Welcome to Heaux Safety Bootcamp!

• Heaux Safety Bootcamp will train 15-20 members of our community in  mobility-adaptive self-defense skills tailored to the occupational safety needs of sex workers. 
• Trainees will progress through 6-7 weeks of: professionally instructed self-defense trainings and peer facilitated practice sessions.
• We’re proudly prioritizing the health, safety, and wellness of St. Louis’ Black women, trans/GNC folk, and sex worker communties, and aim to make this bootcamp impactful and trauma-responsive to a range of access needs, identities, and experience levels!

Eligibility

• Participants are expected to attend all four training sessions.
• Participants are required to wear a mask at all times during the training. N95 masks will be available at each session.
• People who self-identify under the trans/gender non-conforming umbrella, Black women, and/or experience high occupational risk of interpersonal violence are prioritized.
• This is an applied training--meaning, participants will be asked to practice applying their skills and simulate fighting back against an aggressor.
• For your safety and the safety of all participants--pregnant people, minors, immunocompromised people, and people who are otherwise in danger of (re)injury or death by participation in a hands-on training are not eligible for this workshop.

Professional Training Hours: Every Thursday from 6-8:00PM 

6-6:15 PM: Grounding, embodiment practice, warm-up

6:15-7:45 PM: Training

7:45-8 PM: Aftercare/processing

Peer-Facilitated Practice Hours: Every Saturday 2-4PM  

Participants should come with questions from Thursday,  scenarios that they'd like to model with the instructor,  and ask for modifications or tips to make movements work for them. 

Who will I train alongside?

• Fellow community members (18+) who navigate heightened risk of occupational-related, gender-based, antiblack, state-sanctioned, and/or sexual violence.
• Black women, trans/GNC folk, and sex workers to the front!

Who will train me?

• Two Peer Co-Trainers of diverse Black and POC woman, trans/GNC, disabled and/or sex worker experience, who graduated Sacred Sword’s “Train the Trainer” program
• Note from MO Ho Peer Facilitators: We appreciate how Sensei Gordon’s self-defense curriculum centers higher-risk scenarios that sex workers commonly navigate; adapts techniques to accommodate mobility differences; and is informed by expensive experience as a club guard and awareness of how the military (and militarized police) fight.

Session 1: Basics
-Situational Awareness
-When does the fight start?
-What’s the goal of self defense?
-Safety protocols (red, tap out, taking falls)

Session 2: Values

-How can we respond to trauma?

-How do we keep ourselves safe in a carceral world?

-Community self-defense 

-Session 1 review

Session 3: Basic Hand Movements 
-Finger Pin
-Wrist Lock
-Outside hand deflection

Session 4: Close Quarters Self Defense
-Underhand deflection
-Close quarters - escaping choking
-Hand cutting deflection

 Session 5:  Advanced movements 1
*By this session if you have missed more than one lesson you must attend practice in order to continue*
-Escaping a headlock
-Wrist grab escape
-Ground escape

Session 6: Advanced movements 2 - hand-to-hand combat
-Proper punch

-Front and roundhouse kick
-Improvised weapons

-Diasarming a gunman (short range)

Session 7: Optional guns training (TBD) & DIY keychain

MO Ho is currently working to arrange a shooting day for session 7. Participants will be kept informed if we are able to secure space; if not, we will provide referrals for allied trainings in the STL region. This training will not come at a cost to participants but separate consent forms must be signed. Session 7 practice will be substituted with a Stitch 'n' Bitch where participants will make and practice using their own self defense keychain.

On the next card, please select all structural and environmental hazards that impact your personal safety.

Misogynoir: This may apply to me if I identify as (or am commonly perceived to be) a Black woman

Transphobia: This may apply to me if I identify as (or am commonly perceived to be) transgender or gender non-conforming

Occupational violence:

• I am (or am commonly perceived to be) a criminalized worker
• I work with the public in an unsecured/undersecured environment
• I experience a heightened risk of harassment/assault in my work environment (ex. Working at a club with unreliable security)

Please share at least one method of contact info. We'll be in touch with  more details about the training and how to prepare!

On privacy/data security: This is an encrypted form. Only MO Ho Justice staff leaders will have authorized access to your submission, and we will not share your information without explicit consent.

If you would prefer not to share your phone number or email please dowload Signal (end to end encrypted messaging app) and provide your Signal username. If you do not hear from us by May 1st, please reach out to a community member.