Plans & Intentions for 2025

Hello! Happy New Year! I like the fresh start of a new year, and I like to take the time to think about and plan what I’d like to bring into my life in the year ahead. So this post is simply some plans and intentions I have surrounding my martial arts practice in 2025.

My biggest goal this year is to continue to create safe and fun spaces for women and genderqueer folks to train in the martial arts. I would like grow the number of students in my Women’s+ class. I would also like to integrate my students into the larger martial community in the school where I teach. Currently my students are women, and all of the other adult students in the school are men. I’m carefully considering how I will start to mix the groups so that my students feel supported as women in martial arts. I’ve experienced many flavors of sexism as a woman martial artist, and I would like to do what I can to minimize sexist experiences for my students and create practices based on consent.

My #1 strategy for mixing populations is to start attending adult classes at the school myself. I currently have a plan to go to Monday night classes with my friend Shannon. I have good feelings about this– I think jumping into the student population myself will go a long way towards creating a more robust martial arts community at the school.

Besides Women’s+ class, I have a six-week kids workshop coming up in April, and two more Femm Fighting workshops happening in May and October. These classes will require thoughtful planning and prep. I’m hoping to prep well in advance so that the classes don’t sneak up on me (I’m constantly working through the desire to procrastinate.)

And then there’s my own practice and continuing education. I will continue my White Crane Silat practice with my teacher Sister Maggie, whom I train with over Zoom. I’m especially drawn to the snake style movements within that system, and am happy that we are moving into the Year of the Snake. I will also attend regular Mo Duk Pai and CrossFit classes here in Portland. Along with those practices, I’m hoping to travel to train this year. I’m dreaming of a possible field trip to Seven Star in Seattle, and possibly even a pilgrimage to Thousand Waves, the Karate and Self-Defense school in Chicago where I used to train.

For all of these practices, I’m starting to think about how I can incorporate seasonality into my practice. I would like to allow myself internal time to rest and plan in the winter, and external time to expand and celebrate in the summer. I’m planning to make myself a “wheel of the year” calendar to support a more seasonally-minded practice.

Along with all of these I will continue my casual practice with various friends, and will keep reaching out to possible new martial arts friends. I’m excited for some good, stable personal growth in the coming year.

My 2025 Martial Arts To-Do List

• Make and distribute a new Women’s+ class flyer

• Promote Women’s+ class (with help from my students and fellow teachers)

• Create a “wheel of the year” calendar, and use it to add a seasonal aspect to our martial arts practice

• Post on my blog once/month

• Share on Instagram about twice/week

• Update my CPR certification

• Update my PPS background check

• Plan for Femm Fighting Workshops

• Plan a trip to train at another school

• Build a kids class curriculum

• Create a pamphlet of my curriculum

• Create a Martial Artists Workbook pamphlet

• Continue working with a business consultant to add structure to my teaching practice

• Continue connecting with other women & genderqueer martial arts & self-defense teachers in my community

That’s it for now! Thank you for reading!

Femm Fighting Success!

On September 28th my buddy Jaydra Perfetti and I hosted Femm Fighting, a martial arts workshop for women & genderqueer martial artists. Our intention was to create community among those of us who may experience being gender minorities in the martial arts. The event was a lovely success: 15 of us gathered at Southwest Portland Martial Arts to train and play together. Attendees included teachers and practitioners of various martial arts, and even some brave folks who had never tried martial arts before. Some artists came from as far away as Seattle and Oakland to join us. We were so honored they made the trip!

While much of our time together was spent practicing, my favorite part of the day was the group discussion. Jaydra gave us a prompt, and we went around in a circle with our replies. I’d like to start this post by sharing a bit of what was said during our discussion:

First prompt: “What’s one challenge you face as a gender minority in a martial arts training space?”

Answers included: Fear, consent issues, not wanting to be triggered. Trouble feeling safe as a beginner. Managing men’s emotions. Feeling patronized. The feeling of not being taken seriously by men, or having to “prove ourselves” in male-dominated situations. People hitting us in retaliation during drills. Not feeling recognized for our skill level. Having our opportunities taken away or given to men. Getting told what to do by people who are junior to us.

Second prompt: “What would you like to see more of in your school?

Answers included: Acknowledging the emotional side of martial arts. Making things accessible for beginners, but still challenging and fierce. Playfulness. More 1on1 with other fem people. Sliding-scale inclusion. Guest instructors/workshops.Trauma-informed knowledge. Less hierarchy, more adaptation. Taking our social structures out into the world. Group open workout/conditioning opportunities. Meditation in tandem with practice.

Third prompt: “What do you love about your training?”

Answers included: Teaching and seeing students getting better. Crossover skills–when skills from one area of life are relevant to martial arts, and vice versa. Moments of relaxation. When the whole class is laughing and having fun together. Being in my body, feeling alive. Feeling like a badass. Playing games usually for kids in adult class. Watching the moment when someone “gets” something for the first time.

The discussion was eye-opening and healing. Many folks nodded in understanding as others shared how they’ve experienced gender discrimination as martial artists. We also laughed and nodded in understanding when we shared what we love about being martial artists. The discussion helped forge a deeper connection among us.

The rest of the day was dedicated to training together. Here’s the flyer with the schedule of events, and a little bit more about the workshop:

The event started with an air of excitement and warmth. We began with an opening circle where we shared our names, pronouns, and martial arts history. Many of us had never met each other before, but once we got into warm ups, we were laughing, making friends, and having fun.

After warm-ups, Jaydra led our “hitting stuff” class, and did a great job creating a format that we could adjust to our own ability levels.

We then moved on to some open mat training, where folks could spar, push hands, or roll together. This part of the afternoon went by too fast– many of us agreed that next time we’ll need to allow more time for open practice.

After the event, many of us stuck around to go get food cart dinner together. Having this casual time together post-training was delightful. We shared jokes and stories, talked more about our schools and lineage, and made plans for training together more in the future.

We are planning to make Femm Fighting a twice-yearly event in Portland. Our next event is tentatively scheduled for May 17, 2025. If you would like to attend, or if you have any questions, please send us a message at femmfighting@gmail.com.

We hope to train with you in the future!

November 6, 2024

Election results are in, and Trump has been elected president again. I thought I would want to stay in bed and cry all day today, but I don’t. I felt pulled to come to my corner coffee shop. I’m crying a little bit here, but not as much as I did yesterday before we knew the outcome.

Last time Trump was elected president it came as such a shock. In a different coffee shop on that morning, I cried with a bearded stranger. I felt helpless, weak, and scared.

Today, though, I feel a renewed sense of clarity. Our nation is not the place I hoped and dreamed it would be. I see that even more clearly today. For me, this election was about human rights, especially women’s rights. For others it was not. Other people don’t see it that way.

But this coffee shop is bustling and full of people who do see it that way. We’re here, talking to each other occasionally, but mostly sitting in our little bubbles and doing our work. I feel a warmth in our togetherness, an undercurrent of camaraderie. I am grateful that it is not pandemic times anymore, and that we can take comfort in our togetherness. I know the people around me share my values and beliefs– I hear them all around me talking about those values and beliefs.

So what do we do next? How do we move forward with a president we despise? A president who is a criminal, a bigot, and an abuser? Well, we’re Portlanders, and Portlanders will fight, I know that. We’ll keep standing up and shouting for what we believe in. We’ll keep speaking out.

As for me, I wondered how I would move forward, how I would be able to get out of bed this morning, how I would be able to stare down the barrel of four more years of a Trump presidency. The answer that came to me this morning and was very simple: write through it.

I will write through it. Make art. Use my voice. Do good work. Connect with others and deepen my commitment to my community and my country. I’ll keep going. We’ll keep going together.

Hopeful and Terrified

When Trump was elected president in 2016, I had a bit of a mental breakdown.

My daughter was a baby. On election night I thought we were about to witness our country voting in its first woman president. We didn’t. I cried. Instead we voted in a man who admitted to grabbing women by the crotch. I thought there was no way that our country could vote in a sexual abuser. I was wrong. I was terrified for my future and for my daughter’s future. During Trump’s presidency the news was so traumatic that I had to stop listening to it. My body was full of new-mom hormones and feeling things extra-deeply. I couldn’t be filled with panic and still be a good mom to my baby. So I stopped watching and listening to the news entirely. I let current events filter in to me through Weekend Update on SNL or my friends.

It’s election night again, and I’m terrified all over again. I pray to God that Kamala Harris wins, but I’m very afraid she will not. Earlier today I was stuck in a loop of hating myself for not doing more for Kamala’s campaign. The loop was frightening. Thankfully, though, I had scheduled a meeting with my therapist for today. She said that when the unthinkable might happen, or happens, one way that humans try to get control is to think “if only I had done this, then the unthinkable wouldn’t have happened.” It was helpful to hear that angle. That angle, knowing that my mind is just searching for control, is what is keeping me from re-entering that loop of self-criticism.

My therapist also said that whatever happens, it is important that we keep doing the daily work that is meaningful to us. That idea of doing meaningful work is keeping me tethered to the ground right now. I can still teach respect, I can still stand up for what I believe, I can still be a role model for the kids in my life.

I also still have my community. All around me there are people who hold the same values and beliefs that I do. I know that I am not alone.

Kids Martial Arts Classes

This fall I’ll be teaching a six-week martial arts class for kids ages 5-10 at Ready Set Grow, a family-oriented yoga studio in my Portland neighborhood. I love teaching kids–they’re wildly unpredictable and fun to work with. I teach martial arts a little differently than other schools, so I wanted to take a moment to share how I teach and practice martial arts with kids.

Martial arts classes almost always start and end with bowing. Bowing or saluting is a tradition in every martial art I’ve studied, and I love it. When we bow we take a moment to show respect: to our teacher, to the school, to ourselves, to each other. I believe that if we showed this kind of respect to each other more often in our everyday lives, we might find ourselves in a kinder and more civil society. In martial arts class we get to practice living in such a society. The ceremony of bowing creates a container of respect and a little bit of formality–we’re having fun, but we’re also taking our practice seriously.

After we bow in, we take a moment to meditate. We may meditate seated or standing. We focus our minds, turn off our voices, and become one with our surroundings. Meditation helps us learn to regulate our bodies, minds, and feelings. A little bit of meditation practice at the beginning of class gives us a set point to come back to should we need a break.

Next we get moving. Our movement curriculum is a collection of strikes, blocks, kicks, and footwork patterns. We learn these through various games and exercises. While I’m interested in kids having the proper form for their strikes, I’m even more interested in encouraging them to move freely in their bodies. Many of the kids in my classes say they already know how to do the moves anyway–they’ve seen them on Ninjago or in Kung Fu Panda. Rather than deny what they know, I invite them to show me, then I make minor adjustments to improve their form if necessary. I also invite them to make up their own moves and fighting styles. After all, all the moves I teach them were made up by someone else along the way.

We also touch on a little self-defense. Kids tend to express their emotions through their bodies naturally–they haven’t yet learned to regulate their feelings all the way, or to hold them in to be polite. As much as possible, I want kids to keep this connection to their bodies. This ability to listen and express our feelings helps us when it comes to self-defense. When our gut is telling us something is off, it is our job to honor that “off” feeling and set a boundary. In our class I teach the kids how to say “no,” effectively. “No,” “Don’t touch me,” “I don’t want to play right now,” “I don’t want a hug right now.” When kids learn to stand up for themselves and their personal boundaries, they can go through the world feeling safer and more confident.

Once we’ve done our movements and games for the day, once we’re done fighting each other with pool-noodle swords, we take 5-10 minutes to write in our training journals. I started having my kids journal during our last class series, and we all ended up loving it. At the end of class kids have a major dip in energy–the little ones get pretty tired, so journaling gives us a way to decompress. I like to write a little bit about what I learned in that day’s class, but the kids tend to draw pictures of themselves fighting with swords. I like how this helps them solidify their self-image as a fighter, as someone strong. They love telling me about their drawings, and on occasion have even written sweet notes to me in their journals (I feel so loved!)

And so, I’m grateful to be teaching this course to kids once more this fall. The kids keep me on my toes, and they keep my teaching fresh. I’m excited to find out what I’ll learn from this next group of young martial artists.