IMPACT for Girls

In IMPACT, we often hear adult women say "I wish I had taken IMPACT when I was a girl." While we can't go back in time, girls do have a chance to take IMPACT now.

Girls benefit from taking IMPACT 

Jill says: “I’m more aware now and, although I still feel scared, I feel more in control. Taking IMPACT made me feel safer, in case someone decides to grab me…not just because I learned it (in my head), but because I actually got to practice and experience it”

Sarah says: I feel confident and IMPACT classes are always FUN!!!”

Parents benefit from their daughters taking IMPACT 
Lisa says: “I have always known that I have wanted my girls to learn to defend themselves.  I wasn't sure how I was going to teach them, as none of the self-defense workshops and classes I took as a young adult seemed sufficient enough for me to feel fully empowered and confident. IMPACT changed my life. Knowing my girls are equipped, not only with knowledge but with experience, to defend themselves helps me sleep a little better at night. I know violence against girls and women is an issue that must also be dealt with at a societal level, but it is also deeply personal.”

Lili says: “I couldn’t wait for my daughter to be old enough to take the IMPACT course. I counted the days until she turned 16. Before her 16th birthday, she was already signed up and she was excited to take it.”

IMPACT Programs for Girls
The Core Program is for women and teens 16 years and older. It is IMPACT Chicago's most intensive program, allowing women and girls to gain the most self-defense training in the shortest amount of time (22 hours). Training progresses from verbal boundary-setting to responses to a physical assault, culminating in simulated attack scenarios where women and girls begin in both upright and prone positions. In these simulated attacks, defenders are coached by one instructor while another instructor wears heavily padded armor and portrays the role of an aggressor, allowing women and girls to deliver their strikes and kicks with full force, just as they would need to in an actual attack. By the end of the course, women and girls have used their skills to assess danger, set boundaries, and respond effectively to a variety of verbal and physical attacks.

IMPACT for Girls program is for girls12-15 years old. In this 8-hour program, participants learn how to handle situations that girls are most likely to face and then have an opportunity to practice in simulated scenarios. In IMPACT for Girls, young teens and pre-teens learn crucial skills for dealing with everyday life situations and potentially unsafe situations. 

For more information or to register

A sliding scale and payment plans are available for both these programs. To register or for more information, 312-971-7119,  www.impactchicago.org or info@impactchicago.org

I fought some bullies today and I won

I had an interesting interaction with some GamerGate bullies today. They were trying to bully a game reporter I follow on Twitter and I called them out on it. At first, they turned their scorn and bile on me. But I continued talking to them. I asked them to explain, to justify their hostility. When they attacked me, I told them I wasn't interested in a fight, but I wanted to hear what they had to say, in their own words. I asked them to convince me of their righteousness, making it clear I disagreed from the onset. They talked of many things, but they stopped shouting, they stopped attacking, they stopped harassing. The violence stopped, for a moment out there. I showed them a modicum of compassion, and listened. We had a discussion, we did not agree, but there was civility, and in the end they were complimenting me. I fought some bullies today and I won, I feel very good about that.

Anonymous

She’s blonde, beautiful, and carries a GLOCK

“She’s my ideal woman—blonde, beautiful, and carries a GLOCK.” I almost sprayed my just-sipped iced tea over the table. I was at a meeting with a man who wanted self-defense courses in his community, especially for college women.

I was reminded of that moment when I read the recent New York Times article “A Bid for Guns on Campuses to Deter Rape.”[1] Lawmakers in ten states—Florida, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming –have introduced bills to allow guns on a campus to stop sexual assault. Sponsor of the Nevada bill, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said: “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them.” (Schwartz 2015).

For the moment, let’s set aside the blonde, beautiful, young, and hot remarks and focus on the argument that arming women is the way to stop sexual assault on campus. Jennifer Carlson (2014) says that confusing self-defense with gun defense limits women’s options, implies that “women must choose armed self-protection or no self-protection at all.”[2]

Imagine how different the conversation might be if instead of a focus on guns, it was on empowerment-based self-defense. What if the NY Times headline was: “A Bid for Empowerment-Based Self-Defense on Campuses to Deter Rape.” Imagine if being blonde, beautiful, young, and hot were not criteria for social protection or social vilification. What if the priority in legislation and news coverage was on empowerment-based self-defense programs built upon the idea that regardless of age, gender, disability, race, sexual orientation, and social class people have the right to bodily integrity and the right to make decisions about how their own bodies are treated.

Martha Thompson, IMPACT Instructor, reprinted from MarthaThompsonsBlog.blogspot.com

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[1] Alan Schwartz. 2015. “A Bid for Guns on Campuses to Deter Rape.” The New York Times. February 18. Retrieved February 19, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/in-bid-to-allow-guns-on-campus-weapons-are-linked-to-fighting-sexual-assault.html?ref=todayspaper

[2] Jennifer D. Carlson. 2014. “From Gun Politics to Self-Defense Politics: A Feminist Critique of the Great Gun Debate.” Violence Against Women 20 (3): 369-377.

Packing a Charge of Primal Power

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”
Gustav Mahler-

Mahler's quote reflects my own urging for the preservation of fire, it's utility as a self-defense weapon, and WHY we need to turn this flame up a notch.

Here's the deal: If confronted or frightened you want to keep a cool head, yes. (De-escalate. Lower an aggressor's arousal. Extricate yourself.) But if a female has to go physical to escape a larger, stronger, pumped up creature intent on harm ...she best be packing a charge of primal power and heat, armed with the know-how to explode into a target, with the ability to source this power from her loin and her limbs, from her sex and her soul-- and to bring it in a heartbeat. It's a power that must be kindled from the inside out. A knowing to be kept aglow in the heart, ON at all times.

Here's the other reason to turn this flame up a notch:

When any discipline, practice or "movement" (for example Yoga) crosses over from grassroots to mainstream and becomes commercialized, something inevitably gets lost or diminished in that process. So too, as women’s self-defense has become mainstreamed, has become Big Business -- with franchises and licenses, daylong, weekend and online instructor certifications-- and as it's been exposed to the dampening winds of political correctness, some of its ORIGINAL fire has dimmed, fallen by the wayside in favor of “ten easy steps" or reduced to mere exercise (don't even get me started) or subsumed by the ubiquitous language of personal safety — a term I fiercely resist. Not because it isn't an accurate umbrella (who among us doesn’t want to be safer?), but because it distances from the primal heart and martial bloodline of self-defense, dispatching what belongs in the realm of the senses to a higher headier mount; to a more sanitized mindset of cautionary tips, do’s and don’ts, whereby female FEROCITY-- the very spear of its ire and might - is easily deemed irrelevant, a mere PS in the equation of "what works."

Put another way, self defense "lite" subjugates the need to cultivate FORCE, to nurture our will and authority for applied violence, and to redeem women's own dangerous capacities and animal instincts.

And honestly now, what a lustless term. ("personal safety" that is.)

Bottom line as I've written before:

"As long as men are the principle agents of aggression and women are the casualties of their actions, the victims on the pointy end of male aggression, there will NEVER be a balance of power between the sexes. Women will remain relegated to a subordinate status, too powerless or simply too fearful to resist the dominance and brutalities of others, limited by social contract and constraint in the ways in which we can express our own ferocities, yearnings, and fighting spirit.

The gig is up. Its time: Women can no longer outsource their protection to men-- to fathers, husbands, brothers, boyfriends or saviors in khaki or uniform blue. It's time to bring this power home. To refasten it to our womanly roots, to reap its fruits, harvest its furies and acquire the essential skill and will to SELF-DEFEND. It's time to turn up the flame, burn down apocryphal myths and to lionize ourselves. It's time to make the tipping point happen.

Each and together we must become outposts of courage."

Melissa Soalt

COPYRIGHT - MELISSA SOALT, 2012. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO REPRODUCTION OR COPYING WITH EXPLICIT WRITTEN CONSENT. Melissa gave IMPACT Chicago permission to reprint.

Is self-defense training cost effective?

Yes. Sexual assault is very expensive, in terms of post-assault medical service, legal services, and human suffering. Self-defense training, in contrast, is quite inexpensive. A recent Nairobi-based study found that comprehensive self-defense training cost US $1.75 for every assault prevented, compared with an average of US $86 for post-assault hospital services. Given the higher cost of medical services, it is likely that the savings would be even greater in the United States.

Reference

Sarnquist,Clea et al. 2014. “Rape prevention through empowerment of adolescent girls.” Pediatrics peds. 2013-3414. 


From Women’s Self-Defense Frequently Asked Questions. Jocelyn A. Hollander, Ph.D. University of Oregon, September 15, 2014.

I Took Action Instead of Gawking

While I was waiting at the train platform this morning, I noticed a man further down who was shouting and cursing loudly. At first, I dismissed him. But then, he began spouting racial slurs and directly addressing other people. At that point, everyone was staring, and one man even engaged with him. It could have quickly escalated into violence, since he was verbally threatening people, and getting close to them or the edge of the platform. I pushed the customer assistance button so someone could help or at least be aware of the situation. The point of this story is that Thousand Waves' self-defense teaching (and being a karateka in general) has enabled me to identify potentially unsafe situations and spring into action instead of remaining a gawking bystander.

Jane Kollmer

Donors Make an IMPACT!

Tuition covers about 65% of the costs of the Core Program and IMPACT for Girls. Donors cover the rest. It is not too late to donate. Please send a check to IMPACT Chicago contact Tara to donate through Paypal. Unless otherwise noted below, the donation was to the IMPACT Chicago General Fund.

Thank you to all who supported the IMPACT Chicago 2014 Fund Drive!

Anonymous

Jeanne Adams – in honor of Ainsley Jeanne Anderson, 6 years old and already spunky!

David Altman

Laney Amoroso – in honor of Lisa Amoroso and all the people who help at IMPACT

Lisa Amoroso – in honor of our tireless and hard-working staff!

Susan Atchinson – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund and General Fund

Rob Babcock

Arlene Benzinger

Fidelity Charitable Gift

Glenn and Dolores Bjorkman

Jill Britton – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Kim Clifton – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Ira and Nancy Cohen

Dori Conn

Jenny Coomes

Dianne Costanzo – in memory of Adrian Costanzo

Maureen Dunn

Cheri Erdman – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Laurie Fuller

Eileen Gelblat

Cheryl Goldstein

Grainger Matching Fund

Robyn Stellman Gray

Katie Gumpertz

Vesna Havran-Miller

Margit Henderson

Victoria Herbert

HP Matching Fund

IBM Matching Fund

Valerie Jenkins

Melanie Wilson Kelley – in honor of Katie Kramer

June Kirk – in honor of Martha Thompson

Kasey Klipsch

Mary Komparda – in honor of Dee Costanzo

Katie Kramer – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Susan Landwer – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund and General Fund

Ruth Lipschutz – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Dorothy Meyer

Terry and Jan Mostrom

Mary Mrowicki

Teresa Neurator

Shiyu and Anthony Nitsos – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Clara Orban

Lauren Perez

Rachel Pildis

Lisa Pines

Roger and Loriann Safian – Dianne Costanzo Scholarship Fund

Beth Saks

Laura Sanders

Gail Davis Shubert

Katie Skibbe

Stawicki Charitable Fund

Margaret J. Tomasik Living Trust

Nicole Vanderberg – in honor of Catherine "Grandma" Keller

Iris Waichler

Donna Wilkens