Letter from Our Executive Director

03.01.2024 by Ryan Libel

Dear Thousand Waves Community,

With spring approaching, I’m thinking a lot about growth and renewal. Fresh off of our member meeting in January, when Sensei Lucia and I talked through the major goal areas of our new 2024 – 2026 strategic plan, we’ve hit the ground running in 2024. From capacity building in Self-Defense to prioritizing membership growth and facilities maintenance, it’s shaping up to be a great year.

On the program front, we’ve just wrapped up our first 12-hour Empowerment Self-Defense Course since 2019. While our workshops have been going strong, we’re happy to now have the capacity to run multi-session courses, which allow us to dig much deeper into more content areas and produce better learning outcomes for students. We are also thrilled to once again have paid staff effort devoted to administering our program – Marti Mendoza has been busy helping us get new Self-Defense outreach materials in place and building connections to serve new constituents.

Our karate program is also poised for growth – we had a great January and February, welcoming 24 new members. We’re exploring new avenues of member recruitment, having just completed our first ever advertising campaign on the CTA’s red line, for example. Senpais Mark Hubert and Ana Gore are working on building our web and social media presence. With such minimal staff we are extremely grateful for their volunteer efforts!

Our facility is wonderful, but some elements are aging. Particularly acute is our lack of accommodation in our locker rooms for our growing population of trans and non-binary members and visitors. With inclusivity and access at the heart of Thousand Waves ethos, we need to address our increasingly dated binary facilities. Our administrative areas are overdue for a refresh as well. We’re working on the details and can’t announce anything concrete yet, but hope to in the next few months.

Thanks so much for your ongoing dedication and support.

Osu,

Sensei Ryan
Executive Director/Branch Chief

03.01.2024 by Thousand Waves

Ian Zeitlin is a 4th Kyu Green Belt training member.

Briefly, how did you come to train in Seido Karate at Thousand Waves?
For a while, during the pandemic I wanted to find something that would help me ground myself in my body. I wasn’t sure what, until I thought back to doing karate when I was younger. I’ve always felt practicing karate as a young person helped me understand how my body moved. As COVID numbers dropped after vaccines came, I looked up dojos and Thousand Waves happened to be in a great location for where I lived at the time. It wasn’t even a thought in my mind that I’d be able to find a queer dojo. Honestly, I didn’t realize that Thousand Waves was a particularly inclusive space until the day of my trial class. I couldn’t be happier my instincts pulled me to TW. Here I am now, a month away from being a Thousand Waves member for two years!

What is one thing you’d like to change about the world?
I’d like for us to be able to move past oppressive societal structures. I think it’s important to understand the connection between ideas like race and gender and the domination that the few in the world hold over the many. While these concepts and the system they uphold are huge, we can combat them in our everyday lives by forming networks of community and solidarity that have been broken apart over centuries.

What is one thing you do well?
I’m good at seeing the very big picture. I’m less of a minute details person and more a birds-eye view big structure thinker. This kind of thinking helps me understand the changes over time and allows me to create a narrative of what has unfolded.

What is one thing you do not do so well?
I’m not huge on change. On one hand I love it, but on the other it makes me feel like “ugh do we haaave to???” It’s definitely something I think I’ll struggle with my whole life. I simultaneously want massive change in the world and want my life and routines to just be stable. My taurus moon is really strong.

Who from history do you admire, and why?
Someone from history I particularly admire is Ella Baker. For a long time, I’ve been enamored with learning about the movements of the 1960s and 70s. The more I found, the more I came to understand that she was a driving force behind every moment and movement that I felt most drawn to - the founding of SNCC and the Mississippi Freedom Summer to name a few. She strongly believed in the power of the people over that of prophetic leaders and therefore fostered movements that went on to empower everyday people across the South.

Personally, this lines up with my belief in leadership as an action rather than a role. Practicing leadership is acting in ways to engender a sense of agency amongst others, who can then go on to do the same. It builds on the efforts of previous generations. Ella Baker embodies this notion to me, particularly in her urging the grassroots young organizers of lunch-counter sit-ins to form SNCC, rather than join under the SCLC.

Other than Chicago, where have you most enjoyed spending time?
I’ve been fortunate to be able to travel to different places in the US and the world. Of these, my time in Mexico last year really stands out. I lived in Mexico City for the month of January and it was so great getting to explore a bit of the massive city, especially all of the great food. There is so much nuance and rich history in Mexican food, so it was really exciting to learn more about it and eat lots of it. Some highlights were the many al pastor tacos in Mexico City, a cemita de quesillo in Puebla, and the many tlacoyos I ate, truly all over.

Aside from Mexico, I just really enjoy being able to explore nature. I’d love to be able to camp and hike more (but it’s hard without a car). A lot of the time I have been able to get into the wilderness has been with my sister, Lilly, who I love very much; she’s my best friend. She’s a little weirdo, but that’s why we have so much fun together <3

What are three words you’d use to describe yourself?
Curious, empathetic, and mayyyybe a bit stubborn. (And hungry…4 words) :P

What foods do you like best?
The hardest question in the world! The foods that excite me most are often regional specialties; like it’s just yummier getting to eat a cheesesteak in Philadelphia or pulled pork in South Carolina. I like a hole in the wall spot, a cheap eat, and a hidden gem. If I find some regional fast food, it’s very hard for me to not try it. I’ll deal with a potential hurt tummy later. At the same time, there’s something so exciting about getting to eat things that take time and skill to create, like all kinds of Indian curry or Mexican mole.

If I really have to pick what I could eat endlessly, it’s gotta be tacos and pizza. They’re just the best. And when it comes to pizza it’s pretty hard for me to not get hyper-opinionated, so if you’re looking to argue, that’s the one :)

What are your musical favorites?
I listen to so much music all the time. It’s really all over the place too. In one playlist, I can jump from 2000s Southern Hip-Hop to London Jungle to Jazz. My favorite artist is probably Kali Uchis, a Colombian singer. I’ve followed her since she was making music in her bedroom and I was just a shy high schooler scouring music blogs in the 2010s. I also always love listening to Outkast and rap from all over the US. The last few years I’ve been listening to a ton of Yussef Dayes, an incredible Jazz drummer.

I get excited by people who push boundaries and blur sounds into new ideas or a new way of approaching the music they make.

What talent would you most like to have?
As a kid I always wanted to be able to dunk. I’ve never been good at basketball. In the rec league, I was famous for shooting a foul shot over the backboard and into the lap of a distracted parent. I did this twice. But yea, dunking is just infinitely cool to me.

“Thousand Waves Member Spotlight: Ten Questions for…” is a regular feature of Kiai! We will hear from Senpai Bill Sacco in the next issue.

Why Do You ASK?

03.01.2024 by Senpai Olivia Mulcahy

Adapted Seido Karate (ASK) is a program “to give young people with disabilities the skills, strength, and confidence that comes from dedicated martial practice.”¹ Thousand Waves, in partnership with the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), has offered ASK for nearly two decades. The program runs on good vibes and hard work--it is driven and sustained by the energy of the volunteers who teach and assist, the efforts of our community during the annual Spirit Challenge fundraiser, and of course, the strong spirit of the ASK students themselves. ASK is a wonderful part of our dojo but because ASK classes happen in a different location (Saturdays at the Drucker Center!) you may not have had the chance to know much about what makes it great. So I thought I’d share…

I recently asked some of the ASK karateka and their families to name their favorite things about the program--Why do they ASK? Shreya (advanced white belt) told me she likes meeting new people, working together, and learning new things about self defense. Maura (yellow belt) said she looks forward to the exercise she gets from it and the katas that we do. Tom (father of two ASK students) talked about how he enjoys seeing Jean (advanced blue) and Tom (advanced green) stay so dedicated to their practice and beamed about how Tom’s sparring during his recent color belt test had reminded him of the big match in the Rocky movie.

ASK is actually the reason I came to train at Thousand Waves. Years before my family joined the dojo, I happened to know two families with children who had had a great experience as ASK students so when my oldest first expressed interest in martial arts we brought him to Thousand Waves. Though he was not in the ASK program, we wanted him to train in a community with the appreciation of difference and the commitment to inclusion and empowerment that the ASK program reflects. Eventually he became a senior student and began volunteering with ASK, and eventually his siblings and I started training, and eventually I started volunteering with ASK as well.

So why do I ASK? I’ve been reflecting on why I love volunteering with ASK and there are quite a few reasons. One answer is that it is a way to contribute my energy to the program that inspired me to choose Thousand Waves in the first place. I also just plain enjoy connecting with the students and their families. They are a great bunch and we have a lot of fun (while working hard!) together. But what I’ve realized more and more is that helping the kids and young adults in ASK with their training has been a potent part of my own training as a karateka.

Working alongside the other teachers gives me an extra opportunity to learn from them. When I get to hear Kyoshi Tom explain the underlying meaning as we engage in gassho, or witness Jun Shihan Wai lead the warm ups with his natural exuberance and hilarious prompts for each movement, it helps me to internalize the purpose of our rituals and prevent them from becoming rote routines. Also, the modeling and guiding that we do brings my attention to my own form in a special way that serves to fortify and refine my own practice. (Trying to demonstrate karate in a way that is clear and instructive to others is a true and humbling test of how well you understand it yourself!) But I think the most powerful way that ASK contributes to my own growth as a karateka is through working directly with individual students.

In this work I try to be especially responsive to each person, getting to know who they are and where they are in their practice, and working from there to help them leverage their particular strengths and stretch to meet particular challenges. When I collaborate with individuals on adapting the practice in ways that make sense for them, it prompts us to really dig into the essence of what we are doing--to actively work to understand the energy of a certain technique, or the objective of a specific self defense strategy, or the bunkai of a particular kata. While this exercise is primarily to enhance their training experience, I can’t help but notice that it has been invaluable to mine.

I’ll wrap it up by inviting you to consider: Why might you ASK? If you are interested in knowing more about ASK or volunteering with the program, please reach out to Kyoshi Tom or me or one of the other volunteers at the dojo. (I’m happy to tell you more but be forewarned, I can get pretty chatty!) You can also check out this 2015 video: Thousand Waves Adapted Seido Karate Program--it’s a blast from the past but still captures the spirit of the program well and you might even spot some familiar faces!

Photo album of current students and some of our volunteers.

Upcoming Events and Useful Links

03.01.2024 by Ryan Libel and Thousand Waves Council of Senior Leaders

Full list of 2024 TW Calendar of Events

Link to Council of Senior Leaders meeting notes