An elderly woman approaches, taking slow steps with the aid of a walking stick - a picture of vulnerability. But suddenly she quickens her steps, raises her stick and swings it as if her life depended on it. Thwack! 
This time, it’s a cushion that has taken the force of the blow. But she wants to be prepared to do the same thing to a mugger, should the need arise. And she’s not alone. About a dozen seniors in Stuttgart are taking part in this self-defence course that teaches what is playfully referred to as ‘Cane Fu’. 
The instructor is Jan Fitzner, 63. A general practitioner in his day job, he devotes his spare time not to healing, but to hurting.
“A cane is the only weapon you can get through an airport security check,” he notes.
His pupils may be long in the tooth, but they’re also not short on pluck.
“The times are becoming unsafer, and seniors are often the victims,” says Charlotte Plischke, a 72-year-old from the nearby city of Esslingen. “But I won’t be.”
Though she doesn’t need a walking aid yet, she says, “when I get older and maybe more fearful, I’d take a cane with me.”
Swinging and thrusting are the main moves that participants learn at the start of the three-day course, taught at an educational and cultural centre for people over 50 years of age. A cushion serves as the imaginary assailant, and it takes a real beating. Participants practice blows to the head, shoulders and knees.
Bony areas of the body are particularly painful areas to target, Fitzner points out knowingly. The lower abdomen, belly and face aren’t spared either, accompanied by loud cries of “go away!”
The cries are important, since the walking stick should be used as a weapon only as a last resort, emphasises Fitzner, whose interest in self-defence techniques began in childhood.
“It’s not our goal to knock the attacker silly, but to escape unscathed,” he says. “Fights are always highly dangerous. Having taken a [self-defence] course, you shouldn’t think you’re now OK.”
One of the course participants already has doubts that she’s OK. “Will that be enough in an emergency?” she asks Fitzner after taking a tentative whack at the cushion.
These course participants wouldn’t be the first to drive off a would-be robber with a walking aid. In Berlin, for example, a 56-year-old woman recently scared off someone trying to snatch her handbag by flailing with her crutches.
And in Stuttgart, too, a woman put a miscreant to flight with her walking aid, a course participant reports, saying she read about it in a local newspaper. The elderly heroine was quoted as saying that she had been one of Fitzner’s pupils.
Fitzner’s course is apparently unique in Germany, but he says there are similar ones in the United States. And there are plenty of Internet videos on self-defence for seniors with the help of a cane or an umbrella.
Ordinary umbrellas break too easily in the heat of battle, however, warns Fitzner, who recommends sturdy safety umbrellas with a stainless-steel tip and fibreglass shaft.
Seniors sticking up for themselves with a walking stick has a kind of catch-22, he concedes. Those who need one can usually hardly walk without it, and therefore can’t raise it to repel an attacker. And those who are fit enough to swing and thrust a cane don’t need it as a walking aid, and therefore don’t leave their home with one.
“Safety umbrellas could fill this gap,” Fitzner says.
None of the course participants uses a cane just yet, although some have already been in dicey situations.
Adalbert Litterst, 83, had an experience where he was “aggressively approached” by someone with a knife. “Ever since, I’ve felt it’s best to avoid everything that can lead to a situation like that. But if it can’t be avoided, what then?”
Neither the local police nor responsible state council for senior citizens is especially enamoured of the Cane Fu course.
“You’ve got to know how to use [a cane]. An attacker could wrest it away from you and bash you on the noggin with it,” a police spokesman says, also emphasising that a weapon should be used only as a last resort. “It’s important that people draw attention to themselves and call for help.”
Birgit Faigle, managing director of the senior citizens council, has reservations too. “I don’t know if a cane is the right instrument. It’s easy to grab a cane and then knock an older person down,” she says, but adds that self-defence courses for seniors are beneficial because they prepare them for dangerous situations.
What body part should a cane-wielding senior target in a really dangerous situation? “If there’s danger to life and limb, the face,” Fitzner advises. “A thrust that hits home might be enough to end the matter. And then you can run away.” – DPA