URBANA — Students and others may now sign up for R.A.D. self-defense courses offered during the spring 2018 semester.

The Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) system is a comprehensive course being taught at colleges around the country. It begins with awareness, prevention, risk reduction and avoidance before progressing on to basic hands-on defense training. R.A.D. is primarily for women.

“It’s personal empowerment, but also an education course,” said Detective Robert Murphy, who teaches the course. “Essentially, it’s skills that everyone has, we’re just kind of honing those skills.” 

The course is highly-reviewed by past participants and is in high-demand at colleges across the country.

While much of the course focuses on physical self-defense skills, the first portion of the course provides awareness education and other tools which will hopefully help participants avoid situations where they will ever need to use those physical skills in the first place.

“Just saying ‘no’ puts a powerful presence out there and could possibly stop somebody by just saying ‘no’ and having an aggressive stance,” Murphy said.

The course is taught in four 3-hour sessions over four weeks at the U. of I. Public Safety Building, 1110 W. Springfield Ave., Urbana. Several dates are available. The cost to attend is $30.

Those wishing to enroll can sign up at police.illinois.edu/RAD.