Registration for the 2018 NWMAF Camp is now open! Nikki Smith, NWMAF Events Coordinator Go online now (www.nwmaf.org) to register for camp at the early bird rate. The full teacher list will be released soon. We have some of your favorites and some teachers you haven’t met yet. Each session will include self-defense, martial arts and healing arts/internal arts classes. We’ll have Judo & Jujitsu, Karate & Pencak Silat, Capoeira & Kickboxing, Tai chi & Qigong, Eastern & Western First Aid, Empowerment Self-Defense & Bystander Intervention, Sparring, Kata & Grappling, Weapons, Aikido, Games, Serious discussions, Origami and Massage! Plus there are classes for YMA (6-12), Teens, and all gender classes on Super Saturday. There’s also the demo on Saturday night in the Wentz auditorium, the expo and fun social time. Something for everyone, and all located within walking distance of Naperville’s city center so you can explore the area. Register now and then join the NWMAF Facebook group to talk with others about camp! Notes from the NWMAF Chair – Assessing Training Injury Risk Factors Susan “George” Schorn, NWMAF Chair As we head toward this year’s training camp, I thought I’d share this simple list of questions I use to assess the potential for accidents and injuries during training. The more factors you have in play during your training session, the more alert instructors (and students) should be to avoid accident and injury: Slow down the pace of the class, reduce the number of people moving simultaneously (i.e., take turns), or make other adjustments to reduce risk. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and I welcome additions and comments! Space and equipment factors: Are you in a space designed for the purpose, or are you using a space that was designed for some other activity?

NWMAF Spring Update – April 2018

News for Our Members, Friends, and Supporters

“Empowering women and girls to achieve personal and collective

strength, safety and well being through martial arts, healing arts and self-defense education”

Is the space large enough for the number of people and the activity level? Does the space have proper equipment, such as mats? Are participants wearing the correct gear for the activity? If not, how are you adjusting? Is the lighting adequate for everyone to see what is going on (not just in their immediate space, but throughout the room)? Is the temperature excessively cold or hot? Skill factors: What range of skill levels is represented among the students? Are all students similarly skilled, or do you have a mix of beginners and old pros? How much experience do participants have with this TYPE of activity or technique? How much experience do they have with this SPECIFIC activity or technique? How much experience do YOU have with the activity or technique? When was the technique or activity last taught, reviewed, or practiced? Physical factors: Do participants have any injuries or limitations? Does anyone have a significantly different fitness level from the rest of the group (lower OR higher)? Are all participants adequately warmed up? How fatigued are they? Partner/relationship factors: What is the size/weight/gender/age/experience differential between partners? More disparity generally means higher risk. Do the partners have a prior history of working well together? Of problems? How new is each person to the group? Has any participant ever expressed, privately or otherwise, concerns about working with anyone else in the group? Are partners actively communicating about appropriate force and speed levels? Have you explicitly told them they need to do this? Have you demonstrated how to do this? Energy factors: Are there observers, photographers, or guest students present? Is it a formal demonstration? Is it a promotion class? Does anyone have a brand-new belt or stripe? A remarkable woman Beth Capotosto Last summer I met a remarkable woman who has changed the trajectory of countless women’s lives, including my own. Yudit Sidikman is a tireless leader creating social awareness of the benefits of empowerment self-defense (ESD) for over twenty years. Her work has inspired thousands of women to connect with their inner strength, embracing their power by learning the skills to protect themselves and those they love. Yudit’s goal is to scale global access to empowerment self-defense training by making it as accessible as CPR and swimming lessons. To do this she founded two non-profit organizations, ESD Global Inc. in the US, and El Halev in Israel. ESD Global raises awareness of the benefits of ESD, sparks multi-stakeholder collaborations and provides a professional community for instructors. El

Halev provides self-defense and martial arts training to women and girls in Israel, in a safe and empowering environment. El Halev has changed the lives of over 40,000 women and girls. I was one of 30 women invited to participate in the first ESD Global Camp. I experienced Yudit’s

ability to gather and inspire women from across the global, from Belize, Chile, The Netherlands, Israel, Boston, California, and North Dakota, to create new opportunities to teach ESD and grow a network of global mentors. We came because Yudit raised up her voice to call for action and we responded. At camp two Indigenous women from North Dakota met the Director of IMPACT Boston and decided to collaborate to start the first ESD program on their reservation. As the three of us trained together at IMPACT Boston, with the support of ESD Global, we were reminded of how much bigger Yudit is making our lives, and how we translate her spirit through our self-defense teaching to the women in our communities.

Editor’s Note: Yudit Sidikman, at left in the photo, received the Coleen Gragen Award of Inspiration from NWMAF in 2016. Read more about Yudit on our website. Special Training 2018 - A Creative Space Wendy Lathrop, NWMAF Secretary NWMAF’s camp is a creative place as well as an amazing learning place. The classes we attend and the people we meet open our eyes and our hearts so that we view our arts in new ways. New ideas travel home with us, sparking new approaches to practice, training, and teaching. This year, in addition to the always awe-inspiring performance-based skills demonstration on Saturday night, we are hoping to entice more people to share their passions for the healing arts, self defense, and martial arts in a new and creative way. The beautiful lobby of the Wentz Hall theater space is always a busy scene for the Expo and a great place to socialize. And now we offer the opportunity to continue the skills demo with a wide variety of media. While the live-action will be confined to the stage, the lobby will be the place to show videos, posters, anime, or other display-based presentations. Share the “art” in your art! The Demo application form is at the end of this newsletter. Submit all applications – whether performance-based or display-based – to secretary@nwmaf.org by June 23, 2018. Introducing ESD Global Inc. Ellen Krause-Grosman and Yudit Sidikman ESD Global Inc. is a new non-profit organization dedicated to making Empowerment Self-Defense training as accessible as CPR certification and swimming lessons. Our goal is to create a sustainable and scalable multi-stakeholder global movement that will empower girls, women and other vulnerable populations to prevent and reduce violence in their communities by training them to effectively use the only tools we are sure they will have when they encounter violence — their own minds and their

own bodies. In addition, we are interested in creating a global network of ESD practitioners and ESD instructor training teams. ESD Global Inc. is one outcome of last summer’s 1st Empowerment Self-Defense Global Camp which was sponsored by El HaLev and attended by very strong showing of NWMAF members. Camp consisted of a Global Incubator track where the goal was to create a vision of how to sustainably scale ESD training worldwide. In addition, we ran a ESD Bootcamp track for 13 women newer to teaching ESD whose goal was to learn to design and deliver a 10 hour ESD Basics class. Participants came from all over the US, Canada, Belize, Chile, The Netherlands, Israel, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. We also broadcast a global online webinar. Camp was so exciting and many of us are still high on the energy that was generated there! Also, there are so many great success stories from last summer’s participants. One of the great outcomes of camp was camp itself and therefore, we will be running one again this summer. This year, there will be 3 tracks at Camp. In addition to the Level 1 Bootcamp, there is a Level 2 for deepening ESD teaching skills, for experienced self-defense instructors who wish to gain more depth in their knowledge and explore teaching diverse and inclusive populations. The third track is for community stakeholders, including anti-violence activists and funders, who want to experience the Empowerment Self-Defense Model by taking a three-day IMPACT course and / or participating in a two-day Introduction to Empowerment Self-Defense course. Camp takes place August 5-11th and applications are due May 1st. We ask that all NWMAF members consider sharing the ESD Global Camp information with their network and consider applying if it’s a fit. At this point, we are so excited to report that we already have applicants from Africa and India. But the best part of it all is that this project has enabled Empowerment Self-Defense to begin in the Native community of Turtle Mountain in North Dakota. Three Native women whose lives have been positively affected by their participation in an ESD program, IMPACT, in college applied to camp with the hope that they would be able to create a team for social change on their reservation. At camp, they met Meg Stone, the Executive Director of IMPACT Boston, who has become their mentor and collaborator as they start an IMPACT chapter on their Reservation. ESD Global recently provided support for their four-member team to come to Boston to start their training as IMPACT instructors. Another positive outcome from camp is a proposal for an ESD course to be added to the Gender Studies Master’s program at the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. This has resulted in a flurry of camp applications from those areas. In addition, ESD Global is in the process of creating a library of resources for ESD practitioners as well as an assessment tool for self-defense programs to see if they are aligned with the principles of ESD as we have come to understand them. We plan to create a networking platform and develop

memberships with benefits useful to ESD practitioners. Our ultimate goal is to see teaching ESD as a professional tract that every woman who wants to invest the time, energy and passion into learning how to be the best practitioner, will be able to do so, allowing us to reach every woman and child with the tools we know are effective in preventing violence. We welcome everyone to join the ESD Global Movement so together we can make ESD professional and widely accessible. Here are a few actions you can take:

1. Please share the ESD Global camp application with your network and apply to come to camp if this is a fit for you

2. Let us know about organizations that support this work who we can partner with 3. Visit our website esdglboalselfdefense.org and join our mailing list 4. Follow us on social media Facebook, twitter and Instagram 5. Let us know how you would like to contribute to growing the ESD Global Movement and

what ideas you have for scaling Empowerment Self-Defense or for collaborations Together, we are stronger and together, we believe, we will see the needle on the dial of violence against women move. Ignoring other people’s expectations Wendy Lathrop (Seven Mountains Spirit Fist Kung Fu, Yang Tai Chi) Different, but so what? People with big plans and ideas never give up. March was an interesting month for considering and re-considering the limitations externally imposed by certain labels that society places on people. The first trigger to these thoughts was the Paralympics, held in Pyeongchang, South Korea on the heels of the "regular" Olympics. For strength, skill, focus, and power, there was no difference. My first "up close and personal" experience with such differently bodied and differently abled athletes was in Florence, Italy during an international bicycle race. As all the participants zoomed through the ancient streets, I suddenly noticed that several competitors were reclining on low slung wheeled vehicles propelled by their upper bodies. Their legs were either withered or missing. But they zoomed past the cheering crowds at a pace far faster than I have ever been able to pedal mine with the larger muscle mass of legs rather than arms. How could anyone help but shout out admiration for these fantastic athletes? This kind of physical difference is the basis for the Paralympics, during which differently-bodied people compete in a range of physically demanding sports that most humans cannot do half so well. Artificial limbs or lack of limbs does not slow the Paralympians from undertaking the grueling and focused training required to excel, and they do excel. The skiing and snowboarding in this winter's competitions, just two of the six events, were nothing short of breath-taking (the ice hockey was pretty intense, too). These outstanding and determined people obviously did not listen to anyone who told them such activities were beyond their reach. Why should anyone be limited by someone else’s low expectations? On March 14. a world-famous physicist passed away at the age of 76. Aside from his remarkable brainpower, Stephen Hawking drew attention because he had a neurological disease that causes loss of control of the body's muscles and paralysis, confining those afflicted with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) to a wheelchair, robbing them of the

ability to use their vocal cords to speak intelligibly (he eventually used his cheek muscles to operate a computer-generated voice), and usually being fatal within a few years of onset. Aside from breaking all expectations by surviving about 50 years with this terrible disease, Hawking continued to use his powerful thought processes to derive theories of how the cosmos works, ideas that drove his more able-bodied scientific colleagues to experimentation and new concepts. The brain is a powerful muscle! Over this past winter, I read an article by writer and editor Marian Ryan about her love of exploring foreign places on foot to be able to immerse herself in the local culture and absorb it more fully to savor it. Because she has a form of muscular dystrophy that might hold others back from such adventures, she wrote an essay called "The Disabled Flaneur" about her experiences. "Flaneur" is a French word referring to one who strolls, a "passionate wanderer" who takes the time to observe and participate in all that we busier and unrelaxed people tend to miss and don't take time to enjoy. Ms. Ryan describes "the art of flanerie" as blending into a crowd - difficult when dealing with a neuromuscular disease that requires assistance to do many things and robs one of physical gracefulness. But she has persisted and continues her exploration of the world with intense delight. Meet her through a column she wrote for the New York Times last winter: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/well/live/the-disabled-flaneur.html. Each of us has our own challenges, and there is no one who should be telling us what we can and cannot achieve. My own challenge is a hereditary disease of the retina that steals more of my peripheral vision every year. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped doing the things I love. An eye doctor once asked why I had a bruise on my arm, and I said it was from sparring class the night before. His surprised response, complete with raised eyebrows, was that he didn’t think I could do martial arts with compromised vision. My counter was that there was no reason why I couldn’t – it’s all about adapting and learning to use what we have and not dwelling on what we don’t have. Let’s all ignore other people’s low expectations for us, and work hard to be our best possible selves. The NWMAF Youth Column Editor’s note: Lilly Swearingen tested for her Youth Shodan in Seido Karate at Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense, NFP, in Austin, TX on December 9, 2017. This is an excerpt from her Shodan Essay. In the photo, Lilly poses in the dojo with Sensei Joy Williamson. My name is Lilly Swearingen. I'm 13 and I have been training Seido karate for the past eight years. In the code of ethics one of the words we discuss is responsibility. Karate has taught me self discipline by teaching me that in order to succeed in my training I must be reliant on myself to get to class each week. I have used this in my outside life by applying it to my study habits. By setting a place and time to study, my grades have come up considerably, thus the reason I have the honor of being a part of the National Junior Honors Society. Karate has helped me with other challenges in life, especially when I entered middle school. You encounter a lot of people in junior high, some good, some not so good. Last year, seventh grade, I was in the school auditorium for a dress rehearsal of a dance show I was having the next day. I was practicing one of our competition routines when I decided to get some water. I walked out into the foyer and saw two sixth grade girls arguing by the water fountain and just assumed for some reason that it was over friends. Typical middle school drama. Normally I would leave it alone but I really wanted water.

I'm glad I didn't just walk away though, because as I got a little closer I could see one of the girls was fighting back tears. When I was in earshot I could hear the white girl in sort of a whispered yell to the Mexican girl "go back to Mexico!" and "you're in America, speak English" and some other extremely cruel, harsh words I can't repeat here that sixth graders shouldn't even know. Of course this made me really upset, but I knew being loud would make the bully angrier, and I know from experience as a victim you usually feel really embarrassed that this is happening to you. So once I had taken a couple breaths I walked up to the two girls and got the victim away from the bully and to one of her friends to talk. The building that the auditorium was in locked and so were the fine arts rooms because it was after school, so the bully didn't really have anywhere to run away to except back in the auditorium. I got the bully to a teacher who was available and told the dance director. When I went over to make sure the other girl was okay she gave me a huge hug and told me that girls been doing it for a month when no one was around and she was too scared to tell anyone because she was afraid they wouldn't believe her and she asked me if I would tell her parents because I was older and I witnessed the encounter.

Another more internal challenge karate has helped me with is being in algebra. When I was going into sixth grade I was put into seventh grade math. I was a year ahead of everybody, but I'm not a quick learner when it comes to math. I was never taught basic sixth grade math so that made things a bit harder too. Then, the next year I was put in eighth grade math and had a teacher who never explained anything for more than 3 minutes and if you asked him to explain it again or in a different way, he would explain it exactly the same. This year I was put into algebra 1, which is a big deal at my school. I was still not understanding anything so I decided I had to get someone who can work with me and just practice over and over and over. Which is just like when you get a lot of curriculum you need to work on and practice over and over until you get it right and have it engraved in your mind. Now, instead of getting 50's and 60's on my tests I get high 80's and 90's. I have made a lot of personal connections over the years at karate but more and closer ones over the last year. I have had so much fun training and getting to know people who are different from me whether it’s because they have a different physical appearance, were adopted, speak different languages, are older or younger than me, have different sexual orientations/gender identity, have families from different countries etc. I have learned that everyone was and is created equal, but differently. It takes time to build and gain respect for someone but everyone deserves to be treated respectfully when you've first met them. Karate is like a sport in terms of the way you train, trying to be faster, getting kicks higher, trying to be more precise. But in a sport it’s about whoever does the most and the best gets the most points and that person or team wins. In karate it's physical, but not a competition. We also focus on mental health, awareness, and knowing how to get out of a dangerous or uncomfortable situation and making sure you know how to get to safety and know its ok to say "stop" or "no" if they are making you feel that way. Another part of that is making sure you are respectful of others and their boundaries and stopping when they tell you they are uncomfortable, just as much as we do the physical aspects

Kaicho refers to the dojo as a "place of enlightenment" because it has its origins from the Sanskrit word "bodhimandala" meaning "place of enlightenment'' but also because as he puts it in his book, The dojo is a place to foster sense of community and belonging, because this is what gives the martial arts a distinction from the isolated, alienated atmosphere that pervades other places of physical training.

The way I see it, this kind of ties into how karate is and is not like a sport. "Enlighten" means "to give spiritual insight to" or focus on your mind. To foster a sense of community and belonging means, to me, that the dojo is not only a training floor, but also a second home. You must treat it with respect as you would your own house. In karate, when we bow, it's a sign of respect. We bow to a partner as a way of saying "I recognize you as my partner, and that we have a responsibility to help each other and keep each other safe." I have been bowing to people for eight years, and have come to a realization that when I become a Senpai I will have a higher rank, but also a bigger responsibility to my partner. The formal aspects of karate etiquette have helped me see that responsibility. Kaicho founded Seido on three fundamental principles: respect, love and obedience, which are represented by the three circles in the plum blossom of the Seido emblem. They also represent a way of being in everyday life, as well as being essential to the practice of karate. If we respect others, it is ineluctable that we treat them kindly and with an even temper. Love without respect is not really love. Obedience, in basic knowledge means obeying the rules and regulations of the dojo and organization. It also goes with commitment. Committing to train and persevere to develop their mind, body and spirit. These are reflected in my life every day in school, dance, band, home life, karate. By following the rules that we have in dance it makes life for everyone easier because it is a large group of people and can become frustrating to handle from anybody's perspective if it gets as hectic as it has. In band you gain someone's respect from giving them respect. My friends' love is what keeps me able to go to school every day when I felt particularly knocked down the day before. Upcoming training opportunities June 7-10, 2018 - Hakko Densho Ryu West Coast Gasshuku, Placerville, CA http://www.hakkodenshoryu.com/mainpages/gasshuku.html July 19-22,2018 – NWMAF, Special Training Camp and Self-Defense Instructors’ Conference, North Central College, Naperville IL. http://www.nwmaf.org August 5-11, 2018 – ESD Global, New York YMCA Camp, Huguenot, NY, https://www.esdglobalselfdefense.org/ August 17-20, 2018 – PAWMA, Camp Loma Mar, Loma Mar, CA http://www.pawma.org Have news and information to share with the NWMAF community? We welcome your submissions of news, opinion pieces, fiction, or other writing related to our practices of martial arts, healing arts, and self-defense. We also accept art and comics. Our editorial

board reserves the right to edit for space or content considerations. Send contributions for the next issue to secretary@nwmaf.org by April 1, 2018.

Due date Publication date May 13, 2018 Week of May 20, 2018 June 24, 2018 Week of July 1, 2018 August 5, 2018 Week of August 12, 2018 September 16, 2018 Week of September 23, 2018

A Note on Contributions Views expressed in articles and material from members are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of NWMAF. At the end of this issue, we include a flyer about camp that can be printed out and posted on social media to promote camp. Please share this information! It’s an easy way to introduce new women to NWMAF and to share our experiences at camp. If you would like a separate PDF version, please email your request to: secretary@nwmaf.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair George Schorn chair@nwmaf.org Treasurer Karen Brown treasurer@nwmaf.org Secretary Wendy Lathrop secretary@nwmaf.org Events Coordinator Nikki Smith events@nwmaf.org Fundraiser Erin Epperson fundraiser@nwmaf.org Director-At-Large Self Defense Amy Jones selfdefense@nwmaf.org Director-At-Large Membership Carmel Drewes members@nwmaf.org

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NWMAF Special Training 2018 Demo Information Form

NWMAF is calling for all interested participants to submit their demonstration information form for the Saturday night All-Camp Demonstration. Our theme this year is “Unity.” We encourage participants in the demonstration to incorporate their own understanding and interpretation of the theme into their demonstration.

Demo Length: Demonstrations must not exceed 3 minutes in length. Participants: People of all genders are welcome to participate in demonstrations along with their schools. Keeping with the spirit of NWMAF’s work to center on women, girls, and others who have typically been marginalized due to gender, we expect that demonstrations will be planned by, led, and showcase people from those groups. Deadline: June 23, 2018. We realize that there are situations where it is not possible to finalize organization of a demonstration until participants have arrived on campus, but we request that you complete this application to the best of your ability and submit it by the deadline so that we may plan the demonstration appropriately.

Submit To: secretary@nwmaf.org

Demo Format: The skills demonstration has traditionally been performance-based, and continues with this as the major portion of the public presentation. This year the demo is being expanded to include display-based entries. Display based entries may include posters, videos, anime, or other non-live pieces that allow women and girls to represent and share their healing, self-defense, and martial arts passions! Non-performance demonstration entries will be displayed before and after the demo.

Applicant’s Name Applicants E-mail

Applicant’s Phone Number(s) Group/School Name and Names

of other Participants

Display entry – please describe

Title of Demonstration

Demonstration Introduction (2-3 sentences)

Need Mats Using Music –submit digital format (Drop Box will be made available) Other Needs – Describe

How Does your demonstration relate to the theme? No more than 100 words.