Saturday, February 06, 1999
Self-defense class booked in Springdale
One survivor recounts ordeal
BY MARIE McCAIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SPRINGDALE — Gina Jourdan knew she was going to go home.
Even with a pistol held to her head and the shouts of a would-be robber encouraging his partner to shoot her, the 33-year-old former Hamilton County sheriff's deputy kept her thoughts on her Mount Healthy home.
“You've got to have the confidence and the positivity that you are going to go home,” she said. “It's all about confidence and saying to yourself (and a would-be attacker) ... "You are not going to do this to me and if something does happen, I can deal with it.'”
Mrs. Jourdan credited her survival to a self-defense seminar she took nearly two weeks before the Aug. 1, 1998, incident.
Conducted by the Survive Institute, the seminar has become so popular that its next class — Thursday at the Springdale Community Center, 11999 Lawnview Ave. — is booked.
Taught by Debbie and Mike Gardner, co-founders of the Sycamore Township-based Survive Institute, the free class seeks to do more than impart self-defense techniques.
“Self-defense is rooted in self-esteem. You've got to learn to control yourself before you can control someone else,” said Mrs. Gardner, who also is a former sheriff's deputy.
The Gardners' crime-prevention techniques emphasize simplicity.
“There is only one way to stop someone who is threatening you: Cut off their air,” Mrs. Gardner said. “The one with the air is the one who wins. That's why you have to force yourself to breathe. People freeze because they stop breathing.”
Confidence is key to surviving or fending off an attack.
“Most people know to gouge the eyes (of an attacker), but most people don't believe they can do it or they think it's too disgusting. We want people to believe they can cut off someone's air if they have to — not just knowing it's what they should do,” she said.
Many of these words reverberated through Mrs. Jourdan's head when she was attacked.
A then-manager for a Fairfield LaRosa's, she and a co-worker had closed the store for the night when the would-be robbers accosted them.
“I looked at the guy who had the gun to my head and said, "What the (expletive) do you want?'” Mrs. Jourdan said, adding that using vulgar language catches a criminal off-guard.
The gunman eventually became frustrated and let her and her co-worker go.
“As a sheriff's deputy I was always the one with the power. That couldn't have prepared me for a situation where I was a victim. It was a totally different situation,” she said.
Springdale might add a second seminar. To add your name to the list, call 346-5777.
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