There are no universal self defense instructors. We've had a lot of experts on the channel, but Spencer won't pretend to be a fire prevention specialist, Rita won't pretend to know about knife fighting, and Jim doesn't speak up about surviving domestic abuse. This includes me. SFOTB is a full-circle program, and some of my experiences putting this together have broadened my knowledge base extensively. But even if I was a legitimate universal self defense expert, I would really only be an expert in self defense for large, athletic men with children who live in suburban North America.

That's why I'm so happy to have Teja Van Wicklen on the show. She's a martial artist with a background very similar to my own, but she's also physically, socially, and experientially very different from me. Our conversation focuses on self-defense for women, especially the differences in how I approach self-defense to how she does, but along the way we find a few important commonalities.