In light of the recent violent outbreak at Theta Delta Chi, the martial arts group Shotokan Karate will offer its weekly self-defense class to all students free of charge this year. In the past, the class cost $50 per quarter.

The incident, which happened on Oct. 6, involved the arrest of two men on charges of battery. It has prompted several organizations on campus, including the Stanford Martial Arts Program (SMAP), to make self-defense workshops more widely available to the community. Shotokan President Nick Cizek, a graduate student in applied physics, was the first student club president to take initiative in response to the violence. He believes Shotokan is one of the best ways students can protect themselves against future incidents.

“Having learned self-defense when I was younger in order to fight off bullies, I can attest to the effectiveness of Shotokan Karate,” Cizek said. “Beyond building strength and confidence, it has helped me in many potentially and concretely dangerous situations.”

“Ironically,” he added, “knowing how to fight has predominantly helped me avoid conflict and defuse confrontation.”

The Shotokan self-defense class meets twice per week, while most of the other self-defense workshops on campus are one-time only demonstrations.

“We believe that two one-hour sessions per week over one quarter is sufficient time for students to gain a reasonable understanding of how to prevent and avoid dangerous situations,” Cizek said.

He added that the class will focus on quick and powerful moves as well as confrontation avoidance.

“We will steer the class towards techniques that can be learned to be executed effectively in a short amount of time,” Cizek said. “Additionally, we firmly believe that avoidance and prevention of dangerous situations is the best form of self-defense, and we are working to bring in some police officers to present on situational awareness and safety.”

Attendance in class may hinge on students’ perceived level of threat on campus.

“There’s always going to be problems on campus,” said Matthew Chun-Lum ‘11, after hearing about the Theta Delta Chi incident. “But I feel relatively safe.”

He added that finding the time to take a self-defense class was a challenge he would not try to tackle.

Emily Jones ‘11 said most of the crimes she had heard about on campus were non-violent.

“Self-defense classes would not keep my laptop from getting stolen,” she said. “If assaults occurred regularly, maybe I would consider [taking the class].”

Despite some students’ doubts, Cizek anticipates high participation.

“[Shotokan Karate] is actively in discussions with the Associate Vice Provost of Student Affairs, the ASSU, the GSC and several of the residence halls,” he said.

The first self-defense class will be held this Tuesday at Arrillaga Sports and Recreation Center at 7:00 p.m.