Mind, Body, and Spirit
For optimal self-defense, you need to train your mind, body, and spirit.
1. Train your mind
Learn about yourself, know yourself, explore violence dynamics, learn how to detect pre-incident indicators and how to avoid violence (D1 in the PDR SPEAR ® system), learn how to de-escalate and de-fuse threats (D2), and how to manage fear and convert your instinctive action to tactical movement as efficiently as possible (D3).
2. Train your body
Learn how to fight off attackers when avoidance or de-escalation isn’t possible.
3. Train your spirit
Develop a survivor mindset. Never give up.
Nurture deep connectedness with those people who respect you and who deserve your respect.
Thank you to everyone who has helped me train my mind, body, and spirit
Here are some people who have inspired me and helped me train my mind, body, and spirit. First, I want to thank my coach, Tony Blauer, the founder of the Blauer Tactical System and the PDR SPEAR ® system, and all of my fellow trainers and coaches. One good thing that came out of the pandemic is the birth of the Elite Garage Gym that Coach Blauer started in April 2020 for our world-wide PDR SPEAR ® community. The pandemic and the world are changing and some of us can now travel and train in-person again. But all of us live in different parts of the world, and obviously we couldn’t train together in-person as we do now. The Elite Garage Gym continues and we meet virtually three times a week, and sometimes more. So a huge Thank You to my coach, Tony Blauer and my worldwide PDR SPEAR community!
I’ve had the benefit and joy of encountering many other people who’ve inspired me over the course of the last decades. They include Susan Stewart and the Fierce Women Warriors, the women of the Association of Indigenous Women of Manaus and their guard Manuel, all of the board members and staff at the Montana Coalition against Domestic and Sexual Violence, the people at HAVEN, Tim Larkin, the founder of Target Focus Training, Eyal Yanilov, Alain Burrese, Grandmaster Knife, the late Grandmaster Kim, Hong Sik, and Grandmaster Park, Jung Sae, Masters Jordan and Amanda Werner, Master Gauthier, Billy Blanks, Dan Inosanto, Harinder Singh and his entire team, and Erik the Trainer, may his soul continue to bring joy to his surrounding.
I also want to thank my friend and spiritual guide, Garret Duncan, for his counsel and encouragement to use my voice and my drums to inspire others to find their voice through launching the Empowerment Project.
Finally, I want to thank my daughters, Maria and Andrea, and my husband José Luís, for all the positive energy they bring to my life.
Not all are pictured here. I’m thankful to all of them, to all of my trainees, and many more people. I’m also thankful to the many animals, the plants, and the elements that have taught me and continue to teach and nurture me.
Mind: Personal Safety Training
Brigitte's personal safety training promotes well-being and safety by providing realistic violence prevention and self-defense education and training to individuals, groups, and organizations.
Brigitte teaches safety and defense concepts. We cannot guarantee your safety. But Brigitte trains you to be more aware and more prepared, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Her goal is to increase your ability to avoid, reduce, recognize, and manage risk.
She wants you to leave our courses with more self-awareness, situational awareness, and knowledge, and with better options to increase your safety and that of your loved ones.
Our training options are well-researched, taught by a nationally trained instructor, and reality-based.
We are dedicated to a supportive, inter-active, and respectful environment. Our focus on empowerment is on increasing your knowledge and skills, not on fostering illusions and dangerous over-confidence.
Our goal is to make personal safety training accessible to anyone who wants to learn. We look forward to collaborating with you in violence prevention.
Body: Physical Self-Defense Training
Our goal is to provide you with realistic options, regardless of your level of physical conditioning. Participants of all levels of ability, age, experience, and strength will learn tactics and information that they can effectively use from the first day of class.
Our classes are not a martial arts program. Nor do they require you to have any particular athletic ability or strength.
All of your physical training is based on the body’s instinctual movements. We work with our body, not contrary to its natural movements.
We use gross motor movements that are easy to learn, retain, and apply. Our training is research-based, legally and ethically defensible, and literally battle-tested.
Physical training is incomplete without mental and emotional training. They are fundamentally connected. Brigitte integrates mental and emotional preparation, boundary setting, avoidance and escape options in each training module.
Spirit: Mindset Training
Training your spirit begins with deep and honest self-awareness.
Who are you?
What is your background?
What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
Where do you want to grow?
Who are the important people in your life?
Whom do you love and respect? Who loves and respects you?
Who do yo feel uncomfortable with? How do these people make you feel? Why?
What are your priorities? What are your goals in life? What is your destiny? What is the future that you desire?
What do you feel is worth fighting for?
Empowerment self-defense is rooted in and nurtures mental, physical, and spiritual autonomy.
It includes permission and encouragement for us to explore our essential needs and to seek a life that allows us to flourish and gives us joy.
As such, self-defense includes life skills directed towards inner peace and harmony.
Nurture your spirit every day.
Nature always nurtures my spirit.
