February 2018 • Kiai

A Report on our Annual Meetings from our Executive Director

2.23.2018 by Ryan Libel

(photo) — Senpai Vada Woods was honored for her many years of employment, upon her retirement from Thousand Waves.

Dear Thousand Waves Community,

As is our custom, back in early January we held annual member and parent meetings to report on the status of our not-for-profit organization. During the meetings, I spoke to the community about our karate membership numbers, which make up the bulk of our earned revenue, and our contributed revenue, both of which were strong in 2017. We also provided updates on all our programs, as well as an update about our 2017-2019 strategic plan.

Read a summary of our discussion.

Fundamentally, we enjoyed strong earned and contributed revenue in 2017. The lion’s share of our earned revenue comes from karate program fees. We currently have about 420 active training members, about 35% of whom are adults and older teens; 65% are children under age 15. Our contributed revenue comes almost exclusively from individuals like you – our donors mainly give through our annual Spirit Challenge fundraiser, by contributing funds on top of their karate tuition monthly, and through our end of year campaign. In 2017, contributions comprised just under 30% of our revenue.

We were extremely happy to be able to distribute about $53,000 in scholarships last year in all our programs. These scholarships served an average of 37 karate students monthly, 12 children in our summer camp, as well as many individuals and organizations in our violence prevention/self-defense programs. It was especially exciting to hear VP/SD program manager Amy Jones report that we delivered over 100 programs in 2017, serving nearly 1,800 individuals! These programs happened all over the city in all sorts of organizations, from Whitney Young Special Education students to Northshore University Health Systems hospital emergency department staff. Finally, our Adapted Seido Karate program for children with disabilities also stayed strong, completing its first year under the staff leadership of Senpai Sam Boyer.

Our strategic plan has two primary goal areas. The first goal area is to tend to the strong foundation that our organization has built over the past 32 years – primarily our Seido Karate program. As we have previously announced, Sei Shihan Nancy and Jun Shihan Sarah will be stepping down from their roles as Head Instructors at the end of 2018, when Sensei Alan Miller will take over the role. At the meetings, we were all heartened to hear Sei Shihan Nancy speak of her confidence in Sensei Alan’s readiness to take on this key role going forward, which I share. Sei Shihan Nancy also talked about her confidence in our deep bench of new and veteran instructors who now teach karate for us. We are confident the future of Seido Karate teaching at Thousand Waves is bright.

The second goal area is to positively impact the community. Our strategic plan envisions a large violence prevention initiative toward which we are making significant progress. We are solidifying partnerships with organizations serving young women or LGBTQ populations in anticipation of serving them with 12 hours of pro-bono programming. Concurrently, we will be undertaking a professional program evaluation process, so we can report out on the impact of the programs in greater detail and ensure replicability and fundability of the Self-Defense/Violence Prevention Program into the future.

The staff and Board of Directors of Thousand Waves were all encouraged by the thoughtful participation of so many parents and members at our annual meetings. We feel fortunate to have a community that’s fully engaged with our mission to foster fitness, healing, empowerment, and peacemaking. If you have any questions about our organization, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at rlibel@thousandwaves.org.

Thank you.

Ryan Libel
Executive Director

TW Supports Karate Club at Local School

2.23.2018 by Katherine Nichols

Greeley School has a new after school activity this year – Karate Club! Senpai Natalie Kendall is a teacher at this local Chicago Public School, and started the club. Teaching karate was a new challenge for Senpai Natalie, but with the guidance of TW’s Sei Shihan Nancy, she taught them the entire Seido Karate white belt curriculum in one semester! To celebrate their achievement, the club members visited Thousand Waves on December 13, and were awarded their orange belts after a special class with Sei Shihan. On January 19, the club reconvened to demonstrate their karate at an assembly for the entire school. I was pleased to represent TW at the demo and shoot some photos.

For more photos, see our Facebook album.

Training Nonviolence for King Day

2.23.2018 by Ryan Libel

As I stood in front of the rest of the attendees and introduced my first partner of the day, a director at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, I tried my best to capture the nuance she had imparted about her past in our brief introductory chat – what, exactly, was that game she described playing with her brothers in childhood? Correctly capturing the four details shared by our partners that we were tasked with speaking about for a one-minute introduction proved challenging. The point of the exercise was to emphasize both the importance and difficulty of getting our heads around the experiences and perspectives of others.

The introductions exercise kicked off a one-day training in Kingian Nonviolence that I and my Thousand Waves Violence Prevention Program colleagues Amy Jones and Erin Epperson attended in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in mid-January. The training was put on by the Addie Wyatt Center for Nonviolence Training and hosted by Lurie Children’s Hospital’s Strengthening Chicago’s Youth project. By the end of the day we had dissected King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail and learned about King’s Six Principles of Nonviolence.

Read on…

We had also experienced the principles in action through vibrant discussions throughout the day – the group dynamic and the structure of our discussions conveniently provided us with a case study in respectful communication. After an inspirational video featuring a successful Bronzeville charter school whose principal spoke negatively about the impact of law enforcement presence in many Chicago Public Schools, for example, one attendee raised his hand and spoke about his experience as a police officer in schools, and of the positive outcomes he witnessed as a result of his involvement. Another woman emotionally countered with her own formative experience as a high school guidance counselor, decades ago, when she watched as one of her students was slammed to the ground at the hands of an overzealous officer.

Another conversation arose about the importance of religious belief – as evidenced by his letter from Birmingham, King himself clearly rooted his ideas about nonviolence in his own deep faith. One woman spoke of her faith as her primary reason to believe in racial justice, and another young man spoke of his lack of traditional faith as a way to extend justice to all, believers and nonbelievers alike. In their interactions, the pair demonstrated for all of us in the room a striking ability to speak respectfully about difficult topics.

During the lunch break, I had a conversation with a Presbyterian minister who was interested in how I, a martial artist, could reconcile our practice with one of nonviolence. I was struck by her perceptive understanding. I discussed my feelings that harnessing that part of humanity that seems bred for fighting and channeling that energy into a beautiful art form that provides fitness outcomes and mental discipline in its practitioners seems, to me, a worthy pursuit. I also confessed to her that, as a near-pacifist, I have wrestled deeply with the apparent contradiction she raised since I began my karate training as a white belt.

I walked away from the training with a profound sense that Kingian Nonviolence is an approach, a living tool that its practitioners must continue to forge for ourselves. The principles are precisely that – they are not prescriptions. I also think it’s safe to say that some faith is built into the framework – principle six is, “The universe is on the side of justice.” Surely we all agree that some days it can be hard to accept that principle as fact. But most days, I can personally manage it as an article of faith.

Senpai Ryan Libel is TW’s Executive Director and a 3rd Degree Black Belt.

January Self-Defense Course Kicks Off 2018 Onsite Self-Defense Schedule

2.23.2018 by Amy Jones

On Sunday, January 21st, 15 people successfully completed a 12-hour self-defense course here at Thousand Waves. As is traditional, their final activity was a vigorous circuit training where they got to revisit the physical skills they had learned during the course, putting them to the test in a high-energy, adrenalized state. The goal is to both finish the course on a high note, and to give the students the chance to demonstrate to themselves that, in an emergency situation, they would be able to successfully defend themselves. Both goals were accomplished handily!

It was the first course of the year, and it kicked off a year of exciting onsite programming. A note about terminology: the trainings we offer here at Thousand Waves that are open to the public are what we call our ‘onsite’ programs, to differentiate them from ‘outreach’ programs that we do at the invitation of schools, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and the like. This year, we have 17 onsite trainings on our calendar: eight 12-hour courses, four Empowerment Self-Defense workshops, four Self-Defense and Bystander Intervention workshops, and one Back-to-School self-defense workshop (the full calendar is listed on the website).

All of our workshops this year are three hours, reflecting our belief that this is the optimum length for a workshop. And we are happy to continue to offer our 12-hour courses in a variety of popular formats, including our intensive weekend, two-weekend, and four-Thursday options. 12 hours is a commitment, but our hope is that by offering more formats, more people can fit the course into their schedules.

I look forward to seeing many of you in the self-defense classroom this year!

Senpai Amy Jones is the TW Violence Prevention & Self-Defense Program Manager, and a 3rd Degree Black Belt.

TW Announces Plum Blossom Society Members

2.23.2018 by Thousand Waves

Thousand Waves recognizes households whose annual giving to our organization totals $1,000 or more with membership in our Plum Blossom Society. Please join us in thanking our 2017 members:

Anonymous
Dan Applebaum & Janet Lefley
Patricia Broughton
Michele Curley
John Cusick
Laura Cuzzillo
Rachel Dahan
Ginger Farley & Bob Shapiro
Edward Flam & Mary Lee Schneider
Martha Fourt & Pat Benjamin
Eric Francque
Aileen Geary
Tim Gerios
Laura and Kurt Goldzung
Martha Ha
Ted & Kathleen Halloran
Arturo Jauregui
Pat Kane & Kim Osgood
Wai Kwong-Kwok & Kathy Strandburg
Nancy Lanoue & Sarah Ludden
Ryan Libel & Michael Moss
Stephen Little
Mark Hubert and Erica Eichleay
Marla Cohen and Dee Busch
Donna Mavros
Mike Mazzeo
Robert Miller
Reese Minshew
Angelique Mizera
Ann Morris & Vada Woods
Kenji & Trisha Muro
Tabitha Olson & Alan Miller
Jean Petersen
Pamela Robert & Frank Fitzgerald
Todd and Ana Scales
Keith & Marnie Schwartz
Patricia Shaw
Cindy & Peter Shearn
Jeffrey Stone and Mario Cruz
Martha Thompson and Jim Lucas
Mary Louise Wei
Betty White Ludden

2.23.2018 by Thousand Waves

Jet Sullivan is an Advanced Yellow Belt training member and also a TW parent.

Briefly, how did you come to train in Seido Karate at Thousand Waves?

My cousin Wendell used to take karate in Wisconsin, and on one visit up there, my two older daughters were lucky enough to observe one of his classes. This started a series of events that led to my daughters starting karate as well. TW had the best reviews online when I started my search, so we decided to give TW a go. After watching classes for 2 months from the “parents section” and realizing that karate wasn’t as intimidating as I pictured it would be I decided that perhaps I should start as well!

What is one thing you’d like to change about the world?

I’d feel like Miss America if I chose to answer with world peace, but honestly that would be the perfect answer. That said, I don’t know if we live in a world where perfection could actually exist so how about we go with, “I would change it so people would be more empathetic.” I feel like that is the root of many issues across the globe.

What is one thing you do well?

Larger scale? Handle emergencies. I think between the way my brain is wired and years of training to react and not shut down/ go into shock in an emergency situation, have made me someone you want to have around in case of...

On a smaller scale? I can organize ANYTHING like nobody's business!

What is one thing you do not do so well?

Step up side kicks!! Ok, no seriously, trying to NOT overthink. I strive to make it more of a positive, rather than a negative trait.

Who from history do you admire, and why?

Since we cannot travel back in time (yet!) and speak to these people ourselves, we can only go off what is written about them, and you know the saying “History is written by the victors.” With that said, it’s hard to truly admire someone I have never met.

If I switch the question to, who from history fascinates you? Then I would answer with Henry VIII. Why? I suppose it would be the complex family dynamics, the creation of the Church of England for personal gain, and of course the king himself was an interesting character in history both in his youth and elder years. I am not saying he was a good person per se, just a fascinating one.

Other than Chicago, where have you most enjoyed spending time?

Cayman Islands. I almost moved down there when I was in my late teens, early 20’s. Spent a good amount of time there in my teens and it will always be one of my favorite places.

What quotation have you found inspiring or interesting?

“Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga.” – David Ogilvy

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” – Leonardo da Vinci

What foods do you like best?

This is hard because I really LOVE food. All sorts of food! I guess if I was choosing one mishmash meal of everything I really love it would be:

Breakfast – Fresh strawberry and dark chocolate filled French crepes with strawberry syrup and whipped cream. Strawberry/orange Mimosa.

Appetizer – Mexican yellow-tail maki rolls, and BBQ eel rolls.

Soup – Spicy Tom Yum soup with chicken.

Entrée – Medium rare done filet of beef with baked baby red potatoes, topped with butter and unhealthy amounts of sour cream. Teppanyaki style lobster tail & Mahi Mahi steak and Nantucket Bay scallops with risotto. Side of Thanksgiving-style stuffing and last but not least...mac/cheese.

Dessert – Dark chocolate drizzled creme brulee, dark chocolate ice cream, and a slice of flour-less chocolate cake. (see a pattern?)

Sheesh! I would be full from my fantasy meal!

What is a book that has been significant to you?

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. There are few books that really drag me into them, really make me feel what the story is about, and really wish I lived as one of the characters. This is one of those books. I can reread this book over and over and never tire of it.

What are your musical favorites?

I enjoy a variety of music (except country and polka, sorry!) but if I had to pick a few genres or styles I enjoy the most? …pop in general, alternative, 1920’s-1940’s big band swing, lo fi hip hop, some electronica, and some r&b are a few that come to mind.

“Thousand Waves Member Spotlight: Ten Questions for…” is a regular feature of Kiai!
In the next issue, Kenji Muro will answer these same ten questions.

Congratulations to our January 2018 Promotees

2.23.2018 by Thousand Waves

Our students have been busy learning their material and testing for their next belt level – it’s been a busy couple of months. Congratulations to all of our dedicated students who achieved a new rank.