Newsletter of Thousand Waves Martial Arts & Self-Defense Center, NFP
Camp Kokoro Gets the “Likes”
8.19.2016 by Mattie Greenblatt
In keeping with the “Camp” part of Camp Kokoro, campers spent half of every day outside. They had choices between various structured and unstructured activities.
Camp Kokoro is our annual karate summer camp, and provides joyously fun opportunities for kids to improve their karate while they build character, deepen friendships, experience positive competition, and play outdoors. In keeping with the Thousand Waves mission to extend the benefits of karate training to all, regardless of ability to pay, 16 campers over the three sessions were on scholarship. We asked Camp Counselor Senpai Mattie to interview some campers, asking them “What do you like about Camp Kokoro?” Here are some of their answers:
I like playing in the park and meeting new people. – Gabrielle, age 13
I like JuJuBee and playing in the chess & checkers tournament. I just learned how to play chess! – Henry, age 10
I like the special activities like going to Mystic Waters and the karate tournament day. – Josephine, age 7
I like being able to spend time with my friends who aren’t my rank. – Meghan, age 13
Camp Kokoro counselors kept the kids working hard with a variety of calisthenics in a special fitness class.A tournament with a sparring event was part of each Camp Kokoro session.Watching the competitors is an important learning experience.Kokoro campers attended two karate classes per day, and received plenty of help from their Senpai.Meditation is an important and challenging part of Seido karate. One day, the kids went into class early and practiced meditation on their own!In keeping with the “Camp” part of Camp Kokoro, campers spent half of every day outside. They had choices between various structured and unstructured activities.Campers were able to choose their preferred “Kokoro Quidditch” positions in a democratic manner.The relaxed pace of the afternoons allowed time for bonds to develop between campers and their teenaged counselors. All the Kokoro counselors were Kokoro campers when they were younger.The outdoor chess and checkers tournaments were a popular activity.Back at the dojo at the end of each day, everyone had a chance to be listened to during camp circle meetings.
Photos by Ryan Libel and Mattie Greenblatt, compiled by Katherine Nichols
Grant-Funded Program Going Strong!
8.19.2016 by Ryan Libel
Program Manager Amy Jones and NWMAF Certified Self-Defense Instructor Erin Epperson have been hard at work all year long delivering Violence Prevention programs to Chicago-area youth experiencing homelessness. As faithful Kiai! readers will know, this work was made possible by an Impact Grant of the LGBT Community Fund of the Chicago Community Trust that Thousand Waves received last year. With the grant funds, we have been serving youth (who are primarily LGBTQ-identified) in four partner agencies across Chicago: Teen Living Programs, Howard Brown’s Broadway Youth Center, The Center on Halsted’s Youth Services Program, and Chicago House’s TransSafe program.
Over the course of the year, we have delivered a 12-hour self-defense series to each agency. We are currently in the middle of cycling through with each partner a second time. We designed the programs to provide our services in series format because we know from experience and from academic research in the field of Empowerment Self-Defense that the outcomes in such programs are richer. In addition to our standard self-defense content, one piece we have implemented in each session is a short meditation at the close of each session. This both gives the participants the opportunity to practice moving from an adrenalized state to calm, and helps the students develop a mindfulness practice – both skills that can help students to heal from past trauma. It’s an extremely rewarding way to foster fitness, healing, empowerment, and peacemaking in a community that has too little of each.
Amy, a licensed social worker, operates from a strong, trauma-informed perspective – critical in properly addressing the needs of disenfranchised populations. As the field of Empowerment Self-Defense has grown over the years, practitioners all over the world have adopted many important insights from fields like social work, psychology, and sociology. Those insights have added to the strong grounding in physical skills that remains foundational to the work. Thousand Waves is proud to be a leader in the field of Empowerment Self-Defense; we’re grateful to the LGBT Community Fund of the Chicago Community Trust for the opportunity to work with these youth. We are continually seeking grant funds that enable us to continue this type of work, and we welcome your input on any ideas for funding you may have.
Senpai Ryan Libel is the Executive Director of Thousand Waves, and a 3rd Degree Black Belt.
Back-to-School Safety Workshop for Kids
8.19.2016 by Amy Jones
Send your kids back to school with more tools in their safety toolbox with our 90-minute Back-to-School Workshop for kids ages 8-11. The workshop is Saturday, September 10 from 1:30-3:00 at Thousand Waves. The workshop costs between $15 and $25, and is on a pay-what-you-wish basis, which means you can register and pay as little as $15 or as much as $25 – it’s entirely up to you!
We’ll use the Five Fingers of Self-Defense: Think Yell Run Fight & Tell to help kids think about and practice everyday safety skills to deal with bullies, identify safe adults, and get help when they need it. Plus we’ll teach them physical skills that can help keep them safe in an emergency, even against an adult attacker. Our workshops are empowerment-based, age-appropriate, and fun. We only offer one kids’ self-defense workshop a year – don’t miss it!
Upcoming Film Screening: The Year We Thought About Love
8.19.2016 by Thousand Waves
Join us the evening of Friday, September 23 for a screening and discussion of the award-winning film by Ellen Brodsky that goes behind the scenes of the oldest queer youth theater in America. The event is free and open to the public – help us spread the word!
Olivia Mulcahy shot this photo from the audience of her twins’ promotion to Advanced Green belt in May.
The Thousand Waves Kids’ program was featured in educator and TW parent, Olivia Mulcahy’s “Mombservations from the Extracurricular Sidelines” for Paridad in which she discussed elements of a good extra-curricular program that a parent would also like to find in a good school. In her article, Mulcahy goes into detail about the ways in which she has experienced each of the following features in the Thousand Waves learning environment:
Focus on ethics, empathy, diversity, and community.
Clear expectations for outcomes and effort.
High expectations are met with high levels of differentiated support.
Appropriate time allotted for learning.
Assessments are learning (and community building!) opportunities.
Book Review of Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self
8.19.2016 by Ryan Libel
Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self
(Susan J. Brison, 2002, Princeton University Press)
In 1992, Dartmouth philosopher Susan Brison was enjoying a stroll through the countryside in the South of France when a stranger brutally attacked her from behind. He physically and sexually assaulted her, making every attempt to leave her for dead in the bottom of a ravine. He did not succeed; Brison survived the brutal rape and attempted murder. After a lengthy trial, her attacker was convicted and served a sentence of 10 years. At about the same time he was released from a French prison, Brison released Aftermath, an academic work that chronicles her story of victimization, coping with trauma, and healing through the lens of her academic discipline – philosophy.
Sei Shihan Nancy handed me this book from her personal library for a number of reasons, I’m sure, but one is that after her attack Brison became a student of self-defense, which she now views as a vital part of healing from violence. She trained with Linda Ramzy, a long-time practitioner in the field of Empowerment Self-Defense and an acquaintance of a number of us at Thousand Waves. Brison’s self-defense work was, to use an overused word, transformational. She found that “The hardest thing for most of the women in [her] self-defense class to do was simply to yell, ‘No!’” Most instructors in the field can relate to that observation. Brison also says, “It became clear that the way to break out of the double bind of self-blame versus powerlessness was through empowerment.”
Brison discusses how commonly she has to deal with people who are quick to blame the victim – perhaps best illustrated, ironically, by a victims assistance counselor, who at one point unhelpfully told Brison that “she herself had never been a victim and said that [Brison] would benefit from the experience by learning not to be so trusting of people and to take basic safety precautions like not going out alone late at night.” Brison ultimately discovered for herself that instead of self-blame, “self-defense training makes it easier for victims to put the blame where it belongs: on their assailants. This is facilitated by the ability to feel appropriate anger toward them once the terror induced by helplessness subsides.”
One of the more confusing and challenging incorporations of the concepts of self-defense into the work comes when she says self-defense is not a panacea, but that “At best, it can give some people a greater chance of avoiding being victimized, most likely by deflecting the assailants’ attention onto other targets.” She also says that perhaps self-defense training gives victims more control over their traumatic memories – allowing them to interrupt their what-ifs with concrete tactics.
Brison’s narrative is one that anyone can read and relate to and learn from. But she didn’t produce a memoir, rather she chose to write an academic treatise. By explicitly situating her narrative within the field of philosophy, she is advancing the argument that first person narratives, especially those dealing with human experiences that are non-universal, are essential to the project of philosophy.
In particular, Brison seeks to expand philosophy’s understanding of trauma by detailing her own PTSD diagnosis and psychiatric treatment. In the chapter entitled, “Acts of Memory,” which charts the problems of narrative memory in a trauma-impacted brain, she includes a sub-section “on meaning and molecules” wherein she describes her pharmacological journey. Like many people seeking the right combination of pills and calibration of dosages who I have known personally over the years, she felt as much a guinea pig for psychiatry as she did a person receiving medical treatment. But the drugs definitely provide a life-line for a time – she draws no conclusions about psychiatry; she talks around her own field’s debate about mind as/and body, which of course remains unresolved.
Aftermath added much to my understanding of the psychology of victimization, and of trauma, and serves as an instructive reminder that there is no “putting it behind you” for trauma. Poignantly, Brison discusses not getting what she needed from loved ones after the rape – nobody wanted to talk about it explicitly, and instead she received platitudes like generic cards featuring a “bright summery scene with the greeting, ‘Isn’t the sun nice?’” Her parents were strong for her, and supportive, but instead of a strong face she would have preferred to know what her brother told her years later – that her mom and dad held each other and cried for hours upon learning what had happened to their daughter in France.
I am no student of philosophy – Brison’s claim that “philosophers are far behind legal theorists in acknowledging the need for a diversity of voices” is not one that I’m equipped to evaluate. Generally speaking, I’d say that virtually all fields of human inquiry could benefit from a greater diversity of voices. For me, the most moving part of the work comes in its final pages, when Brison discusses the birth of her son – she insinuates a belief that “in spite of everything, that the world is a good enough place for him to grow up in.” But then more unspeakable tragedy enters her life. Clearly, the message the author wants to leave readers with is that, for many, life can present a never-ending series of opportunities to better understand the trajectory of trauma and healing.
Senpai Ryan Libel is the Executive Director of Thousand Waves, and a 3rd Degree Black Belt.
8.19.2016 by Thousand Waves
Bill Smith is a 4th Kyu Green Belt training member.
Kiai!: Briefly, how did you come to train in Seido Karate at Thousand Waves? A: My two kids, Amanda and Nicholas, had been taking classes for a year or so. I was a spectator and wanted to try it but was not sure I could keep up. I started by taking Sensei Alan’s fitness classes, then took my trial class, the rest is history.
Kiai!: What is one thing you’d like to change about the world? A: I’d like to do away with extremists. Maybe ship them all to the South Pole. I would also love to see that every child in the world is WELL educated. I feel a lack of education leads to poverty, ignorance, bullying, crime and extremists.
Kiai!: What is one thing you do well? A: These days I don’t really do any one thing well. I think I do a lot of things reasonably well but nothing really well. If I were answering this 30 years ago I could say play soccer, I was a very good soccer player way back when.
Kiai!: What is one thing you do not do so well? A: Sing. I have the world’s worst voice. It sounds like someone is beating a baby with a cat.
Kiai!: Who from history do you admire, and why? A: Too many to list. Many of the people I admire most overcame rough or difficult situations to become inspirational.
Kiai!: Other than Chicago, where have you most enjoyed spending time? A: I was born and raised in Philadelphia and love to go back to visit friends, family and the city in general. I also love to visit my dad in Florida, especially during the cold Chicago winter.
Kiai!: What quotation have you found inspiring or interesting? A: The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.
Kiai!: What foods do you like best? A: I just had dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab and had all of my favorites in one meal. Oysters, shrimp, lobster, crab legs and steak.
Kiai!: What is a book that has been significant to you? A: Jurassic Park. I was never much of a reader. Throughout high school and college I would often read Cliff’s Notes or scan books then write reports. Jurassic Park was the first book I REALLY read for the pure enjoyment of reading. I know it was very late in my formative years but since that book, I read a lot more. I have gone back and read books I actually wrote reports about but never “really read”. I am sorry I never gave reading a chance as many of those books I really enjoyed and have read multiple time including The Great Gatsby and The Wizard of Oz. Because that book showed me how enjoyable reading can be, I consider it significant.
Kiai!: What are your musical favorites? A: Mostly rock; Beatles, Stones, Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, Guns n Roses. In my early years this was all I listened to. When I got to college I started listening to different kinds of music. I realized that quality music transcends genre and I have found great songs in in many different styles, just no Dave Matthews.
“Thousand Waves Member Spotlight: Ten Questions for…” is a regular feature of Kiai! In the next issue, Maria McKiever will answer these same ten questions.
Greeting the Sun at Beach Training 2016
8.19.2016 by Thousand Waves
Beach training is an annual tradition at Thousand Waves and Seido Karate schools the world over. This year, we held our beach training for adults on Sunday, July 9. As always, it opened with a sunrise meditation, and this year’s meditators were greeted with an especially glorious display of dawning light. Our meditation was followed by early morning karate training enhanced by the natural challenges of sand, water and sun.
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