It Should Be Dangerous to Attack a Woman

I grew up in northern California, just a hop, skip and a jump from the Bay Area. I grew up with liberal parents who encouraged me to do anything, because I could and should! The world was my oyster! I never considered myself to be anything but strong and empowered. Then I flew the coop, jumped ship, made a break for it…in other words: COLLEGE. This is when I learned that not everyone is raised to believe women are equal, that we are strong and entitled to everything that men are. I chalked it up to new experiences, but this new world view really seeped into me insidiously. I started to forget that being strong and sure of one’s opinions was acceptable and should be encouraged.


Fast forward 10 years through two master’s degrees from California and Upstate New York to this west coast girl settling into a cautious Midwestern existence in Chicago. I had connections to a few friends, one of whom was dating a guy who helped teach self-defense. I filed self-defense away as something that would be good to learn, but not necessarily needed. Then, I was followed home. It wasn’t a huge deal at the time…but I was frightened.


The next day I signed up for that self-defense class and…I woke up. In one weekend, I was reminded of that sassy and spirited gal who left California so long ago, and I was deeply saddened. If I was subconsciously being pushed down by the seemingly latent messages of female inferiority….what about the women who were experiencing it openly? Why was it still happening? What could I do? Well, I learned that what I can do is fight.


So five years later, I’ve become an instructor. It took two years of training and work, but in light of the statistics it didn’t feel like there was any other option for me. IMPACT Chicago teaches full-force, fully adrenalized self-defense for women and girls. We use padded male instructors so women can learn what it feels like to hit something and that they do have the strength and power to do it. We also provide an opportunity to learn and practice prevention, assessment, and verbal boundary setting because we emphasize that no one should engage in physical altercations if they can avoid it. But knowing your body can back it up if you’re in danger adds so much weight to the message. We teach women they are worth taking care of.


Consider how revolutionary it will be when it becomes a very dangerous thing to attack a woman. Consider how different the world will look, because right now, there are no consequences and the mentality that “she was asking for it” still exists and is tacitly approved by society. Even now. So we start with 15 women at a time and we teach their muscles how to remember what to do when that adrenaline rush hits and their fine motor skills go out the window, and if they feel empowered along the way to change the world a little bit themselves, then we’ve done our job.


Molly Norris, IMPACT Chicago Instructor

I Found My Voice and Stood Up For Myself

Interview with Leslie Eto, IMPACT Chicago Registration and Workshop Director

AC Racette, IMPACT Chicago Assistant Director interviewed Leslie. She says: Catching Leslie
Eto is no easy feat. She works nighttimes in the River North area in futures trading and comes
home mid-morning. Her bedtime is when most of us are starting to wrap up our workday. She
flips her schedule to be with friends, family, and IMPACT on weekends. She had studied Aikido,
seriously, before taking her first IMPACT Core Program in 1990.

AC: What makes you still believe in IMPACT’s methodology?

It really helped me at work. At the time, I had been on the trading floor 12 years. In the
beginning, I once went home crying because it was a very abusive environment. I couldn’t take
it. I’d hide and do my work and leave. But after I did the IMPACT training, it was different. I
remember this broker screaming at me and I was really angry inside. It turned out that one of
his guys had made an error and he was trying to pin the blame on me. Later, I saw him walking
around the pit and he looked at me, saw that I was staring at him and he looked away really
fast. I yelled “Apology accepted!” Everyone looked up. At the end of the trading session he did
apologize. I was amazed. This was after taking IMPACT. I was able to find my voice and really
stand up for myself.

A woman from my Aikido class, who took IMPACT, was later involved in a carjacking and
her first instinct was what you learn in IMPACT... not from years and years of martial arts
training. There’s a real difference. With IMPACT, the use of muscle memory is so good and the
techniques are simple and direct.

On the website, we say any woman can do this, as long as you can walk up a flight of stairs
with a bag of groceries. The techniques are easy to remember; once you do them, they stay with
you. In the workshops I lead, I like seeing people learn one or two techniques, learn how to
yell and learn about proper distance. Students challenge their own ideas of what self-defense
is. We’re talking about real life situations and the things you can do with your own body—no
weapon.

I’ve seen women with chronic conditions, like arthritis, take the class and succeed. They might
be less inclined to go full speed but they learn the techniques and deliver a knockout blow. The
instructors aren’t going to let anyone finish without doing that. A woman in her 60s called, who
had a condition where her joints were loose and she couldn’t lock her knees, ankles, wrists. I
referred her to Martha and Margaret because this was pretty serious. They told her if she was
uncomfortable with anything, she could sit to the side and observe. The instructors would be
cautious and tell her what she could realistically do and not do. She had to back off with the
palm-heel, but everything else she could do, especially the ground techniques.

I’ve had people in my own workshops with deep-seated doubts who were very resistant. They
doubted the techniques but, in the end, they came through and embraced both IMPACT’s
techniques and basic premise that women are fully capable of defending themselves. It’s
the support that they get. Some people just doubt that anyone will care about or value a
woman's understandable fears about sexual assault. In IMPACT classes, the staff creates a safe
environment where students can support one another.

That’s the main thing I loved about my class. Martha and the other  instructors were so supportive; I’ve
never seen anything like it.

If you know someone who needs IMPACT in their lives, if you’ve been meaning to take the class
and haven’t gotten around to it, do it now! Our next Core Program is offered at Belle Plaine
Studio, September 22, 23, 29, & 30. Check out our website at http://www.impactchicago.org/

AC Racette - IMPACT Chicago Assistant Director

AC graduated from the IMPACT Core Program in 1995 and joined the Publicity Committee in January 2012. You have probably already read the blogs she has contributed and seen the flyers she has produced. Her energy, enthusiasm, and productivity have been inspiring!

The position of Assistant Director is a volunteer position, but an important one as we make a transition to new executive leadership. AC's focus during this transition period (June-December 2012) will be on marketing, communications, and publicity. This capitalizes on her achievements with the publicity committee to date and on her professional goals. 

Here’s what AC has to say about what she brings to this new position in IMPACT:

IMPACT is an organization that changed my life at a time when I yearned to live more broadly, to travel, and to find men allies.

Since my Core Program in 1995, I have been involved in nonprofits, first as Volunteers Coordinator at the Old Town School of Folk Music, then as a graphic designer and editor at the Great Books Foundation, and now as a project manager at Northwestern University. Over the years, I have seeded an interest in nonprofits development as a means to broaden our audience, imagining new products using social media and IS technology tostay relevant to a changing society. I have rekindled my inclination for performance and presentation, first explored as a dance student.

In addition to studying ballet, I draw, I sew and knit, I paint watercolors of women in watery or icy environments, I have fixed up 70s-model cars, and I have performed with all-women percussion groups.

Julie Curtis, Director-in-Training, IMPACT Chicago

Julie is honored and excited to be in training as the new Executive Director for IMPACT Chicago.  She is busy learning everything she can from Martha Thompson, the current Director.  They have mutually declared that her title is “Director-in-Training” until December when Martha will redefine her role with IMPACT Chicago.  She and Martha agree: Martha won’t be going away, but will continue on with our organization working for social justice!

In the late 90’s, Julie’s interest in self defense and understanding the issues around making it available to every woman, not just martial artists, led her to move to Washington, DC to complete an IMPACT BASICS class. Since then, she has been involved as a volunteer, class assistant, operations staff, and more recently as a Female Instructor-in-Training with DC IMPACT.  She looks to complete her certification with IMPACT Chicago.

In 2009, she went with Carol Middleton, Director of DC IMPACT, to Nairobi, Kenya to assist her with teaching other self-defense instructors.  The primary purpose was to teach them to teach weapons defense including defense against knives, guns, clubs, and panga (machete), but what she took most from that experience was a literal “Ah-hah!” moment as one of the instructors realized the value and applicability of verbal de-escalation skills. This moved Julie to explore the nuances and translation of verbal strategies for de-escalation and how they can be effective across cultures.

Julie is a second degree black belt in Shorin Ryu Karate and Kobudo and has studied other martial arts systems including Tae Kwon Do and Seido karate. She continues training for her weapons certification and 3^rd degree with Doug Yates Karate in Xenia, Ohio and she recently re-joined Thousand Waves in Chicago for the camaraderie and daily conditioning.  She is a member of the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF) and this summer will be attending her 2nd Self Defense Instructors Conference and Special Training.

She is also the sole proprietor of her own consulting practice, Process and Quality Solutions, helping small businesses define their quality management systems and achieve industry benchmarks. She is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) for agile software development projects and has 20+ years working in information technology.

Julie wants to express her gratitude for the experience and training so many extraordinary members of the self-defense community have shared with her already.  These women and men, and members of their organizations have been invaluable to her growth as a self defense instructor: Carol Middleton, Kevin Hipps, Tim Salisbury, and the team of instructors and assistants she has trained with at DC IMPACT; Doug Yates, Scott Vance, and Tim Wilson of Doug Yates Karate; Lauren Taylor, Defend Yourself; Cathie Reid; Lee Sinclair and the instructors of I’m Worth Defending; Irene van der Zande, Kidpower; Nancy Lanoue, Sarrah Ludden, Marie O’Brien, Kate Webster, and Michelle Curley of Thousand Waves; and the members of the NWMAF.  She’d also like to thank her former housemates, Dana, Bronwyn and Becca for inviting her to teach that first Antioch College’s women’s self defense workshop that ignited her interest in making self defense accessible to everyone and someday, hopefully, unnecessary.

Two Friends Teach IMPACT

Molly and Nat are friends. Nat is a librarian who lives in Northfield, Minnesota. Molly is an acoustics consultant who lives in Chicago. Every so often Nat gets in his car and drives 7 hours to meet up with Molly. In May, Molly and Nat will meet at Dominican University Gym in River Forest. Nat will put on a suit of armor and Molly will put on a whistle and together they will teach women to be their own superheros.

Molly and Nat are instructors with IMPACT Chicago. May 18, 19, and 20 they will teach (along with Rob Babcock and Margaret Vimont) the IMPACT Chicago Core Program. The Core Program is IMPACT Chicago's most intensive program, allowing women to gain the most self-defense training in the shortest amount of time. Over the three-day program, Molly will teach women how to increase their awareness, verbal boundary setting, and physical skills.

Women will practice these skills in simulated real life scenarios where Nat, in his body armor, will take on a range of roles, including the nice guy looking for his lost dog, the co-worker who disrespects his colleague’s boundaries, and the date who decides he wants more than dinner. Molly will be right there with each woman, coaching if she gets stuck and cheering her as she defends herself.

With Nat in the armor, women will set strong verbal boundaries and practice delivering strikes and kicks with full force, just as they would need to in an actual attack. By the end of the course, women will have repeatedly practiced skills to assess danger, set boundaries, and respond effectively to verbal and physical attacks.

Jennifer who is now her own superhero says: “IMPACT allowed me to find strength, both emotionally and physically, to defend myself. I feel empowered not only in my belief that I can safely get out of potentially dangerous situations; I also feel like I have the ability to face up to all challenges I will face in my life—IMPACT helped me to learn to believe in myself.”

Molly Norris has a BA in Physics with a minor in Music from Boston University, an MA from Stanford University in Music, Science, and Technology, and an MS in Building Technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also studied opera in Lucca Italy and now studies and performs vocal jazz. She is an acoustics consultant at Threshold Acoustics.

Nat Wilson has an MA in History along with a Secondary Education Teachers Certificate DePaul University and an MLS from University of Illinois 2009. He works at Carleton College as the Digital Archivist and Library Technology Coordinator. Nat lives in Northfield Minnesota with his wife Martha (Molly’s best friend).

Amelia says: “I cannot say enough good things about what IMPACT has done and meant for me. IMPACT has given me the confidence to react in any situation, whether it's as little as setting a verbal boundary with someone on the train or as major as defending myself in a physically violent situation in the community or, heaven forbid, my own home. IMPACT brings out the inner super woman that you never thought you had, or were afraid to show!

Yes, women leave IMPACT knowing they are their own superheros. We just haven’t figured out yet what to call Molly and Nat—super-super heroes or just heroes?

Women and Girls Have the Right to Be Safe: Clara Orban, IMPACT Chicago Board Chair

Clara Orban, Ph.D., has been a member of IMPACT Chicago’s Board of Directors since 2004, and currently serves as Board Chair. She also chairs the Executive Committee and the Task Force on Executive Director Transition.

Clara initially came to IMPACT Chicago as a student in 1992, spurred by the need to feel safer as she walked through life. Empowered by her IMPACT training, she immediately became a strong supporter of the organization, working to help other women achieve a sense of protection by building their self-defense skills. IMPACT, she says, shows women and girls that “they have the right to be safe; no one can take that away from them.”

In her life outside IMPACT, Clara is a Professor of French and Italian, and she chairs the Modern Language Department at DePaul University. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Clara enjoys knitting and sewing, two skills which she learned from her mother and which bring back fond memories of their years together. “I think every member of my family now has a scarf I’ve done for them,” she says. Also an inveterate traveler, she has visited all seven continents, but has no intention of slowing down: “There’s still much more out there I’d love to see.”

Clara and her husband of twenty-five years share their home with two “great, time-consuming, but loving” dogs. Her husband has been supportive of IMPACT for as long as she has – “A real partnership!” – and together they work toward a future free of violence against women. “It won’t happen in my lifetime,” she says, “[But] the world will be a wonderful place when women no longer need to defend themselves.”

Bio of Clara by Amy Voege, IMPACT grad and board member