Let’s get physical
Sometimes you really need to smack someone!
I opened the email from Los Angeles Professional Women for Good, which said, “Congratulations! IMPACT Personal Safety has been selected to receive our grant!” I’d submitted a proposal to provide scholarships for our 3-hour full-force, adrenaline-based self-defense workshops for people profoundly impacted by the Eaton Fire.
Why would I do that? It may seem counterintuitive to offer self-defense for fire survivors, but bear with me. I suspect many of you are like me right now — I’m furious waiting to happen. I’ve been rude to a child and cashiers, none of whom deserved my ire. I have managed not to hit anyone — so far. Hey, I take my wins where I can get them. I’ll wonder, “What the heck is wrong with me?” then remember that I have PTSD and continue to grieve the loss of our beloved 100-year-old house, our cherished community of Altadena, and most recently, the death of my decades-long best friend, Lisa Gaeta, founder of IMPACT Personal Safety Los Angeles. (IPS) We’ve named the grant the “Lisa Gaeta Scholarship Fund.”
For those of you who are also grieving — whether it’s the loss of dreams, youth, home, community, or loved ones — register for an IMPACT Personal Safety 3-hour workshop. It’s in our workshops where you can safely pummel someone without hurting the “pummel-ee” or yourself, the “pummel-er.”
Doesn’t it sound delicious to haul off on someone without worrying about hurting them? How is that possible? Easy. The full-force, adrenaline-based training we provide has an instructor team consisting of a lead female instructor and a male co-instructor who is fully padded from head to toe. The lead female instructor understands the intense socialization that females (and female-identified folks) face throughout their lives to be polite and nice, no matter what, even when they have every reason to seethe. Enforced niceness can be a deadly attribute when someone is threatening you.
The male instructors are trained to be simultaneously scary and safe. They wear enormous, padded helmets and employ the use of “bad man” personas. Helmet on: bad guy. Helmet off: loving and understanding male ally. And yes, you can hit them safely in the groin without turning them into a soprano.
One of my dear friends enrolled her young daughter in the IPS kids’ class. Her daughter ran outside afterwards, joyously yelling, “Mommy, mommy! I got to kick a bad man in the pee-pee!” That’s a sentence you don’t hear very often!
We also have anecdotal evidence that children who take our classes apply the knowledge they gain in adulthood. We know that adults retain their training for decades after completing their classes. IPS trains our bodies, not our minds, to react to physical threats. It’s very much like the old saying about riding a bike: once you do it, you never forget. You gain balance not from talking about it, but from experiencing it. This is the same principle as our physical self-defense training. I took my first class with IPS in the early 90s, and my muscle memory is still with me.
What we know is that PTSD isn’t something that “goes away.” We also know, through experts like Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, that talk therapy, while helpful, doesn’t go far enough. Effective healing from PTSD involves both physical engagement and talking. In van der Kolk’s foundational book, “The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma,” he argues that for trauma survivors, shame often becomes a dominant emotion. We may feel ashamed of what happened, our reactions, or not being able to ‘just get over it.’ Or, in my case, feeling mortified that I am angry and outraged a good deal of my waking hours and even in my nightmares.
For someone who has advocated for IPS for almost 40 years, you’d think I would have told myself, “You need an IPS training session to work out your trauma.” Ha! That’s part of the insidiousness of trauma: the inability to pinpoint what’s happening to oneself.
Besides the wildfires, many of us are suffering a deep trauma from the administration’s bashing of basic norms: threats to LGBTQ communities, environmental degradation, our healthcare system being run by a nutcase, universities and journalists under attack, our friends and neighbors being swept off the streets; home-grown concentration camps… It’s a fascist takeover playbook. Hyperbole? I wish.
For anyone seeking healing or simply eager to learn, IPS offers regularly scheduled, reasonably priced 3-hour all-gender workshops. You can easily register by clicking here. Our website also features a donation option. And for those of you inspired by the idea of healing through the opportunity to punch someone, consider becoming a board member. We are a 501(c)(3) organization and are looking to welcome new members to our board as we rebuild after Lisa Gaeta’s passing.
As for me being loose and volatile when I’m out in the world, I promise not to smack anyone… although I may have to break my promise if I encounter one more mansplainer with his inflated superiority complex.
Altadenans, let me know if you’re interested in receiving a scholarship by emailing me here. The workshop will most likely be held at Altadena’s favorite fitness space, The Wellrock, our go-to place for workouts, personal training, or classes. Once I gauge interest, I will send out details.
Speaking of The Wellrock, we are so grateful they are back in business, as they are a classic example of what makes Altadena so special. Even if you’re not interested in a scholarship, I urge you to stop by and say hello to Sarah and Jesse, check the place out and sign up for a class or some training.
As for being on the road to wellness, here’s to smacking the bad guys! I’m looking at you, SoCal Edison.
If you’re interested in my online creative writing class, send me an email. Also, many of you have asked if there is a GoFundMe campaign to help us recover from the devastating loss of our home and possessions. The answer is yes! You can donate here.