Kickathon 2011

I know that some of you have been waiting on pins and needles for this announcement, but the time has come and Kickathon 2011 is just around the corner!  The Kickathon (which most spell check programs refuse to recognize as a proper word), is Sun Dragon's annual fundraiser.  It's like a walkathon, but with kicks.  I promise to do a thousand kicks with 50 or so of my boon companions and all you supporting, loving people out there donate money to Sun Dragon. 

Here's what it looked like last year:

 

First things first--why would a karate school do a fundraiser?  Sun Dragon is a nonprofit corporation, dedicated to teaching the martial arts and self defense skills to anyone who wants to train.  Our fundraiser helps us keep general tuition low and it helps us provide scholarships for anyone who can't afford to train or take one of our self defense seminars.

Next things next--why is any of that important?  What makes Sun Dragon different?  Sun Dragon was formed back in the day when martial arts schools tended to be around 98% men and women were at best barely tolerated and at worst, openly ridiculed and harassed if they tried to train.  That's probably an exaggeration, but the world of martial arts and self defense instruction has always been a male dominated environment.  Sun Dragon was started back in 1989 by an extraordinary woman, Sensei Suzanne Pinette who came up through the Kyokushin ranks in the seventies.  She thought that women deserved the chance to learn martial arts in a space where they would be comfortable and could train without all the crap they got in other schools.  So Sun Dragon started as a women-only school, although they did allow boys to train in the children's program.  Eleven years later, as some of the boys were becoming men and there were a few men who wanted to train at SD, men were welcomed into the dojo and we've been a small, but growing part of the Sun Dragon family ever since.  Sun Dragon is different because we welcome and encourage women to train, our current Sensei is a woman and our leadership and board of directors are mainly women.  And I feel welcomed and respected at the school, so it's definitely not a man-hating environment.

Sun Dragon is also different because of the way we approach self defense training.  All too frequently, the self defense model features a long list of things that women should avoid doing to remain safe, instruction on punching, hitting, scratching, kicking to the groin, and a lot of fear-mongering about men hiding in bushes or lurking in sinister vans at the mall parking deck.  Sun Dragon has a more holistic approach.  We recognize that violence lies along a continuum that runs from harassment and abusive remarks all the way up to rape and murder and so self defense must be flexible enough to address a continnum of behavior rather than just offer a few cookie cutter responses to a few basic scenarios.  We also know that the vast majority of violence against women occurs at the hands of friends, family and acquaintances rather than strangers, which means that in addition to violence coming in many different forms, it can also be something that's so pervasive, so much a part of a person's life they may not even recognize it as being destructive.  Because violence comes in so many different forms, a large part of our training focuses on assertiveness training, de-escalation skills, awareness and drilling home the idea that everyone has the right to defend themselves against abuse of all kinds and we try to give people tools that are adaptable to any situation.  Sure, we teach people how to kick the groin, too, but we'd much prefer a violent situation be averted long before that becomes necessary.

So why do I train at Sun Dragon?  You know, I'm not a woman or anything.  I train there because when I moved to Austin I was suddenly without a martial arts home.  I'd been training for eight years in Tang Soo Do and tried a few different schools, trying to find a good fit.  My girlfriend at the time trained at Sun Dragon and so I hung out with them a good deal and I always felt comfortable around them.  Eventually, I figured out that Sun Dragon felt like home and it was silly to train somewhere else when SD was such a good fit. 

A few years back, Sensei Suzanne left the school to pursue other things, Sensei Joy took over and Sun Dragon has become a part of the World Seido Karate Organization, a really good organization with a fine curriculum derived from Kyokushin karate that I like a lot and I have trouble imagining training anywhere else.  My people are good people!

I'm not asking for any of you to break the bank, just a few bucks to help us keep going for another year.  We only have one full time employee (and one very part time) and we strive to keep our expenses as low as possible.  We also scale our scholarships and other assistance programs so that the people who are receiving assistance are buying-in and making sacrafices of their own.  If you're willing and able, you can make a donation (no size is too small!) at our fundraising website via my fundraising page.  Many thanks to anyone who is able to help out!