Darla Bolon is a clinical social worker and an NWMAF certified self-defense instructor. She has over 15 years of martial arts experience in Tae Kwon Do and Aikido, and has taught women's self-defense and personal safety programs for 25 years. She currently teaches classes at The Ohio State University and for businesses and organizations in the community. In addition, through the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program, she provides personal safety classes around the state of Ohio for caseworkers and other employees of child protective services.
Kore' Grate is a Co-Founder and the Head Instructor/Executive Director of Feminist Eclectic / Five Element Martial Arts School, a non-profit started in 1989 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She became an NWMAF Certified Self-Defense Instructor last year, has served as Chair of the NWMAF Steering Committee, and is currently a member of the NWMAF Anti-Racism Council. She has been training, teaching and offering self-defense, empowerment, and peace sessions for women and girls since 1989. She has been training in the martial arts since her sixteenth birthday. Kore' will turn 55 in March, 2010.
Johanna Hattendorf has over 25 years of experience working in the areas of body, mind and spirit. She has been a fully licensed Massage Therapist utilizing CranioSacral Therapy, Massage, and Reiki for 16 years. Johanna also holds a second degree Black Belt in Kung Fu, has studied Tai Chi for ten years, and is an NWMAF Certified self-defense instructor. In addition, she is a retired Congregational/UCC minister with a Master of Divinity degree and training in pastoral counseling. Johanna has also been associated with IMPACT Boston since 2005, and is now their lead coach and is in charge of training their new female self-defense instructors. Her diverse background and experiences reflect her core values of wholeness and healing of body, mind and spirit.
Brenda Jones has been an active member of The Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) in Brooklyn, New York, since 1981. Through the years at CAE, she has been a student, volunteer, board member, karate instructor (for adults, teens and children), staff member (full-time and part-time), member of various committees and anti-oppression groups, and a self-defense instructor. In addition, Brenda has coordinated CAE’s Survivors Prevention & Healing Program since its inception. This program allows survivors of intimate-partner violence and sexual assault to take free classes, and survivor programs to hold free workshops for clients, staff, and volunteers. Brenda is also the Volunteer Coordinator at St. Vincent’s Hospital Rape Crisis Program in Manhattan. She is an NWMAF certified self-defense instructor and a member of the NWMAF Self-Defense Instructors’ Certification Board.
Diane Long has taught sex-positive self-defense in the U.S. and France for 18 years. In the early 1990’s, she co-founded Women on the Horizon in central Illinois, teaching self-defense and empowerment to women and girls. Injuries and chronic pain led her to explore other healing modalities, including Seifukujutsu massage, Healing Touch™ and chakra bodywork. An ESL teacher for many years, Diane has a special interest in refugee and immigrant populations. Working as a French interpreter and volunteer massage therapist in a torture treatment center in Minnesota motivated her to pursue training in somatic therapies, including Somatic Experiencing® and Trauma First Aide™. She also works with LGBTQ youth in after-school programs, drop-in centers and support groups, offering workshops on topics ranging from Boundaries, Self-Esteem and Body Image to Sexual Negotiation for Survivors. Diane strongly believes that self-defense can help people heal from past experiences of trauma and better manage fear and anxiety related to all forms of oppression. In her business, Kaleidoscope Healing Arts, Diane strives to combine varied perspectives to provide an integrative approach to health and safety.
Katy Mattingly is the author of Self-Defense: Steps to Survival (Human Kinetics, 2007) and was the director of WAMM Self-Defense in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1996-2005. She was trained in the IMPACT system, which emphasizes physical and emotional realism, full-force practice against padded instructors, and individualized instruction designed for and by survivors of violence. As a survivor of sexual assault, Katy knows firsthand the challenges that victims face learning self-defense and deeply honors each student’s path to healing and freedom. Her teaching includes defenses against physical, verbal, and emotional attacks by friends, family, and strangers. She has been teaching for more than 15 years in a variety of venues, including corporations, universities, community centers, and domestic violence shelters. She can be reached at www.YouCanDefendYourself.com.
Crystal Middlestadt began directing the training and education programs at the Colorado Anti-Violence Program (CAVP) in 2007. CAVP works to eliminate violence within and against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. Crystal is honored to have been trained in women's self-defense by Nadia Telsey at the University of Oregon. She is most passionate about making self-defense accessible to women of color and the queer community. Over the last few years, she has been working in collaboration with Avy Skolnik from the New York City Anti-Violence Program to launch "Hanging Out and Hooking Up: Safer Dating, Cruising, and Negotiating Sex," safety skills workshops for LGBTQ youth. Crystal is also an active member of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Sexual Assault Prevention State Team. She and Anne Kuzminsky coordinated NWMAF's 2008 Self-Defense Instructors' Conference, which was attended by a record setting ninety women.
Clara Porter, MSW, is the founder and program director of Prevention. Action. Change. in Portland, Maine, which seeks to counter harassment, assault and abuse through safety strategies, verbal and physical skills, increased confidence and awareness, and promotion of healing and growth. Clara has extensive training in violence prevention programming for children, youth, and adults, and 15 years of teaching experience in the field. Clara trained in self-defense instruction at the Center for Anti-Violence Education in Brooklyn, New York, and is an NWMAF certified self-defense instructor. Clara is also certified in Advanced Trauma First Aide, a short term crisis intervention and healing approach she uses frequently in her classes.
Sonya Richardson, 5th Degree Kajukenbo and Sandan Kenpo Karate, began training in the martial arts in 1990 and has been a practicing physical therapist since 1988. She taught at three national martial arts camps: PAWMA, NWMAF, and AWMAI. She currently works with the Anti-Racism Council for NWMAF. Sonya serves as the Head Instructor of Hand to Hand Kajukenbo Self Defense Center in Oakland, CA, established by the late Professor Coleen Gragen in 1980. She notes that “My passion for training and teaching is fueled by my deep respect and love for our wonderful student body at Hand to Hand and abroad. I believe that as each of us, students and instructors alike, is given space enough to root and reach, we will, no doubt, positively affect an even greater portion of our community, of our world."
Lee Sinclair is a writer and activist who lives with her husband and 3 children in San Francisco. Lee has been involved in AIDS related causes in Africa for 8 years. Inspired by her experiences with AIDS orphans in Kenya, and their stories of rape, incest, and sexual abuse, Lee realized that her own Self-Defense training could be life saving when applied to children and women living in the area. In February of 2007 she founded the first Anti-Rape Self-Defense program in the slums of Nairobi, which has one of the highest rates of rape in the world. To date, the 8 member I'M WORTH DEFENDING (IWD) team has taught over 40,000 women and children to defend themselves against assault. IWD also provides an array of innovative related programs designed to promote a culture of safety and healing in Kenya, including teen boys anti-rape life-skills classes, child-care cooperatives, counseling, referral services, and Rape Survivors Anonymous meetings.
Ellen Snortland has her J.D. from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles and her B.A. in theater and film from University of California, Irvine. Ellen has been a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) delegate to two major United Nations World Conferences where she promotes the idea to Think Globally, Act Locally and there is nothing as local as your own body: protect it. The author of “Beauty Bites Beast: Awakening the Warrior Within Women and Girls,” Ellen is directing a documentary by the same name. (view trailer Beauty Bites Beast) She has also written and performs a solo show entitled, “Now That She’s Gone,” which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Drama. In addition, Ellen is on the board of directors of Impact Personal Safety (501 c 3) of Los Angeles, was certified as a KIDPOWER self-defense instructor, and was featured on Dateline NBC as an advocate for children’s self-defense as a way to prevent violence as the children grow into adulthood. Contact Ellen at: www.snortland.com.
Peg Strain began training in martial arts and self-defense in 1975, received her black belt in 1980, and began teaching self-defense through Indiana University in ’77. In the ‘80’s she began researching and writing teacher-training materials on de-escalation, and is the author of several self-published textbooks for self-defense students and teachers. She has owned 3 dojos and co-founded the Mona Lisa’s Sword (MLS) Self-Defense Training Network in 2001. Peg was certified by NWMAF in 1984 and was an original member of the NWMAF Self-Defense Instructor Certification Board. She has been a trainer for NWMAF and PAWMA training camps periodically since 1988. She currently teaches self-defense, karate, and modern arnis in Michigan and northern Indiana, and is also a certified instructor of Capoeira, T’ai Chi Ch’uan, and Buddhist Spiritual Practice.
Lauren Taylor started working on violence against women in 1978, with the founding of a battered women's shelter and Washington, DC's first take back the night march, and she hasn't stopped since. She has been studying and teaching self-defense since 1985, and now leads Defend Yourself, which has reached thousands of women, teens, and children in the DC area from all walks of life. Lauren specializes in classes for women, for people with disabilities, for LBGTQI people, and for survivors of abuse and assault. Lauren is honored to have trained with Sensei Carol Middleton of the DC Self Defense Karate Association for almost 20 years. She is an NWMAF certified self-defense instructor and has taught self-defense at Special Training (1998, 2002, and 2006) and presented at the Self-Defense Instructors' Conference several times. She also writes extensively on ending gender-based violence. Lauren says she is "grateful every day for this work and for my wonderful students."
Martha Thompson is Director and Senior Instructor of IMPACT Chicago, and a member of the NWMAF Self Defense Instructor Certification Board. She has a fourth-degree black belt in Seido karate and trains at Thousand Waves Martial Arts and Self-Defense Center. She is also Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Women's Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. Her grant writing has focused on funding self-defense offerings at organizations that address violence and inequalities based on gender, race, class, and sexual orientation. Among her articles on self-defense are “The Power of NO” and “Building Bridges Against Violence”.
Heather Turnbull began her formal martial arts training with the Black Belt Institute in Toronto in 1996 and currently holds a fourth degree black belt in Kempo Karate. Since 2002, she has also studied Arnis and Escrima under Guro Laura Holmes of Combat Science/Warrior Arts of Asia and has been a highly successful international competitor. Together with Karen Gray, Heather co-founded Goddess Martial Arts, an organization devoted to assisting women of all ages and abilities to develop confidence, physical fitness and enlightenment through a variety of martial arts experiences. Heather delivers instruction, with a focus on personal safety, through the Black Belt Institute. In addition to her martial arts interests, since 2001 Heather has run her own management consulting practice with an emphasis on facilitation, writing, and executive coaching services. She was recently elected as President of the Association of Career Professionals International, and Vice-Chair of FAME (Family Association for Mental Health Everywhere).
Lynne Marie Wanamaker will celebrate her 21st anniversary studying self-defense and martial arts in a feminist, social-justice, anti-racist and anti-violence context in 2009. From 1988-2000 she was a member of Brooklyn Women’s Martial Arts (Brooklyn, NY), where she was trained as a self-defense instructor by Annie Ellman in 1991. Since 1999 Lynne Marie has studied at Valley Women’s Martial Arts (Easthampton, MA) where she earned her Shodan in Shuri Ryu Karate. Lynne Marie holds a B.A. in Women’s Studies from the City University of New York and certificates in Group Exercise Instruction and Personal Fitness Training from Holyoke Community College, as well as industry certification in Personal Fitness Training, Arthritis Fitness, and Perinatal Fitness. She was certified as a Women’s Self-Defense Instructor by the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation in 2003. Lynne Marie is a writer who often addresses the intersection of parenting and self-defense in her work. She blogs at www.mindbodymama.com.
Kate Webster teaches and trains at Thousand Waves Martial Arts and Self-Defense Center in Chicago. She is their Associate Director of Violence Prevention programs and holds a second degree black belt in Seido Karate. Kate teaches in the junior, youth, teen, adult, and self-defense empowerment programs at Thousand Waves, and was a prior instructor in Chimera's Self-Defense for Women program and a student of Shotokan Karate. Kate recently received her self-defense instructor certification from NWMAF. She holds a PhD in Comparative Education from the University of Chicago and teaches at the University level in Sociology, Economics, Education, and Women's Studies.
Joy Williamson took her first self-defense class in 1994, when she was inspired to begin training in both karate and self-defense with Suzanne Pinette. She received a black belt in Kyokushin Karate in 2000, and her self-defense instructor certification from the NWMAF in 2007. She currently commutes regularly to train in Seido Karate with Nancy Lanoue and Sarah Ludden in Chicago, and is the head instructor of Sun Dragon Martial Arts and Self Defense in Austin, Texas. Joy will be teaching basic blocking and evasion skills at this year’s Self-Defense Instructors’ Conference.
