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from the September, 2009 issue of Kiai!
Special Training 2009 – Two Roots Revealed
By Rebecca Epstein with help from Kate Webster
Last month I attended my second Special Training by the National Women's Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF). Besides having an excellent time, filled with physical training, martial arts learning and comradery, I was struck by the similarities between the beginnings and missions of the NWMAF and the World Seido Karate Organization. My experience made me realize that Thousand Waves has two strong roots – one in the Feminist Empowerment Movement (as carried on by the NWMAF) and one in the compassionate teachings of Kaicho (Grandmaster) Tadashi Nakamura's Seido Karate.
Thousand Waves members other than myself included Co-Director and Jun Shihan Nancy Lanoue, Sensei Martha Thompson, Senpai Kate Webster, Jean Petersen, Aileen Geary, Pat Broughton as well as color belts Melissa Ross and Michele Curley. Senpai Joy Williamson and Amy Jones from Sun Dragon, our affiliated school in Austin, TX also attended. Overall, Special Training attendees ranged from white to sixth degree black belts and even included several non-martial arts individuals, who were just beginning to learn self-defense. Thousand Waves and Sun Dragon students caravaned from Chicago to Oberlin, Ohio, sharing hundreds of interstate miles and picturesque country back roads. We also roomed close to one other and shared meals, where stories and tidbits were exchanged about classes, effective blocking and found weapons.
Meal time talk and classroom conversations also involved the spectrum of violence, its relation to racism, sexism and classism and the importance of having martial arts lessons and self-defense programs address these larger and complex social issues. No surprise all of us found these discussions particularly engaging since Thousand Waves consistently considers social implications of its programs and is in fact a continuation of Co-Director Nancy Lanoue's self-defense work within the feminist empowerment movement in New York City.
Shortly before Thousand Waves' began in 1985, both the NWMAF and the World Seido Karate Organization started in 1976 when women were side lined in martial arts, excluded from training schools, changing clothes in broom closets when they were allowed to train and excused from doing knuckle push-ups. Today, the NWMAF's mission is to share skills and resources, promote excellence in the martial arts, and encourage the widest range of women to train in the spirit of building individual and collective strength. One can easily see the shared values between Thousand Waves and NWMAF and why Thousand Waves presence at Special Training is so important.
Special Training deepens Thousand Waves work to understand and effectively portray self-defense and martial arts within a larger holistic context that takes racism, sexism and classism into account. Special Training also informs Thousand Waves efforts to facilitate a wide variety of involvement in its programming including women of color, women of size, people identifying as transgendered and people with disabilities.
In addition to gaining deeper diversity awareness, Thousand Waves attendees built community throughout Special Training, with individuals all over the country and abroad. They learned about a wide variety of styles and techniques including Aikido, Bagua, Baji Quan, blades, breaking, Bo Fung Do, Capoeira, coping with multiple attackers, a comprehensive Self-Defense track, Destiny Arts' unique take on Dance and the Five Fingers of Self-Defense, endurance kicking, ground fighting, Judo, Jujutsu, many types of conditioning, many types of sparring, Modern Arnis, nunchuku, Pigua Zhang, power in Kata, Kung Fu, San Ts'ai Chien, Sinawali, staff, T'ai Chi Ch'uan and Yoga. Attendees thoroughly enjoyed themselves sampling the many different types of martial artists.
Co-Director and Jun Shihan Nancy Lanoue, Sensei Martha Thompson and Senpai Kate Webster and also attended the Self-Defense Instructors Conference that happened two days prior to Special Training. This year the Self-Defense Instructors Conference offered a wide range of workshops including how to provide appropriate training for post traumatic stress survivors, responding to attacks on LGBTQ people, using self-defense to build resiliency, as well as several workshops on the business of self-defense.
Attendees were inspired by Lee Sinclair's report on her work in the slums of Nairobi where she trained a team of Kenyan teachers who have gone on to teach self-defense to over 40,000 women and children. And Ellen Snortland, the author of Beauty Bites Beast, made a compelling case for reframing self-defense as a form of "physical literacy," a basic human right recognized by over 100 member states within the United Nations. Attendees also enthusiastically shared in celebrating Senpai Kate Webster's accomplishment of becoming the fourth Thousand Waves member to receive self-defense instructor certification from the NWMAF.
Similar to Thousand Waves and the NWMAF, the World Seido Karate Organization brings the intense physical conditioning and mental focus of martial arts to diverse populations. Seido Karate dojos (schools) are known worldwide as places to practice martial arts in inclusive, non-competitive environments. The feeling of empowerment I regularly experience at the Thousand Waves dojo is virtually identical to the feeling of empowerment I experienced at Special Training. The Seido Karate proverb "Technique over Strength, Spirit over Technique" seemed just as relevant at Special Training.
All Thousand Waves and Sun Dragon attendees left the NWMAF's Self-Defense Instructors Conference and Special Training feeling enriched with greater self-defense and martial knowledge and resources for self-training. Personally, I left Special Training excited by the community I had built and also felt thankful I discovered martial arts and became a practitioner, and particularly a practitioner at Thousand Waves. I find Thousand Waves' two roots of the World Seido Karate Association and the NWMAF compelling and fitting to my character.