Historically, the pain of taking a self defense course has been so great that most women wait until after something happens to sign up for a course.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

Enthusiastic fitness junkies ourselves, we explored what was really working well for popular group fitness classes, integrated our own experience and research into the biology and science of self preservation, and added some positive energy and a healthy dash of humor. And then we reformatted the traditional self defense course into a friendlier, more familiar template that's fun to learn and fun to teach.

Pretty Deadly was originally developed in 2009 in the US, and launched full time in Berlin, Germany in 2016, growing from a single location and trainer to an internationally accredited self defense instructor certification course and program template that is taught in six countries and four languages, to people of all genders.

We've been tracking our client behavior since 2016, and discovered that 98% of course participants attend all 5 classes; 34% of course graduates enroll in gym or martial arts school membership - many for the first time, and they tend to stay active for an average of 4 years. We want more women to learn self defense, and we want fitness and martial arts pros to benefit from increased enrollment, higher retention and client longevity too.

If 1 in 3 women

will become victims of violence in their lifetimes, why don't more women learn self defense? That's the question we asked after becoming a statistic ourselves. We sampled hundreds of courses and found effective techniques that women were missing out on because of the negative association with self defense.

Self Defense Instructor Certification

While our goal is to make learning self defense fun, we take the need for self defense seriously. We pride ourselves on delivering very high quality training for self defense instructors, and aim to be the gold standard for self defense instructor certification across the globe.

Quality Assurance & DEI Best Practices

Pretty Deadly maintains robust policies and procedures for diversity, equity and inclusion practices, anti-discrminatory policies, as well as clear policy and procedure for sexual harassment and assault, and requires full compliance by trainers we certify..

DV and Trauma Awareness & Support

Every certification course includes thorough training modules for domestic violence awareness and procedures, trauma trigger awareness and support practices. Modules are designed to keep both client and trainer physically and emotionally safe.

Accountability

Pretty Deadly Self Defense Instructor Certification Course is the first of its kind to submit for review and accreditation by internatinal governing sports bodies. We are an approved and accredited training provider for NASM, AFAA, ISSA and CIMSPA.

Accessibility and inclusion

Pretty Deadly Certification aims to make self defense accessible to everyone, including people. with disabilities. Techniques and teaching practices can always be modified to adapt to clients' abilities and mobility. We never require a client to adapt to a technique.

Community

We lift up our community of trainers and course participants alike through special events, promotion of business ventures and social initiatives, and through our policy of giving back. The goal for Pretty Deadly is to provide freely accessible, trauma-informed self defense training for residents of domestic violence shelters, homeless shelters and displacement camps, funded solely by our own business model. We are committed to delivering self defense in real time to those who need it most, and bypassing unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape.

Pretty Deadly has delivered instructor certifications and self defense workshops to NPOs in Nepal, Pakistan, Germany and the United States.

5200+

47

Happy grads

100%

Cities around the world

Kickass fun!

Founder Story

Susie Kahlich is the founder of Pretty Deadly Self Defense, a user-friendly self defense system she developed based on her 20+ years of Ninjutsu training, her experience as a violent crime survivor and her training in storytelling. She is certified in DV awareness and support from University of Sheffield, and trained in CBT.

Susie has been teaching self defense since 2009 across the US and Europe, and has worked with violent crime survivors, trauma victims and refugee and immigrant communities on three different continents and in multiple cities around the world. She has given seminars and private workplace consultations on sexual harassment policies for tech start-ups, corporate media, co-working spaces , thinktanks and blockchain companies in Europe and the UK.

Press

Pretty Deadly has been featured in online and print magazines, news shows, documentaries and podcasts. Contact us if you'd like to feature us.