Before Miesha Tate steps foot inside the Strikeforce cage again this summer, her martial arts and wrestling background will be put to use in a DVD to educate women on rape prevention techniques.Tate is heading a new instructional co-starring Frank Shamrock which will be taped Friday in Los Angeles.
"It's not going to be your basic self-defense DVD," Tate told MMAFighting.com Wednesday. "We really want to get down to how these moves are done. it's not just going to be like, 'Oh wham, bam, here you go this is how you do it.' It's really going to be in detail, it's going to be intricate, with different angles for every different situation. We're also going to have stories of women that have worked through this before and the rape victims are going to share with us their experiences and I'm going to help train them as well, one-on-one."
The project originated through Ariel Penn, a Tate fan with experience in Gracie jiu-jitsu -- and a former rape victim. After befriending Tate, Penn approached Tate with the idea of an instructional and asked if Tate would be the spokesperson. Penn and two other former victims will share their experiences in the video.
For the instructional aspect, Tate will demonstrate techniques with former UFC middleweight champion Shamrock playing the attacker. Tate recruited Shamrock for his Strikeforce affiliation and her respect for what Shamrock has accomplished in the sport. Another reason was that Tate, who fights at 135 pounds, would be able to display the techniques would be effective against a larger fighter.
"It's kind of the whole theory behind jiu-jitsu," Tate said. "It was really designed for smaller, weaker people to be able to use leverage rather than strength, redirecting people's motion and momentum against them and basically that's the whole idea behind that you don't have to be the bigger, stronger person to win the battle. You can use technique, leverage and your smarts and basically beat someone who will basically just come at you with brute strength."
Tate took techniques she learned in MMA and incorporated them with research conducted by talking with friends who have done self-defense DVDs as well as former rape victims.
The project will be produced in part through Tate's Take Down Enterprises, At first "Takedown" Tate started Take Down Enterprises to protect her trademark, but in the future would like to manage female fighters and open her own gym. Take Down Enterprises is Tate's way to stay involved with the sport after her competitive career is over.
The release of the DVD is targeted for sometime in the late fall.
As for her fight career, Tate (9-2) is coming off a March 26 win on Showtime against Zoila Frausto at Strikeforce Challengers 7. She's still waiting on an opponent, but says her goal remains the same.
"Obviously still gunning for that belt, still gunning for that rematch with [Sarah] Kaufman," Tate said. "That's my long term goal at this point in MMA is to capture that and whoever [Strikeforce] deems appropriate to fight along the way to prove that, that's where I'm going."
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