Media Features
Defend University of New York has been fortunate enough to receive constant exposure from a variety of local, regional and national media sources. We have been featured in Sports Illustrated and Men's Journal. Steve Kardian has also appeared on News 4 New York and Inside Edition.
September 30, 2005--John Kardian, son of Defend University of New York's lead instructor Steve Kardian, is selected for the Discovery Kids reality show, Endurance. The New York Journal News reports.
November 10, 2004--Steve Kardian appears on Inside Edition discussing the dangers of campus predators. During a video segment, he successfully lured 8 young co-eds in a row to his car. The following is the Inside Edition synopsis of the segment: "Each year, nearly 9000 college students are sexually assaulted. While the majority of those assaults are some form of date rape, college women are also vulnerable to sexual predators who lurk on or near campuses looking for women. With the help of a police officer and rape expert, Inside Edition conducts a hidden camera experiment to see if college women are as careful as they should be and the results are alarming."
April 15, 2004--Rape Escape Instructors Steve Kardian and Kristen Andersen appear on the nationally syndicated Spanish TV channel Telemundo. Steve and Kristen demonstrated the effectiveness of the Rape Escape program while staff reporter Samuel Rivera narrated. The program was broadcast around the world in Spanish-speaking countries including Mexico and Puerto Rico
March 15, 2004--Steve Kardian gives advice to Inside Edition on the danger of the foam parties found at many of Spring Break's hottest nightclubs
Twenty-one-year-old Margaret Piton, a senior at Texas A&M International University , was found dead by a clean-up crew during early morning hours at Club Chaos, a popular venue on South Padre Island, Texas.
Inside Edition obtained a video from a DJ in attendance at the Club the night Margaret Piton ventured into the form pit at Club Chaos and never came out. Inside Edition asked Steve to view the tape and as a Police Officer and safety expert and to point out what the dangers were obvious in the video.
Steve's first response after viewing the video was that it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. It was evident that there were thousands of people in the club and the area that was sectioned off for use as a foam pit appeared to cover one or more of the clubs fire exits.
A foam party is usually done at a night club. A section of the club or dance floor is generally cordoned off and the area is draped with plastic. Foam is poured into the area by a foam gun. Patrons can venture into the foam and explore the various experiences that may occur under the cover of 3 to 6 feet of suds. Clubs wait until late into the night before they start the foam party so that attendees are “good and relaxed.” The suggested attire for Women is bra and panties or a bikini and for Men it is shorts or boxers. Venturing into a foam pit might some what be like going into a dark room half naked with a group of strangers. Some of the verbiage you might hear if you venture into a foam pit is “sorry, whoops sorry about that, sorry didn't know you were a guy.” This language usually occurs when a young man gropes another man believing that the person he's groping is a woman.
February 6, 2004-Steve Kardian, Defend University New York's East Coast representative and Marty McDonald, child safety expert and Rape Escape apprentice, appeared on Inside Edition Feb. 6. They demonstrated safety techniques following the discovery of little Carlie Brucia's body in Florida
According to Kardian, one of the worst scenarios that can occur to a rape victim is being accosted by a predator and taken to a secondary crime scene. This type of crime occurs daily in the United States. Two of the most recent and notable incidents of this kind have caught the attention of the National media. Dru Sjodin of Grand Forks, North Dakota and Carlie Brucia of Sarasota, Florida were both approached in a public place by career sex offenders and taken to what law enforcement refers to as a secondary crime scene. Both were then brutalized and then murdered.
If a victim is accosted and taken to a secondary crime scene she has very little chance of surviving this horrific encounter. On the other hand if a woman screams, runs away, or drops into the rape escape defensive position she has more than a 50% chance of walking away with little or no injury. As Brad Parker states, if you do any of these defensive actions you are ruining the predator's plan.
On camera, Kardian was asked to instruct a 12 year-old girl with no prior self defense experience in how to avoid being grabbed by the wrist and dragged to a vehicle or to a secluded area. He worked with the young girl for less than 5 minutes and had her performing the technique in perfect fashion on national television.
March 1, 1999--Steve Kardian and the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Association of New York are featured in Sports Illustrated magazine's "Do It Yourself" Section. The Training Association, which Steve headed, was one of the predecessors to Defend University.
Check back here soon for excerpts and video clips.
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