SafeSkills, Inc.

Our last history-of-the-dojo post is of people who trained at SafeSkills. These photos are a moment in time of some dojo people.

Thank you all for being a part of the SafeSkills dojo. We are truly honored to have been a part of your life. Thank you for trusting us to be your Sensei and for being so open-hearted in your training. Each one of you, is, and will always be, a strong and gentle martial artist.

While we held down the dojo with karate and arnis classes, we also taught self-defense for women workshops at the dojo and anywhere that we were hired to teach. We taught through Duke, UNC, NC State, Elon, Pembroke, Meredith and Peace College. Most r**e crisis centers or domestic violence shelters brought us in for workshops. We traveled throughout NC, VA, and SC to teach. It was not unusual for us to teach several workshops a week, reaching many more women in on-site porgrams.

As we taught more women, we got requests for us to teach special workshops for teen girls, co-ed and LGBT or other hate crimes. This community outreach helped more people create safety in their lives and discover that “Safe is something within you”.

SafeSkills' EmPOWERment Padded Mock Attacker Self-Defense Training was a highly specialized self-defense course which featured a “Padded Mock Attacker” in which women participants could do full power techniques on a male instructor who was specifically trained to wear protective padding. The course was 25 hours long taught over 5 weekends and a participant had to do the basic four hour workshop first along with a pre-registration interview to make sure she was ready for the course. It was intense but powerful! For the nearly 5 years we taught this program, we helped many women. A large number of women who were assault, r**e or in**st survivors found this course to be a powerful healing process.

Sensei Kathy and Sensei Beth wanted the dojo space to be full of creativity. We were so lucky to have many creative people such as Sheila Kerrigan, a professional mime, juggler and one of our black belts. She taught several movement workshops at the dojo. Terry Graedon, one of our black belts, with her husband, Joe, offered a People's Pharmacy talk “New Year, New You” at the dojo. Sensei Beth taught "Back In Balance" classes for Seniors. Sensei Kathy had art classes for kids and art salons for adults to reach out to the art community. The dojo space was rented for Tai Chi , yoga, Chi Gung events and astrology with Stephan Forrest. We also had many, many drum circles and classes raising the dojo roof with the heart beat of our drums.

The teen and adult karate classes continued on at our new location. While these photos are not of everyone who was in the dojo at that time, we are honored to have been a part of so many people's lives.

The children's karate classes continued on at our new location. We were honored to have been a part of many children's lives.

Here is what one karateka has to say recently about growing up with the dojo:

The ten years I spent taking classes there from the age of 8 to 18 had an enormously positive physical, mental, and emotional impact on my life. I learned more than karate - I learned how to give and receive constructive criticism, how to take a deep, centering breath before doing something that made me nervous, and to think about my mistakes as learning points. I learned not to be afraid of the sound of my voice, to stand up in front of a class and lead, to teach other people (even people twice my age!). I am so grateful for Sensei Beth and Sensei Kathy for their energy, thoughtfulness, patience with my occasionally bad teenage attitude, dedication, and love.

The Shannon Plaza location was sold without any prior "For Sale" notice, resulting in the rent being raised more than we could afford. The hunt for a new dojo space was on again and quick! After looking at many locations, we found a new space across town on Hillsborough Road. We taught our last class on a Thursday at Shannon Plaza and moved over a week-end. Whew – that really was a task!

The new space was a dream space! BUT you really had to “dream” it because it was a mess from previously being a place for printing large posters. This amazing space had heating, air-conditioning, a separate lobby area, a small kitchen nook, 2 upstairs dressing rooms, a storage closet under the stairs and a smaller room to teach one on one. Plus it had 2 bathrooms – one with a shower!

Well of course, we start off with renovations in our new dojo on Hillsborough Road. We had very little time to get the new space in shape so we started classes while still doing renovations. Our priority was to get the large room carpet down, so that classes resume. Sensei Beth and Sensei Kathy were there 24/7 while students helped whenever possible. Within the first 3 weeks, we had most things in place and were looking forward to our grand opening...

We were lucky to have summer camps at the Shannon Plaza Dojo. We offered camps such as Art, Art, Movement Arts, Around the World with Martial Arts, Everything Arts and Exploring Asian Arts.These day long camps exercised the camper's bodies while stretching their minds with karate, art, yoga, geography, history, martial arts culture and plenty of games. Each camper got a camp booklet, white belt and participated in an art show, yoga and karate demonstration. Sensei Beth got to play African drums and everyone danced!

1988 “Woman As Leader: A Teacher's Conference” Geneva, NY. Sensei Kathy taught at this conference for martial arts teachers followed by teaching at the ST '88 Camp. What did she teach at ST? Sparring! Two classes: Sparring Level 1 and Sparring Level 2. These were designed for women who were beginning to spar, were scared of sparring or were in a non-sparring martial arts style. You had to bring your pillow to the class to play “Pillow Softies” sparring game.

1990 Sensei Beth taught at ST '90 Camp in New Haven, CT. She taught 3 classes at camp: “Introduction to Physical Self-Defense Strategies”, “Verbal Self-Defense Confrontation Strategies” and “De-Escalation: Defusing Conflictive Encounters”. These 3 classes covered a range of self-protection skills and concepts with the goal of creating more options beyond just the physical skills of self-defense.

1992 Sensei Beth taught at ST '92 Camp in Haverford, PA. She taught 3 classes in Modern Arnis: “Strikes and Disarms”, Flowing Partners” and “Finger Locking Connections”. Professor Remy Presas, our Modern Arnis instructor, would have been proud of her!

2005 Sensei Kathy taught at ST '05 Camp in Shepherdstown, WVA. She taught “Games, Drills and Thrills I, II & III, Creating Martial Arts Games for Children” Dragon Pole, Left-Right Bean Bag, Zombie Tag, Noodle Zap, Crane & Zen and Electrical Charge were some of the games she taught to other instructors to teach in their schools.

Many of the women in our dojo attended Special Training Camps sponsored by National Women's Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF). These camps, started in 1976 and continues to this day. The women who attended those first few camps are some of the pioneers of the feminist women's martial arts and self-defense movement. Each year the four day camp was located in a different state usually on a college campus. A camp participant could sample a variety of martial arts under a variety of highly skilled women martial artists. NWMAF and S.T. camps were an important step for women and girls in martial arts. Women instructors or women who owned their own school served as role models for other women. Self-defesne concepts, skills and research was so willingly shared that eventually, we even had a pre-camp confernce focusing on self-defense instruction.

Adults continued karate and arnis classes in the new Shannon Plaza Dojo. As the young karateka grew, they joined the adult classes. Looking back at photos, it is clear to see how hard everyone worked out, took their training seriously and gave 100%. Besides practicing kicks, punches, blocks, take-downs, stick strikes and disarms, people sweated their way through their own personal challenges. Some people came to the dojo with athletic ability, some came with little or no prior physical experiences, some came with special physical challenges or in search of healing from assault or abuse, but whatever someone walked in the dojo door with, all were welcome in our dojo. I don't know how many times Sensei Kathy said that, specially in the children's class circle, “Everyone is welcome in our dojo”!