Italian word of the week: _autodifesa_: self-defense

The world doesn’t want me to study abroad. Every step in the pre-departure process of studying abroad is a different battle. At some moments in my journey, the only things giving me hope are listening to “Part of Me” by Katy Perry on repeat, the one person who believes I can do anything (my mom) and a childhood dream of traveling abroad to Italy and riding on the back of a sultry pop star’s moped like that one scene from “The Lizzie McGuire Movie.”

The weapons in this battle come in unusual forms. That’s why I can’t afford to lose any of the support I have, be it my pump up jams, my mom or my dreams. Losing my pump up jams won’t be a problem — as soon as I figure out how to move all my data from my iPhone 4 to my mom’s 4S. Obviously it would have been too easy if my phone, too, worked over in Europe, but I’m saving that battle for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

My mom, however, was a trickier ally to develop. “Europe is a scary place,” she says. Now, two things about my mom that make her say this. 1) She had a horrible experience going abroad in high school to Belgium that makes her biased against the whole continent. 2) She thinks that I am either going to star in “Taken 3” or become the next Amanda Knox.

That was actually a legitimate objection she had used several times in her argument to convince me not to study abroad when I would call her while I was in the process of my application at MU last semester. Since I love to humor people, I told her that, if it would make her feel better, I would take a self-defense class. I thought no more about it and hung up the phone. I should have known that my mom would hold me to that promise.

Not only did she get the two of us signed up for a self-defense class, she got us our own private session with our own sensei. For a little added entertainment, I brought along my best friend, Mary Cait and my boyfriend, Nick. I only had to tell them that we would learn the famous shove-nose-into-brain move, and they were on board.

The session started out with a bit of a pop quiz where we learned the statistics of self-defense and the real ninja secrets, one of them being the motto. Apparently, the motto for defending yourself against everyone from Walmart purse thieves to suave Italian sex ring coordinators is “Stun. Escape. Flee.”

“Stun” is the obvious one — hurt the attacker. The real fun part comes from the advice to mentally stun the attacker, in addition to the physical stun. We were advised to let out a bloodcurdling scream to shock the attacker long enough to escape and flee. Of course, I was thrilled about the opportunity to let out my inner King Kong/hyena scream. It was okay because defending myself against a possible thief or rapist is probably the one situation it’s acceptable for someone to think I am a crazy rabid animal. Because crazy rabid animals don’t make for the best victims.

In case you were wondering, my mom definitely won the award for craziest scream, and I’m pretty sure she made Mary Cait bleed a little.

In the lesson, we also learned brain mapping. Your best defense against a situation is having a map. A big part of martial arts is thinking about which moves you would make hypothetically, and then practicing them 2,000 times, according to our sensei.

This has also been a great strategy in all aspects of my pre-study abroad battle, which is slowly but surely about to end. I leave on Sunday at 8 a.m. and then arrive in Milan, Italy, at 8 a.m. on Monday. Upon arrival, I’ll be the first MU student to study at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore through MU Journalism Abroad.

It hasn’t been easy, and it’s going to take a little bit of brain mapping, but I think I have the self-defense it takes to travel across the pond. This column is going to be about all the adventures I have while I’m over there! Ciao for now!