Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt and author Andrea Tang recently opened up about a frightening experience from 2023 that she had largely kept private for three years.
In a podcast interview, Tang described in detail how her grappling training played a direct role in protecting her when a serial home intruder broke into her apartment in the early hours of the morning.
“About three years ago, spring of 2023, there was a man who broke into my apartment, home invader, around probably 4 or 5:00 a.m., like at night kind of deal. Climbed on top of me in bed and attempted to SA me.”
“I screamed my head off. Got into a tussle, managed to get him off. Thankfully came out of the whole encounter unscathed, chased him out of my apartment, called the police, the whole deal.”
Tang later learned through the court process that this was not an isolated incident.
“He had been a serial home intruder and r*pist who had attacked multiple women, broken into multiple women’s homes looking to r*pe them in their beds, hoping to find them vulnerable. And he was successful with at least one of them.”
When reflecting on what techniques actually made a difference, Tang was clear that it was not anything advanced.
“My body reacted before my brain did. I just kind of, without even thinking about it, started hand fight ing and throwing out my knee shield, just because it was what my body instinctively knew to do. That was just pure muscle memory. That wasn’t a conscious decision I made. It was literally just a reflex.”
She emphasized that the movements involved were fundamental.
“You don’t need to be able to throw a flying triangle or a crazy heel hook. You just need day one white belt basics integrated well into your muscle memory to be able to do that, and that’s what I did, and it worked.”
Tang also noted something worth considering about the nature of the attacker himself.
“The kind of man who runs around trying to assault women in their bedrooms late at night because they’re looking for what they think is going to be an easy target is not going to be somebody who has incredible physicality or grappling skills.”
“He was not great at creating pressure. And so even with sloppy white belt basics, he wasn’t having the best time trying to get on top of me.”
On the psychological aftermath, Tang described how being a martial artist shaped her response in unexpected ways.
“I was completely fine with just normal grappling and sparring. Where it affected me psychologically in the most obvious ways was when I was alone. I was super paranoid about double and triple checking locks for a while. I remember being afraid to turn the lights out for like a week or so.”
Tang concluded with a message directed at anyone who trains:
“If you do train and you do love it, know that it is something that can be a really valuable thing on just this fundamental self-protective level. For women, often we are not voluntarily on the bottom or on our backs. We’re there because a man put us there. Often it is not on concrete or hardwood. It is on a mattress because a man is pinning us to our beds trying to assault us.”
