By LYNNE MARIE WANAMAKER

EASTHAMPTON -- I’ve been practicing self-defense for over two decades. When people find that out, they want to know, “Have you ever had to use your self-defense?”

I always tell them, “I use my self-defense every day.” They look at me funny then. They think I lead a secret life on par with Valerie Plame or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which assassins stalk me in the supermarket and are repelled by my secret ninja skills.

Sometimes when I’m folding laundry I wish my life had such glamour. But this is what I really mean: I use mental skills to focus myself. I trust my intuition and “gut” instincts.I regulate strong emotions. I use verbal skills to stand up for myself, to make myself heard, to teach groups, to parent.

I use distance skills to set appropriate boundaries with family — including my kid — friends, business associates and people in the community.

I create loving community for myself, my family and my neighbors.

Self-defense teachers use the memory device The Five Fingers of Self-Defense to organize violence-prevention strategies.

These are the four fingers of self-defense I live every day: Use your mind; use your voice; create distance; tell someone you trust.

Self-defense finger number five — fight back if you have to, and with appropriate force — is something I practice at my karate school.

That’s where my secret ninja skills reside: playing and learning with my friends. But fighting is, blessedly, not a part of my everyday life.

I am proud to have fighting skills and I will use them if I need them. But I hope, and work, to never need them.

These are the aspects of self-defense that form a parenting paradigm. When I say that a philosophy of self-defense guides my parenting decisions, I don’t mean that I’m turning kid into a little ninja. I’m not glorifying fighting, or even mentioning the circumstances within which one might need to fight.

When I think about self-defense as a parenting paradigm, I think about what I want most for my kid. My dreams are big:

-- I want her to trust herself. I want her to check in with her own desires at every crossroad in her life. I want her to have access to her true self and her deep wisdom.

-- I want her to advocate for herself. I want her to be able to order her own meal in a restaurant, stand up for a friend, or negotiate a great job.

-- I want her to move away from the things or people that are uncomfortable or dangerous for her. I want her to be able to set and maintain clear boundaries and honor other people’s boundaries.

-- I want her never, ever to be in a position of physical danger from another person. But if she finds herself in that situation, I want her to have physical skills for fighting back.

-- I want her to create a loving, supportive family and community for herself.

These are my deepest and most fervent wishes for my daughter. These hopes are more important to me than her academic or professional success. They are my primal mama-drive for her survival.

I also believe that these skills will help her achieve external success. It has been my experience — and the experience of countless women who have studied self-defense with me over the past 20 years — that the more we commit to these internal strengths, the more efficacy and agency we have in the world and the more success we realize.

I believe that by parenting through a self-defense lens, by nurturing my child’s competencies of mind, voice, boundaries and community, I am investing in not only in her survival, but in her triumph.

Lynne Marie Wanamaker is a National Women’s Martial Arts Certified Self Defense Instructor. She blogs about the intersection of self defense and parenting.