LYNNWOOD—The Lynnwood Police Department will be continuing its Women Empowered self-defense class next Saturday, September 20, with plenty of more classes scheduled through 2025. Next week’s class comes just in time for National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which begins October 1.
Though the Lynnwood PD has partnered with the Bellevue PD in hosting women’s self-defense classes in the past, this is the first year the class is independently instructed by Lynnwood PD, led by instructor Officer Maryam McDonald.
In the past, Officer McDonald assisted Bellevue Police Officer Craig Hanaumi but after obtaining her instructor certification last July, now she’s leading her own program up in Lynnwood.
McDonald, who responds to many domestic violence calls while on patrol, was inspired to start a program like this in Lynnwood due to her conversations with DV survivors and them saying they didn’t know what to do. This broke her heart, as a 15-year Jiujitsu practitioner herself, knowing self-defense techniques were accessible for her community.
She reached out to Lynnwood PD Chief Cole Langdon about setting up a program in Lynnwood, who enthusiastically agreed. As it happened, Officer Hanaumi down in Bellevue was already teaching a similar class every Sunday. She quickly joined as assistant instructor in 2022 leading up into launching her own course this year.
Several Bellevue PD Officers still attended the first class of the year, which took place on Saturday, August 23, to show their support to Officer McDonald in carrying on a program in Lynnwood.
“I think that every woman should have some sort of delf defense experience so that if you ever encounter something like this, at least you have some tools, so you know what to resort to,” said Officer McDonald.
McDonald shared with the Lynnwood Times the instructor certification was “pretty intense,” and involved her getting her pink belt, mastering the program – and its various techniques – to be able to pass the exam at 95% or above. After that she entered the instruction certification program which spanned from January through July 2025. The instruction certification program only takes place twice a year and brings students from all over the world including Germany, Netherlands, and Australia.
Throughout the program, MacDonald was required to submit five teaching proficiency videos online – which were graded by a panel of evaluators and then was flown down to Grace University in California to demonstrate those teaching proficiencies live to adjudicators.
McDonald teaches 40 women at a time, aged 12 and over, over the course of 15 lessons. Her curriculum is based on the 20 most common physical threats and areas against women, which she teaches self-defense techniques to deal with each of these.
She focuses on the four basic phases of an assault for strangers. McDonald added techniques differ for acquaintances because individuals are typically less likely to engage in, say, eye gouging techniques with people that they know. Her class does, however, cover techniques for people students may know as well.
The four phases of assault are: 1.) to identify an unsuspecting target, 2.) to subdue and isolate a target, to 3.) control and exhaust a target, and 4.) to carry out the assault.
McDonald breaks these down, one-by-one, to teach women how to be a not ideal target (being aware of surroundings, for example), wrist release (phase 2) defenses, ground fighting (phase 3), and various techniques for phase four including a “false surrender.” All of the taught techniques emphasize getting to safety.
“It’s all leverage-based techniques, focusing on smaller people being able to defend themselves against a much larger, big, heavier, stronger, opponent,” said Officer McDonald. “So all of the techniques you learn do not require any strength or physical athleticism, it’s all just timing, technique, and leverage.”
McDonald’s course does not require any previous martial arts experience or even requires students to attend previous classes before jumping into the next.
The curriculum is standardized by Grace University.
Officer McDonald hopes to continue the class every other Saturday, but this schedule could change due to holidays and other events. For example, last Saturday’s class was postponed due to the Fair on 44th.
Classes are taught at PandaWorld Jiujitsu in Lynnwood, located at 19031 33rd Ave W Suite 103. The classes are free to attend but require reservations by clicking here, just to ensure classes do not top capacity limits.
Separate to taking her class, Officer McDonald recommends any and every women pick up the art of jiujitsu to learn basic self-defense.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
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