I kept feeling like I was not in a stable enough position to step forward and use leverage to break Arthur's grasp. So I asked to go through the moves in slow-motion to figure out what foot to put where so as not to put myself in a position to end up on the ground. Another thing you want to avoid is getting too close; stepping forward can be aggressive, but for someone my size, it's an invitation to get picked up and carried off. These things were demonstrated with great patience by Sherese and Arthur many times over.

Because of my injuries, I was worried I wouldn't be able to do much at all. But it turns out that an elbow is just as effective as a hand, and in my case, even more so. And from first ballet, then skating, and now the walking I do every day, my legs are in pretty good shape, so I learned how to use them.

We went over different attack approaches, and how to thwart them. Twist out of a grip, knee in a thigh, elbow to a bicep. We were practicing, and I had Arthur as an opponent. At one point Sherese stopped what she was doing with another student to come over to me. Apparently she had heard the noise it makes when you hit someone in exactly the right spot on a muscle. She said she hadn't made that noise herself until she had faced an opponent in competition.

Now, I know a lot of people who are afraid of really fighting, lest they injure their opponent, “the attacker.” I am not one of those people. Firstly, Arthur is much taller than I am, and a conservative guess would mean he outweighs me by a mere 50 pounds (and since muscle weighs more than fat, I would think he weighs more than . . . well, than I think). Secondly, he was wearing protective gear, and I felt that there was little, if any, chance that tiny little me would do anything more than get in a lucky shot and give him a moment of discomfort. And thirdly, I had come there to learn how to defend myself and to get away, preferably without anyone pursuing, as well as without bodily injury. How would I know if I were doing it right if I didn't really give it my all?

So I did give it my all. And I was extremely sore the next day. But I don't care, because if I ever need to use what I learned, a few bruises would be a small price to pay. I don't pretend to be ready for a fight, but at least if I ever am attacked, I have some idea of what to do, how to do it, and what to aim for, as well as what my goal should be.

I would love to be able to go back and practice. I don't know that karate, or any martial art, would be for me. But I would highly recommend to all women – especially those of us who are small and therefore might be mistaken for a good target – to go check out your local dojo. Perhaps you have a branch of the one I visited (United Studios of Self Defense) where you live. And even if you don't, you still might find a good self-defense class. Take advantage of it!

Disclaimer: If you have a spinal injury, or some other injury that might affect your ability to do this, or might be affected by it, I have to stress that you should check with your doctor before doing anything like this. But, assuming you do get the okay, let the instructor know. They can help you compensate and figure out how to work around it.

*Note for anyone not recognizing the quote, it's from the classic 1984 film, The Karate Kid. Everyone should see it at least once. It had a couple of sequels,The Karate Kid, Part II and The Karate Kid, Part III, which were actually pretty good as sequels go.  Both worth a viewing as well, if you haven't seen them.

Why Facebook Does Not Replace Your Own Business Web Site

If you have a small business and think that you don't need a dedicated web site of your own, think again.

I have noticed in my research that a great many businesses--most of them mom-and-pop-sized, though some surprisingly large--have no web site to call their own. Their business name, when put into the address bar, is often either not taken, or takes me to an entirely unrelated business, sometimes with the same name, but hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

A Google search often reveals that they have no site of their own. Over and over again, I have looked up local businesses in a search engine and scanned the results, only to find everything but a web site. Now, granted, in a few cases, a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for that company does turn up, but it's not the same as the business' name. Obviously this can't always be helped, since there might be another business with the same in another state, or even another country. It happens. It's unavoidable: their ideal URL had already been taken. But you find a way around that, and you move on.

What I mean to address here is those businesses who don't even bother.

I understand how a business-owner can think that a site of their very own, with their own domain, isn't necessary. If I were a small business person whose company was coming up in searches and listed on Yelp, or Urbanspoon, or Citisearch, perhaps I would think that's enough. I might think that between that, and the fact that I have my own Facebook page, I don't really need my own domain. Because, after all, those are complicated, and expensive, and I don't really know how to go about doing all that. I might think that.

And I would be completely and utterly wrong.

The reason for that mistake can be summed up in one word: control.

You see, while a Facebook page may seem almost like your own domain, it's not. While it's great to be listed on yellowpages.com or Dex or Manta, like Facebook, they are very different.

You, the business-owner, have no control over them whatsoever.

Yes, some of them offer a way for the person whose business is listed to contact them and add information, or even correct it when it's wrong, these processes can be long and drawn-out. If they make even a minor mistake--say, in your business hours--anyone who is viewing that information may think you're not open when you are, and that can cost you business. But say a customer who, through no fault of your own, was unhappy or dissatisfied with a product you sold them or a service you provided, and out of spite (because there are people like this) posts a bad review or says something bad about your company. There may be a way to request that it be removed, or to post a response with an explanation. But while you're going through that process, there is often no way to counter that. You have no control over it. And if you rely on one of these sites to promote your business, you're stuck.

Having your own domain and site may not counteract that bad review, but it does give you the advantage of being able to post the positive comments and feedback you receive. Also, since often when your potential customers search for your business, your own site is the first to come up (aside from the paid advertisements), they will likely see your own site first. They may never get to that other site to see the false bad review.

You might be asking yourself at this point what this has to do with Facebook. Facebook, it turns out, seems to many people like it's the main part of the internet. But it isn't. It's a business like any other. And while it's great to have a place you can put information about your small business, it shouldn't be any company's main place on the internet.

Again, you have no control over it.

Yes, you can add and delete information. (I won't go into the every-changing rules and privacy settings here; if you use Facebook at all, you're familiar with that.) But as a very large entity, Facebook has to automate many things. And sometimes people get caught up in that. You can have your account suspended without much notice, if any, for any number of reasons. If their automated systems believes for any reason that you have violated the TOS (Terms of Service), you can be suspended.

This is not unique to Facebook, of course; they are simply the largest entity with this issue. A friend of mine had this happen with a blog site she uses. Some automated subroutine looked at her blog and, for whatever reason, decided that it resembled a pattern of spam. Like me, she is a writer, and uses her blog to display her writing and keep her followers interested. But one day, she just couldn't log in. She was informed of the supposed issue, so she made the prescribed report, and was told that a human would have to check her blog and determine if it could be restored.

It took nearly six weeks.

She had absolutely no control over this process, nor could she even tell any of her regular readers what had happened, that it was all a mistake, and that she would return . . . eventually.

This sort of thing happens all the time, be it with my friend's blog or with some poor person who was either accused of posting something inappropriate or against the TOS on Facebook.

This, above all other reasons--and there are many!--is why you, as a business-owner (small or otherwise) should have your own domain and your own web site.

Often this isn't as expensive as you might think, depending upon how elaborate your site needs to be. But for a small business, having that control is absolutely vital!

A Blog for Your Business

Prospective clients sometimes ask me why they might want to consider having a blog.

I'm sure there are many circumstances that I won't think of right now, since every business is different. But there are many reasons to have a blog if you're a business.

A blog can help keep your clientele returning. Obviously every business should have a web site. But really, how often do you update that web site? If you're like most people, and unless you run a very large company with many different kinds of products, it's not that frequently. I have seen business web sites that have not been updated—let alone rewritten entirely—in years. Now, granted, if the web doesn't play a major role in your business, or if your business is something that hasn't changed much in a long time, that might be all right. For example, the car wash I used to use could go a long time without an update because their business was so obviously service-oriented, and their entire site consisted of a page with their hours, location, phone number, and some coupons that were perpetual.

But most businesses aren't car washes. Whether you sell a service or a product, you will want your customers to return, and they'll be more likely to do that if you give them a reason to. A blog can do that. Not only can a blog help to attract clientele in the first place, by having information about how your product or service will solve a prospective customer's problem, but it can increase sales by giving them a reason to return.

Say, for instance, that you have one great product that you now sell on your site. If you add a blog to your site, you can use it to let your customers know when you'll be introducing another great product. It gives you a built-in clientele for new products. Think about it: if you've purchased something from an online store once, been happy with the product and service, aren't you more likely to return to that place for future purchases?

People can now subscribe to blogs—to grab new blog articles automatically and read them at their own convenience. As a business-owner, wouldn't you love to have someone include your company's blog in their reading whenever you update it?

Now, as for what goes into that blog . . . of course that's going to depend on your business. But generally speaking, there are a few categories of content that seem obvious.

Firstly, you could include articles about a particular product: how it works, what advantages it has over similar items, highlight specific functions that it does very well, or even introduce new accessories or related items. For example, if you sell software, you may want to explain why it's especially good for those who work in a specific field.

Another thing you could incorporate to your business' blog is client testimonials or success stories. Explain why one person bought your software rather than a different package, and how it's made their work easier.

And yet another type of blog article you'd want in the mix is of the tips-and-tricks variety. Show your clients the fantastic flexibility your software offers, and how to accomplish something they might not otherwise have thought of doing, or how to do it in a simpler way that saves them time, effort, and money. In other words, teach them something they might find useful, but might not otherwise come across.

If you decide that a blog can help your business, it's always best to have a professional writer compose your articles. Unlike a personal blog, a business-related blog represents your company, and should reflect professionalism. A good blog-writer will work closely with you to make certain they understand what the goal of a particular entry is and to get the details right. But if you feel that you want to write your own articles, at the very least you should have it proofread.

Finally, while a blog may not bump your sales immediately, consistently interesting, well-written blog articles can help your excellent products or services build a steady clientele that will continue to patronize your business over and over, for years to come.

Well . . . Here I Am. . . .

Around the holidays, and during the summer vacation months, it's very slow in the freelance writing business. Or at least that's been my own experience.

So what's a freelance writer to do?

Start a blog, apparently.

It's either that, or file. And I hate to file, so . . . well, here I am. . . .

Yes, I can, and will, work on my own projects over the Christmas and New Year holidays. But it's also a good time to try something new . . . to experiment.

And this is an experiment. Because I'm not really sure just yet what form this blog will take. Unlike a blog I might do for a client, there isn't a single audience I'm targeting and writing for. If this were a client's blog, it would be simpler, because most of the time (with few exceptions) a client is a business, often a one-man-band or Ma-'n-Pa kind of small business, though occasionally larger. I write about a product or service, and the target audience is the business' clientele.

But here I suppose I might have two distinct audiences: perhaps some of my clients or prospective clients will be reading, but some of my readers might be other writers as well.

Which would be excellent.

So, while I can give clients or future clients some insight into how writers--or at least how I--work, and answer any questions they might have, it would also be very cool to hear from other writers--freelance or otherwise.

Either way, feel free to post a reply, comment, or question. I'll do my best to respond.