Personal Safety & Self-Defence Training in London

Professional, awareness-led training focused on confidence, judgement, and responsible self-protection.

Personal safety & self-defence training (16 +)

Practical, Progressive, Real-World.

Personal safety training with Nick Wood focuses on developing confidence, awareness, and calm decision making under pressure.

Training is designed around realistic everyday situations, with an emphasis on avoidance, boundary setting, and appropriate action when required — not aggression or intimidation.

Sessions are tailored to the individual or group and delivered in a controlled, supportive environment. Training is grounded in safeguarding principles, legal awareness, and recognised best practice, ensuring skills are taught responsibly and proportionately.

Who is this training for:

• Adults seeking greater confidence and awareness in everyday environments

• Parents looking for responsible, age-appropriate training for teens (16+)

• Professionals working with the public or in high-interaction roles

Course format: Small group (6 -14 people) - 7 hours of practical learning in total.

Private group bookings: Avaialble outside scheduled dates. Bring friends, family or colleagues and book a private course at a time that suits you. Corporate bookings welcome.

Booking as a large or Corporate group?

Learn how to navigate through life with confidence and have the knowledge and skill-set to deal with unwanted nuisances and threats.

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  • Escape, Movement & Safety Priorities - Regaining mobility, creating space, and removing yourself from danger safely and efficiently.

  • Ground Safety & Recovery - Essential principles for protecting yourself, maintaining composure, and disengaging if a situation goes to the ground.

  • Everyday Personal Safety Skills - Travel awareness, recognising unwanted attention, and understanding the use of everyday objects to support safety when appropriate.

What you’ll develop?

  • Situational Awareness & Risk Recognition - Understand environments, recognise early warning signs, and reduce risk before situations escalate.

  • Conflict Management & Deescalation - Practical verbal and non-verbal strategies to manage tension, set boundaries, and avoid physical confrontation where possible.

  • Practical Unarmed Self-Defence - Simple, repeatable physical responses designed for real-world situations and everyday people, not sport or competition.

MODULE 1: Applied Personal Safety, Movement & Decision-making

Practical prevention in real environments

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: £65 per person

This module focuses on practical personal safety behaviours, trained through movement-based drills and guided scenarios.

There are no self-defence techniques in this module. The emphasis is on positioning, awareness, and decision-making before situations escalate.

Module 1 covers:

  • Movement-based awareness drills

  • Environmental scanning while in motion.

  • Identifying exits, barriers, and safe positioning

  • Managing personal space without confrontation

  • Decision-making under mild stress

  • Repetition of common urban scenarios

  • How offenders select targets (and how not to be one)

  • Environmental scanning in real locations (streets, transport, venues)

    Outcome:

  • Participants move more confidently, recognise risk earlier, and make better decisions in everyday environments.

MODULE 2: Verbal Boundaries, Distance & Pre-Incident Control.

Managing people before violence begins

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: £75 per person

This module trains the critical stage before physical violence, using active role-play, repetition, and instructor feedback.

Module 2 covers:

  • Verbal boundary-setting drills

  • Managing distance, angels, and posture

  • Voice, tone, and body-language control

  • Recognising escalation cues in real time

  • Scenario repetition with increasing emotional pressure

  • Stress and adrenaline management

Outcome:

Participants learn to assert boundaries, control space, and reduce likelihood of situations becoming physical.

MODULE 3: Physical Self-Defence, Survival & Escape

High percentage responses to common assaults

Duration: 90 minutes

Price: £95 per person

This module covers last-resort physical self-defence, focused on survival, escape, and disengagement, not fighting.

Training is structured around a small number of reliable movement patterns, repeated across the most common real-world attacks.

  • Defence against common strikes

  • Escaping common grabs and holds

  • Clinch and close-range survival

  • Ground survival and safe standing up

  • Creating space and disengaging

  • Repetition under controlled pressure

This module is NOT:

  • Sport fighting

  • Technique-heavy martial arts

  • Unrealistic or complex systems

    Outcome:

    Participants develop simple, repeatable responses that can recall under stress

This is a progressive self-defence course designed to be learned over multiple sessions.

If you have never trained before, we strongly recommend starting at Module 1 and working in sequence.

“Training prioritises judgement, confidence, and responsibility over aggression”

Private sessions available at £120 per session

Multi-session packages are available for committed training and organisations.

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  • No. Courses are adapted for all fitness levels. Tell us any mobility or medical issues in advance.

  • Private studio, corporate sites, or agreed public venues. Private group bookings can be held at a venue of your choice (subject to availability)

  • Yes. Experienced participants may choose individual modules. if you’re new to self-defence. start at Module 1.

  • This course is for ages 16 and above. For younger participants refer to our youth Personal Safety for Emerging Independence course for ages 12-15.

    For younger participants we can run separate junior courses on request.

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