WEST PHILADELPHIA - A free course on self-defense is designed to help women and girls protect themselves in West Philadelphia, and instructors say the lessons are more important now than ever."I am out in the evening at work and going to church, so I just feel that is a part of my wellness campaign for myself," Lorraine Thomas said.Thomas is taking a free self-defense course.
She says, at her age, it’s for her fitness and wellness, as well as for safety, which she does say she worries about. "Always.
Always. Always. And, I’m not a fraidy-cat, or afraid of people or going out, but it’s really dangerous in Philadelphia."Wednesday evening, she joined several other women for the class taught by Master Lawrence Whitaker.
He’s the instructor and owner of Urban Defense Center, which held a series of classes at Holy Apostles and the Mediator Episcopal Church, in West Philadelphia.MORE LOCAL HEADLINESWhitaker says he began the free self-defense classes in 1996. "It was a young woman who was murdered named Sabina O’Donnell in 2010 in Northern Liberties when I had a gym over there, of 6th and Brown.