Diamond Defense Podcast: Ep. 04 – Distraction Techniques

Content Warning: This episode contains a story referencing attempted sexual assault.

In Distraction Techniques, actor Martha recounts an unsettling encounter that escalated quickly — and the split-second decisions that helped her stay safe. Lisa and Kellie break down her story, sharing strategies anyone can use to spot warning signs and protect themselves in vulnerable moments.  

Sexual Assault Resources

National Sexual Assault Hotline

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for confidential support at 800-656-HOPE that's 800-656-4673. You can also visit RAINN.org. 

https://rainn.org/help-and-healing/hotline/

Self Defense Resources
https://diamonddefense.com/resources

💎Learn more at https://diamonddefense.com/
💎If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review it — help everyone shine stronger!

Show Notes
Co-Host and Co-Producer: Lisa
Co-Host and Co-Producer: Kellie

Guest Storyteller
Martha

Special Thanks
Ann Cobb, Kelley Ogden

Music
Music courtesy of Melodie Music.
Melodie Music Subscription: Pro Plan, Lifetime

Title: Fighter; Composer: Christy Panchal
https://melod.ie/track-details/3300-fighter

Title: Subtle Pursuit Composer: Kevin Smithers
https://melod.ie/track-details/969-subtle-pursuit

Title: Tranquility Within Composer: Justin Fitzgerald
https://melod.ie/track-details/2474-tranquility-within

Sound Effects
SoundSnap (pro subscription)

💎Discover more at https://diamonddefense.com/

Transcript

Kellie: Before we get started, we want to let you know this episode includes a story that references attempted sexual assault. These kinds of stories can be hard to hear, so please take care of yourself and listen in the way that feels right for you. 

Theme Music: I am a fighter. Checking my armor. I'm marching onward. Hey Hey. I am a fighter, storming the desert…

Martha: He just turned around and started ransacking other things, going through other drawers and things, and walking around my apartment, and he tried to cut the phone cord with that knife, and I said, "No, no, you can just grab the clip and unplug those now." And he did. 

Kellie: Welcome back to the Diamond Defense Podcast. I'm Kellie. 

Lisa: And I'm Lisa. 

Kellie: Lisa, the stories that we share remind us really just how quickly the unexpected can happen. In our first three episodes, we talked about awareness, confidence, and destination. This episode we're turning to something equally vital — distraction techniques. 

Lisa: Distraction techniques are the most underrated self-defense techniques, I think that exist. Um, we… I think we use them all the time. I hear a lot of different stories about people using distraction techniques, but we don't talk about it a lot in terms of self-defense. Usually, we talk about, you know, awareness, confidence, destination, things like that. We talk about physical defense techniques, um, but we don't talk a lot about distraction techniques. So, I'm really excited for this episode today. So, I'm gonna ask you, Kellie. 

Kellie: Oh, no. There's a quiz. I didn't know there was gonna be a quiz. 

Lisa: I know. Pop quiz. What do you think a distraction technique is? 

Kellie: Um, I'm gonna guess it's somebody's doing something you don't want 'em to do, and you yell, "Look, there's a fucking purple pony over there!" They look, and you run away. 

Lisa: That's perfect. That would be a great use of a distraction technique. Um, and that's exactly right. Basically, you're… you are fucking up their plan. Right, you're shifting the flow, you're changing things. You're… and in doing that, you're taking a little bit more control over the situation.

Lisa: Um, and you're taking a little bit of control out of their hands, right? So, um, things like, "Hey, there's a, a purple fucking pony over there." Um, I would look, most people would look. 

Kellie: Who's not gonna look at a purple fucking pony? 

Lisa: That's exactly right. Um, any kind of pony really. I… I would look, um… but, you know, simple things like if somebody's there to get your belongings and you can make that decision too, I'm gonna throw my purse this way and then I'm gonna run the other way. And now they have a choice to make. You fucked up their plan where, you know, they don't get you. Now they gotta make a choice. They gotta, they're gonna go for your purse, obviously. Right? 

Kellie: Or the pony. I mean. 

Lisa: Or the pony. Always go for the pony. Um. You know, things like lying, uh, lying about anything and everything, including some, you know, law enforcement is on their way or has been called, lying about, um, someone else being on, you know, my… my firefighter boyfriend just got off work. He's gonna be here any minute. You better get the fuck outta here. We definitely, as women have used this before. We don't talk a lot about it. But saying that we have, say, an STI, a sexually transmitted infection. Um, if… if someone's in the position where they may be about to be raped and they can say to the perpetrator, you know, you better put on a condom because I've got A, B, or C, you know, name a sexually transmitted infection. That changes things.

Lisa: It switches the game, it fucks up their plan. Um, it gives you a little more control. And one of the most underrated distraction techniques, I think, is talking, right? People who commit crimes, people who are predators, are human beings as much as sometimes they do not act like it. Um, they are in fact human beings, and they can be spoken to as such, and sometimes… and they do not expect that typically.

Lisa: And so, sometimes the ability to do that can switch up their plan to the point where it… it changes things; it affects them. Right? And the most effective use of that that I've ever heard is by the woman whose voice opened this episode. Her name is Martha, and she's a woman with grit, with grace. And the most incredible story about the use of a distraction technique, like I said, that I have ever heard.

Lisa: Um, she told this story in… in my class one day, and I have shared her story with every single class I have taught since that day because my God, there's so much to learn from her experience, and it is always such, um... impactful, uh, portion of the curriculum in my class is me telling her story and how that affects the students. And, um, we're really lucky to have her here today to share what happened to her and how she kept herself safe in an unthinkable moment.

[window opening and closing sound]

Martha: Hello, I'm Martha, and I am an actress and a singer, and I'm also, by day, I do websites for a living from home, which is lovely. I took Lisa's Diamond Defense class twice. The first time was in, I think, 2012. It was right before I was due to have my hips replaced. Um, I had hip dysplasia, and a little bit later I was having to get around on a walker, and I always felt really vulnerable.
Martha: And when she told us she was having the class, I said, “I'd love to take it, but I'm pretty incapacitated.” She said, “We can do the class with you sitting in a chair, and it will be effective.” And I said, “I'm there.” It was a great class, and when I left I felt I really did feel so much more secure in myself when I was out, you know, going from my car to my apartment at night. After a show, a rehearsal, or whatever. And then I took the class again the next year, I think, when I was back on my feet again and walking around and doing well with my new steel hips. And I even got more out of it because I could do the physical things that were involved. I… I loved that class and it… it gave me a lot of, it reminded me a lot of… of the fact that I can defend myself if ever I need to.

Martha: Lisa, I believe, had asked us, you know, do you have any stories of things that have happened? And it's a story that I've always been really proud to tell because, uh, it… it does in fact say that I have, you know, badass qualities. 

Kellie: Have you ever wondered how you might respond if the unexpected caught you off guard? Training can give us the skills and confidence to face those moments, yet life can still slip in through the smallest of cracks. A window left ajar, a moment's pause, a gap in our awareness. For Martha, a night of music and laughter ended with a moment that would test her in ways she never imagined. She reached for her voice.

Kellie: Let's listen to her. 

Martha: I was out one night, gosh, this was in 1987. I was doing a show, and after the show, the cast decided to go dancing. And then we went to breakfast. So about four o'clock in the morning, a good friend of mine dropped me off at my apartment. And I had only been living at this apartment for about three weeks.

Martha: I was a suburban kid, and this was in Midtown Sacramento, and I… I didn't have the idea yet that you gotta always lock up. Now, I had locked my apartment, but I had left a window latched with a little latch open. Partially, just to get some airflow. This was in February or March, and it was still fairly chilly outside.

Martha: Well, it was starting to warm up, which is why I had the window open a little way. What I didn't realize is that the wood was so dry that with a good push, that window could be forced open. So, I got into my apartment and still with this very, very naive mindset. I looked around and there was a shirt that I knew I had put in the laundry.

Martha: Nowadays, I would've backed the hell out and gone and gotten some help. And at the time, there were no cell phones, but I would've done something rather than go into my apartment. But I didn't have my alarm… my mental alarm system really fully yet. I kept walking and I noticed my TV was missing. Still, my brain. I'm not a stupid woman, really, but my brain said, where's my TV? Maybe my mom came to get it because it was broken. I thought, well, maybe she took it to— she's gonna surprise me and replace it with a new TV. I don't know. I had logic going on, and toward the end of the wall to my right was a door into my bedroom, and I turned to go.

Martha: I don't know why I was heading for the phone. I'm not gonna call my mother at four o'clock in the morning, but that was my first thought. And I was grabbed around the throat with one arm, with this guy's one arm and had a knife held to it with another hand. That knife was from a prop bag from a show that I had done recently and done the props for, and I had, um, put tape, clear tape along the blade so the actors wouldn't hurt themselves.

Martha: So, it was a little kind of weird self knowledge that if he tried to cut me, it would be hard for him to do. He carried me into the living room, sort of pushed me into the living room, went through my purse, tried to put a coat over my head so I wouldn't see him, and I said, "Please, don't. I have claustrophobia and I would freak out," which is kind of true.

Martha: And I told him, "I'm not wearing my contact lenses, so I wouldn't even know what you look like, and I promise not to look at you." Fortunately, he took my word, and he didn't put the coat over my head, and he, uh, found in my wallet two rings that my mother had made me that were beautiful rings and they were good craftsmanship and they were gold with beautiful stones. Anyway, he put 'em in his pocket. He then picked me up by my neck and into the bedroom and threw me on the bed. And went to search the dresser drawers to see if there was anything of value in there. There was an envelope full of photos, glossy photos from a show I had done years before. No one who had ever 
touched those since the… the developer had put them in there.

Martha: Really good medium for fingerprints. So, he looked through them and there was a woman in the show that who was wearing a… a little sort of sexy nighty, and he said, "Who's she?" Then he started to put his hands all over me. And I just thought to myself, nope, this is not gonna happen. I said, "Please don't." And he said, "Why not?"

Martha: And I told him, "Because no one wants to be raped." And he stopped. He kind of froze, and he took his hand off of me or his hands off of me. And he didn't say anything. I'm not sure if he had made the decision to actually not, but he did stop. And ultimately he did not harm me that way. He definitely was, uh, you know, he had his hands on my breasts and, um. I needed to stop him, and I… I am certain he would not have stopped. I am very lucky that those… that I found those words and they just happened to find their way outta my mouth. He just turned around and started ransacking other things, going through other drawers and things, and walking around my apartment. And he tried to cut the phone cord with that knife, and I said, "No, no, you can just grab the clip and unplug those now."

Martha: And he did. So he didn't notice that the knife didn't have a cutting power. And then shortly after that, after sort of, I kept telling him, "Can you please leave?" And I asked him, you know, "Did you see my cat? Is he okay?" And he, you know, kept telling me to shut up. And so finally I figured I didn't wanna make him any matter, so I finally kind of shut up.

Martha: Then he left — stopping to take my key chain, which had my car key and my apartment key and my mail key. The only copies. He left and I waited maybe three minutes, and I ran out my front door and upstairs to my neighbor. Thank goodness he was up, I would've awakened him anyway, but he was up watching a movie and uh, I said, "Can I use your phone? I just got robbed and mugged." And he said, "Yes, here." Called the friend that had dropped me off. Well, first I called the police, called the friend that had dropped me off. He came right back, stayed the entire rest of the day with me. Um, we had a matinee that afternoon. Boy, I kind of wasn't really in the mood, but you do what you gotta do.

Martha: Um, and the police came and they dusted for prints, and this great cop, just a sweetheart of a guy, was very kind. And he saw those photos and he went, ah. And I said, "Yeah, nobody's opened that package in probably eight years since they were developed." And he went, "That's great." So he dusted all of those and that's where he got the fingerprints that got that guy arrested.

Martha: I was terrified to stay in my apartment, of course. People stayed with me again. I was not letting him chase me away from my brand new first downtown apartment. It was not going to happen. I had a friend come over and drill holes in my… in my window frames so we could put a big old fat nail in there so those windows could never be forced up again.

[sound of door opening and closing and outside noises]

Martha: The first day I was brave enough to leave the house, I walked to a store about three blocks away, and I looked over and sitting on a curb was this guy in green coveralls, which this guy had been wearing. Turns out it was him. So, when I went to go to the deposition, um, there he was sitting, and they asked me to identify him.

Martha: And I had not seen his face when he was there that night. But I knew his build and his basic, you know, I'd seen his hands. Anyway. And I… and I… and I realized that that was the guy I had seen sitting on that curb, which was a little bit chilling. He had done much worse things to I think five other women after me.

Martha: I believe he's still in prison for that. Again, it was 1987, so I think five consecutive life sentences. It certainly put… even to this day. If I hear a noise in my apartment, which is on the second floor, occasionally it will wake me up at night, and I've only just in the last few years been able to not go into a… an adrenaline rush that would keep me awake the rest of the night, which is good.

Martha: That was, um, an incident of time when I went, yeah, I… I can take care of myself with… with words. May not always work, but I will certainly use them. Um, I am still almost… almost compulsive about locking the doors, but, you know, give me that compulsion, I'll take that compulsion.

Martha: And… and once, uh, very late at night, I got home. I was sober, but I was really tired and I closed the door, had my arm full of things, and the next morning I discovered that I had not locked the door. And I thought, that's never gonna happen again. Again, I'm on the second floor. Nobody much comes up here to bug me, but I have occasionally had someone knock on the door and, you know, wanna let… want me to let them in to use my charger. Mm, Pumpkin, not happening? Nope.

Martha: My cat did come back. I… after… after I had called the police, um, and my friend had arrived, I called for my kitty, and he was a good, good boy and he came home and I… I let him know everything's fine. Gave him a good pat. Oberon. Yeah, he was my kitty for 19 years. He was such a good boy.

Kellie: Martha's cat came back that night returning as if to say not everything is lost. Not everything runs away. Have you ever noticed how courage can be like that, too? Once you call on your voice, it has a way of coming back to you when you need it most. That's what Martha discovered, and let's just say her voice hasn't lost its power.

Martha: And actually there was another incident very recently. And I was just reminded of this afternoon, driving under the overpass down my street. It was um, like February. So, it was a little chilly outside and um, it was after a show I had done another, after another cast party actually. It was not far from home.

Martha: I was driving under the overpass and there was a stop sign there. So, of course, I stopped and I noticed outta the corner of my eye, there was a guy standing there drunk as hell. Clearly very, very drunk. In retrospect, I think he was not after harm, but I don't put up with shit, and um he headed toward my car.

Martha: I reached down. I had just a slightly panicky moment. I'd reached down to hit the toggle switch of my car, which locks all the doors. I hit the other side of the toggle switch, which unlocked the damn door as he was reaching to open my car door. Well, what he was trying to do was hitchhike home, and he'd been out drinking and he was too drunk to get home.

Martha: But I'm not having it. And I… I'm gonna shout a little bit here. So, sorry about the sound levels, but, um, I said… I said, "Get out of my car." And he looked at me like, "No, I just want, I just wanna get a ride home." And he starts to put his foot in the car and I said, "Get out, and close the fucking door now!" And he looked at me and he is like, "Well… well you don't have–" and I said, "Close it now!"

Martha: And he did. And I locked it. And I was shook. I… I was not going to go all soft and go, "Oh, okay, I can give you a ride home." You know? Mm-hmm. No, no, no. But I went home and again, I was proud as hell. I used… I used my, I'm not fucking around voice. And I was like, oh, I still have that. Yeah. And again, he was probably, this time was probably not a person that was… but he should not have done that.

Martha: He was probably too drunk to have any, any judgment, but you are gonna have to stop getting too drunk to have any judgment, buddy. 'Cause. You–. It could have been worse for you. It could have been a woman sitting there with a gun. 

Kellie: Lisa. Wow. You know, I know Martha. You know Martha, we're friends. We know her through theater, and I've heard this story before, but I honestly don't recall the details, and I don't recall how disturbing and unsettling her experience is and how much of a badass she truly is.

Lisa: Uh, she really, uh, kept herself safe in a way that I think, uh, most of us can aspire to. Um, in terms of just really connecting to herself, her words, and in that moment asking for what she needed in a way that I think we forget we can do sometimes. Right. In terms of shifting his flow, changing his plan.

Lisa: 'Cause his plan was obviously to put his hands on her and then to rape her. And her being able to find those words and say them in that badass Martha voice, um, kept her safe and as she mentioned, uh, he committed much more atrocious crimes to other women thereafter. And thank God he got caught and thank God he is in prison. But it's just, I'm amazed every single time I hear that story that she thought to do that and that it worked and that that can work. 

Kellie: It's such a testament to the power of our voice and I mean– the first three episodes... I think especially awareness and confidence. She really had to employ and dig down and find one, the awareness that something was off.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Kellie: The awareness that she had a voice, the awareness of what she could do, and then the confidence to employ that. 

Lisa: Yes, and I think, you know, I'm glad she pointed out like that continuing into the home after noticing several red flags was probably not the thing to do and that she would not do that today if she had noticed those things.

Lisa: And I just wanna point that out because that is important. You know, if we get into our home, if we're entering our home space and something seems off, walk back out, turn around, walk back out. You can call the police for a home safety check if you need to. They will come, they're happy to do it. I've had my neighbor call in a home safety check for me at three o'clock in the morning because he saw somebody jump over our fence. And the next thing we knew, we were in deep sleep, and the police were knocking at our door saying, "Your neighbor called in a safety check for you. Can we go look in your backyard? He saw somebody jump your fence." Absolutely you can, please do. And they went back there and they spent 20 minutes looking in every single nook and cranny to make sure that everything was safe. And we were just a… a way stop on his, um, hopping of fences, luckily. But you can do that.

Lisa: You can walk right back outside. You can call non-emergency or 911, whatever you feel, uh, your circumstance warrants and say, "You know, I think somebody's in my home, or I think somebody's been in my home. Can you please come check it for me?" And... and they will do that, and they'll be happy to do that.

Lisa: So, you know, even though that wasn't her instinct at that time to do, and she did continue into the home, uh, you know, she ended up being incredibly observational about what he was doing. She talks about how she was able to identify him partially because she… she paid attention to things. She paid attention to his hands.

Lisa: She paid attention to what he was wearing. She may not have been able to see his face completely, clearly, but everything else she was able to, she paid attention to, including, you know, locking in her brain that he had touched those photos and thinking, gosh, maybe that's a source of fingerprints. This is a whole other episode called active compliance, uh, that we will do, uh, sometime soon, and we'll talk about all that other stuff. But her distraction technique of fumbling his plan, changing his flow, asking for what she needed, telling him not to do what he was doing, giving him the reason why, um, it shifted, it shifted things and it shifted her circumstance. And I think we just… we need to remember that we have that power. We have that power to take a little bit of control back, uh, when we are in a situation where we don't feel in control. 

Kellie: And you know, something else I noticed we are often as women, gender conditioned to act a certain way, and often that includes being polite and not being confrontational. That said, in her story, she wasn't confrontational, she was in some ways polite. So, I'm wondering if that actually can be reclaimed in some ways to be a distraction technique or a self-defense technique. 

Lisa: You know, it's interesting, uh, to talk about that, the idea of that, because, you know, she said, "Please," right. "Please don't do this. Please don't. Because nobody wants to be raped." I… you know, I think that her being, um, forceful but polite in her forcefulness, uh, says something about her as a person, you know, and how she felt she needed to communicate with him. And I think she trusted her instincts. And… and that is maybe one of the most important, uh, aspects of… of that first story, um, is that she trusted her instincts. Her instincts told her to do that. Her instincts told her to say that, and they put those words in her mouth. And you know, even the second story where, you know, she had to put on her badass voice and tell him to, to get the fuck out of her car, basically, you know, she, there was no aspect of that that, um, was polite.

Kellie: Mm-hmm. 

Lisa: She demanded what she wanted. She asked for it, she did it forcefully, and she didn't worry about hurting drunk dude's feelings by telling him to get out of her car. You know, there is, uh, there's an aspect to that that just is, and I, you know, your feelings don't trump my need for safety. You know, when we say, "Fuck politeness," and that comes from one of my very favorite podcasts, "My Favorite Murder." I just… I just need to credit, um 

Kellie: We're getting a little meta here. 

Lisa: Yes. I need to credit them for that because, you know, I teach that in my self-defense classes, but I love the, the ability to sort of put that verbiage to it of, of fuck politeness. It doesn't mean that we don't– it doesn't mean that as people, we aren't polite in life. That's absolutely not what it means, but it means when your safety is at risk, someone else's feelings do not trump your need for safety. 

Kellie: Thank you. Thank you for… if… if that means permission, thank you for the permission to tell us that we don't have to be polite to assholes. 

Lisa: Absolutely never have to be polite to assholes.

Kellie: Now, if there was just one like verbal distract word or phrase or technique that we could use, if that's just the one thing we remember, what could you point us to? Like, if I'm in the middle of being whatever harmed… in lieu of, “Pony,” what should I yell or say or do? 

Lisa: Well, I, so I have a couple of answers for that. And I think the first answer I have is just the word “no” is the most universally recognized distress signal. Um, so if you are in a place where there are other ears, um, within… within earshot, there are other people, um, saying no will tell them that there's something wrong going on. It also affects the aggressor, uh, when we say no.

Lisa: Right. It puts that roadblock up. They may choose to observe our… our demand or not, but saying no, um, is something we should all get really comfortable with. And I guess the second answer I would have for that would be trust your instincts. I think if you had asked Martha five minutes before that encounter what she would say to somebody who was about to rape her – I don't know that she would've come up with what she actually said. I think the important thing about that is that in that moment, um, she was present and she trusted her instincts, and she did what they told her to do. And they, and she said what they told her to say in that moment, because, you know, um, resistance is not always gonna be right for every violent encounter.

Lisa: Sometimes we have to comply and then we can resist, and sometimes we go back and forth between those things and no one, not even ourselves can determine or make that determination as to what we should do in any given situation except for us or the victim at the moment of that encounter. We don't know. We never know, and we can't judge anyone else to know what to do until the moment of the encounter. That's… that's the moment we… we tune into our instincts. We get really present, uh, and we follow what they are telling us to do. 

Kellie: Thank you for that. I feel more bold right now. 

Lisa: Excellent. That's good. That's good. We should all feel like bad asses because we are all bad asses. We just, sometimes we don't have an opportunity to show ourselves that or show the world that. Um, but when we do, um, you know, it's pretty fantastic. 

Kellie: It is. Thank you. 

Lisa: Yeah, of course.

Martha: It means being able to move in the world without harm, you know. It means being able, being able to exist in a space without someone deciding, oh, female, you know, victim, I can get money from her or I can, you know, get whatever I want from her. And, um, you can't.

Lisa: Thank you so much for having your ears on this podcast, everybody. You know, we appreciate you so much. 

Kellie: And we would love to thank more ears on this show. Please like, share, subscribe wherever you're listening. 

Lisa: Alright, stay safe out there. 

Kellie: Watch out for motherfuckers. 

Lisa: Shine on, Diamonds. 

Theme Music: I am a fighter. Checking my armor. I'm marching onward. Hey Hey. I am a fighter…

Kellie: If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline for confidential support at 800-656-HOPE that's 800-656-4673. You can also visit RAINN.org.