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QUINCY, ILL. -- Crime can strike any time, any where.

Would you know how to protect yourself from an attacker?

KHQA's Rajah Maples spoke with a local self-defense instructor about ways women can protect themselves.

Robert Bentley owns Legacy Martial Arts in Quincy.

He said, "The number one most important thing is confidence. And when you say confident women, that is so important whenever it comes to self-defense because a woman who carries herself in a way that she shows that she has confidence is not going to become a victim."

Bentley said once you have that confidence, you have to have some knowledge to know what you would do or how you would react if you were put in a bad situation.

We went over three possible attacks that could happen to you when you're least expecting it for this KHQA Safe Family Crime report.

Bentley said, "Number one, somebody trying to hit you, swinging their first. You're going to block. I can just use that hand to protect my head. My other hand, I'm going to use my palm and go straight for their nose. The nose is one of the most sensitive areas on someone's body, because if you hit it, a lot of times, you're going to break it. You want to use your palm. If you use your fist and you miss, if you hit them in the head or something, that can really hurt your hand. You want to use your palm. That gives you a wider service to hit with."

Bentley said hitting an attacker in the nose will make their eyes water. So even if your attacker can't feel the pain because they're high on drugs, their vision will be obstructed, giving you an opportunity to run away.

Bentley also went over the two-handed choke from the front.

He said, "It's a type of dominance whenever a man can get ahold of a women like that. When someone has their arms out like this, they don't have any arm strength this way. You're going to grab close to my wrists and pull them away. You might not completely rip my arms off, but you'll be able to keep me from chocking. You'll be able to pull apart enough so you can still breathe. As you're pulling away, you're going to lean back and kick at the same time. Any man who gets kicked there, it's a mental thing right away. Even though it's going to hurt, immediately, they're thinking in their head, "wow, I just got kicked in the groin.'"

Then, there's the headlock from behind. Bentley said this attack is used a.) to surprise and dominate the victim and b.) so that the victim won't be able to see or identity her attacker.

Bentley said, "You're going to grab my arms, and we need you to widen your base. Legs are going to go out wide and bend your knees. You are not going to be big enough or strong enough to throw me. But everyone's strong enough to lean forward a little bit and what that does is, if I want to hang onto you, I've got to learn forward, too. I lose balance, so now from here, all that you have to do is you're just going to dump me, turn to the side and let your elbow touch this knee, so you're just going to turn, and I'll slide right off you. Your knee is going to drop into my ribs. That's not going to feel good on my ribs, and then that nose, boom."

Bentley said then you can make a fist and punch them in the side of the neck, which will shock their system.

This is  merely a crash course in self defense and should *not* replace an actual class. Last but not least, Bentley says to always be aware of your surroundings, not paranoid, but conscious about what could happen at all times.