Yuko Uchikawa: Empowerment Self-Defense, Conflict Resolution, and Peacemaking

Yuko Uchikawa

"I came into self-defense through martial arts. In 1992, I took a five-minute self-defense class at a women's festival: how to use your voice, do a power yell and a palm heel strike, where you strike the nose with the palm of your hand. It had never occurred to me that I could protect myself because I'm a woman and I'm small and not that strong. The next day I signed up for a class. In 1993 some Asian women friends and I started RUCKUS." 

Yuko Uchikawa as told to Rinku Sen "Saving Yourself" in ColorLines, Winter 2004.

About the time that the ColorLines article came out, a self-defense student in Japan asked me, “How do I defend myself verbally and work things out?” That began my transition from Empowerment Self-Defense into conflict resolution and peacemaking. I went back to school to become a mediator and trainer in conflict resolution. Similar to self-defense, empowerment is at the heart of mediation and the process is designed to guide people in making their own decisions. It is effective in addressing immediate needs, put out the fire, and resolve disputes, but it does not change the culture. 

Shifting culture requires building community and creating a sense of belonging. But a sense of belonging is not always positive. For example, white supremacy can be “belonging," so it is key to look at what kind of belonging we are creating. I found Restorative Justice (RJ) to be a process that builds community and works toward social and specifically, racial justice. Justice is when the causes of inequities are addressed and systemic barriers are dismantled. RJ in schools looks at the disproportionality of suspension of Black and Brown students to interrupt the school to prison pipeline. RJ provides a way to bring the harmer and harmed together to dialogue. RJ holds the harmer accountable and at the same time, gives a lot of support so that the harmer could make amends and we all heal as a community. My work in the past five years has been to create restorative justice practices in schools, communities, and organizations. 

Yuko Uchikawa

Open Talk

Ruckus Safety Awareness

New York Center for Interpersonal Development (NYCID)

Wow, I Have a Big Voice!

Sheila and Gracie

I was walking my dog one early morning when I observed a man repeatedly striking a mailbox. I immediately got out my phone to call 911. He spotted me and aggressively crossed the street running right at me.  I thought to myself, "OK, this is it. I'm going to have to fight."

It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I thought I was going to have to fight an adult male several times my size. I yelled "Stop, don't come any closer." My loud voice momentarily stopped him and then he started coming toward me again.

Again, I yelled and he stopped again as he came between the parked cars. He spotted my large dog and I continued to yell. He turned and ran away.

I later found out that others had called the police and that he was apprehended a few blocks away. Thank goodness, I didn't have to fight but I was ready. Thank goodness, I had my big voice (and my big dog).

Sheila Hickey

IMPACT Grad

IMPACT Board Member

If and How You Have Thought About or Used IMPACT

IMPACT chapters in the U.S. and around the world are asking you to join our effort to find out if and how graduates have thought about or used IMPACT. For some of you, that might be last week and others 30 years ago!

Can you help by completing a short survey? It should take about 10 minutes (but take more time if you want!). Your voice and experience matter. IMPACT International is looking forward to hearing from you.

Go to the survey.

Seeking a Better World in the #MeToo Era

IMPACT Chicago was one of 276 organizations that signed a letter challenging social institutions large and small to enact policies to promote safety and ensure that those within those institutions are free from harm. The letter was published it in the New York Times October 27, 2018.

You can find the letter and the list of all those organizations that signed it here.

Active Shooter Training – An IMPACT Way

Krista Hanley Wings

I sat in the back of a row of chairs, unsure of what I was about to see. Despite the cushy mats and audience of all ages, I held my breath as a man in a large helmet and overalls held a plastic gun to a woman’s head and demanded she go with him. Anxiety choked my throat and made my heart race. Then she defended herself by knees and kicks, with power and ferocity. When she rose with the gun behind her back and the attacker sprawled at her feet, I knew I needed to learn that.

That graduation was my first experience with Impact, and it came at an important time in my life. As a survivor of the Columbine High School shooting, I lived with palpable anxiety and fear through my late teens and early twenties. It felt like my body was constantly in an adrenaline rush, and I didn’t know how to manage triggering experiences. Watching that instructor defend herself successfully against an attacker with a gun changed my life. It made me feel hope. Hope that I wasn’t helpless and vulnerable. Hope that I could effect what happened to me. Hope that I had power and choice once again in my life.

Why Impact?

Eleven years later, not only have I learned how to defend myself against an armed attacker, but I now teach with Impact Personal Safety of Colorado. As we developed the curriculum for our chapter’s Defense Against the Armed Assailant (Weapons) course, I returned again and again to the idea of teaching active shooter training. In my heart, I knew that the class would not be complete without something about active shooters. But how could we teach it in an Impact way?

It might be understandable that my desire to teach active shooter scenarios is deeply personal and emotionally charged. Impact has taught me that when I feel something needs change, then I shouldn’t be afraid to advocate for that change. I firmly believed that active shooter training had to be a part of our Weapons course. This is the type of training that is taught in many workplaces, on gun ranges, and in martial arts classes. But Impact is very much an appropriate venue to also take on the topic.

Here is why:

·      Impact is trauma informed – We built a safe environment that focused on the individual students and their needs. As an instructor with trauma, I knew I had to consider what would be “too much” and what would create response.

·      Layering Information – We threaded the active shooter information through the entire four weeks of class. On the day of the active shooter training, we started with discussion and then did simple exercises with the students like getting on the ground or running out the door.

·      Apolitical – As I researched types of active shooter trainings, I quickly found that 2^nd Amendment rights and other political issues were wrapped up in the teaching. Impact recognizes the fact that everyone thinks differently about these issues and we do not judge nor advocate.

·      Not victim blaming – Impact recognizes that it is never the victim’s fault, and no matter how they respond, it is the right way.

·      Grounded in research – My team researched active shooter and weapons scenarios in order to be more real to life. We watched videos and read statistics in order to be fully prepared for every question and scenario.

·      Know every situation is different – We know that we cannot prepare students 100% for real life. No two fights are the same. We gave our students lots of tools and knowledge in order to be able to best stay safe.

I believe we all need to have active shooter training even though these types of events are very rare. Think about it like plane crashes, they are also extremely rare. Still, every time we get on a plane, we go through the safety spiel with the flight attendants. Impact is the flight attendant for life. We need these skills to keep ourselves safe. Just in case.

Krista Hanley, Lead Instructor

IMPACT Personal Safety of Colorado

For more by Krista Hanley

"Krista Hanley, A Columbine Graduate: Arc Interrupted. March 2014. A Sandy Hook/Columbine Cooperative.

"Pistol Shooting Basics." 2018. Memoir Magazine. (Trigger warning: Krista says some people have found this essay very intense)

Ways to Calm a Young Brain in Trauma

In "7 Ways to Calm a Young Brain in Trauma," Lori Desautels shares ways that she supports her K-6 students, many of whom have experienced trauma. Some of those ways:

• Taking deep breaths.
• Collective sound and movement (e.g. drumming a rhythm together).
• Self-massage (e.g. a rubbing a drop of lotion into one's hands).
• More movement (e.g. rock along one's spine)
• Chant with fingers on vocal chords.
• A wiggling body scan.
• Dancing with scarves.

For more about what is known about trauma and the brain and Desautels' choices for addressing it, you can read the full article here.

When Violence Hits Close to Home

The American Psychological Association Committee on Women in Psychology is doing a series of posts about violence against women and girls. The first two posts:

Shannon Lynch. 2018. "Hit, Hurt, and Distressed: How Violence and Trauma Put Women at Risk of Incarceration." Psychology Benefits Society.

Administrator. 2018. "Stop the Abuse: Why We Can't Neglect Women with Disabilities When We Talk About Interpersonal Violence." Psychology Benefits Society.