ACCOZZAGLIA

back in either grade or middle school, i remember in science class of some sort teaching about there being six simple machines. i don’t remember them all, and even then, i probably got one wrong on the quiz. still, i remember the one valuable thing each depended on: leverage.

i got to learn about using my body as leverage. so, uh, yay for simple machines.

today, at wohali‘s suggestion from the other day when i was doing pretty badly all around, down to the core, i attended my first-ever self-defence class. i think it went really well.

i guess, going into there, one of my biggest concerns and fears about fending for myself was giving myself the ability and permission to effect physical force to protect my body. it’s a mechanism that i think was pretty much beaten and screamed out of me by my lovely ex-mother whilst growing up, and i’ve been struggling to find it ever since.

during much of the last little while, along with a close circle of my friends, i’ve been working — sometimes arduously and painfully, with fits and starts — to reclaim ownership over myself, to outline my safe space parameters, to regain my ability to assert my needs and the means of creating a protective zone around me, ensuring safety all around. or as well as i can, given what i have.

the last year of depression has found me backpedalling on much of the progress that was made post-2001. after these last 12 months, i’ve all but forgotten a lot of the ways i’d learned to effectively communicate my needs, lines of consent and so on. one compromise on my end in august 2002 led to another big, critical one two months later, and it was all downhill from there.

so, now that i’m going back east soon, i’m very ready to get back into the swing of things and not only learning valuable survival skills, but also the ability to apply them with enough frequency so that they become instinctual to me.

ANYWAY, so i went to this basic self-defence 101 class instructed by Home Alive, which came about in 1993 after Mia Zapata, an up and coming lead vocalist for a promising Seattle band (grunge maybe? i dinna) called The Gits, was killed very violently in a random incident by a guy who, if i remember reading the story correctly, had killed before and was still on the loose.

anyhow, while i was nowhere near Seattle in 1993, the impact of her sudden horrendous death bore this outpouring of grief and healing through creative expression by the local music and arts community, while, as our co-instructor, janet, recounted to us, another local movement worked to make self-defence tools available and applicable to anyone who needs it.

cause and effect: i never realised that Zapata’s death is the reason why i was able to take this class. it’s terribly humbling, yet it gives me hope that others will be able to protect themselves in the wake of her loss. i’m glad somebody good didn’t die in vain, dammit.

so, i was one of about nine women and girls there, ranging, i guess, from age 12, all the way to later forties. two couples were related, either as mother-daughter or sister-sister (i think). unsurprisingly, i was the tallest, as usual. can’t help that, really ["gee, thanks, six-foot-three-daddy!"].

still, it went so much better than i’d anticipated. without delving into great details, we went through a few brainstorming sessions, discussing the media-propagated preconceptions of how we’re “supposed” to protect ourselves and all before heading into the stuff that isn’t discussed. then, we got into a scary part for me: learning to use counter-force to get out of any situations where we’re being assaulted or encroached.

so, we paired up. i grouped together with someone whom i later learned is darthhellokitty on LJ [um, this would be a shout-out, too, i think].

our height disparity was evident, but we were able to use that to both of our advantages, learning how to make the most of our height or intertial leverage. i was pretty ginger about participating at first, but as i learned more about both the methods and the techniques involved in watching out for number one, i started to feel more comfortable.

then, in the second half, we discussed in better detail how to handle protecting yourself in social non-violent ways, such as when someone you know at home or at work is not hearing your efforts to communicate your wishes or needs — such as when a potential argument is ensuing or when you’re being talked over and ignored in an aggressive or passive-agressive sense. this part i found really valuable and fascinating, to say the least.

towards the end, we spent the remaining time playing out certain scenarios that may mandate the need to use the tools learned in the class. not surprisingly, i felt a number of triggers being pulled, but under these safe conditions, it was manageable, and if anything, some of the stigma was removed from those bad associations. then again, i may never get over the pulled hair thing, even when shown as a demonstration when guarding over yourself — a product of being the recipient of pulled hair too many times to count as a kid and teenager.

i do feel better prepared now.

i don’t really know what’s to come of me once i’ve moved back eastward, when i’ll be dealing with just as many, if not more, situations where things could get a bit dicey and nervous. i still have really back flashbacks to that ill-fated day on 30th September 1999 on both Hennepin, just south of Fifth, and Lyndale at 24th, when i was nearly attacked not once, but twice, by two different aggressive, testosterone-poisoned and cowardly gaggles of young men.

sure, i was wearing a skirt that day and looking pretty girly, but my god, people. get a fucking life already, and i hope daddy doesn’t pay for your crashed car. bastards. it’s so fun being a visibly queer girl, whee.

anyhow, at the closing of the session, we went around the circle — a circle better-acquainted and more relaxed than at its commencing — and shared again our names, what we learned from this experience and what we are going to do to relax tonight.

unsurprisingly, when it came to me, i said, “um, write a LiveJournal entry [rolling my eyes askance in the process] and watching ‘Alias’ on DVD.”

many of the other participants suggested that a hot bath was in the works for them. i’m thinking that i might follow that lead, now that i’ve stood at six exposed stops during the middle of a wind and rain storm this evening that, unbelivably, contained my second sighting of lightning and roll of thunder i’ve heard all year.

[to my Midwestern buds: if you’re in doubt to the veracity of my claim, see my entry near summer solstice, documenting the one lightning bolt i witnessed in Neverett. it’s thatrare here, which is a heartbreaker for a girl who loves to chase F4 tornadoes and get stuck in blinding white-outs, to say nothing of being in the eye’s path of a category 3 hurricane. geez, i’m insane.]

and, well, here in am, waiting for my ride home from sparkle_vixen at the Everett Transit Station, writing said entry. imagine that.

later, after we disbanded, i had both darthhellokitty and jacynrebekah trade LJ usernames amongst the three of us at jacynrebekah’s suggestion (which means, yeah, something good came of mentioning my no-life life activity since moving out here).

again, it’s too bad that i’m leaving, but a year of waiting for the local economy to recover while enduring a draining relationship for both parties involved is long enough, and too many of my desperately needed resources aren’t here. bleh.

maybe i’ll come back to Seattle one day after things have improved. it’s really not a bad city, once you mitigate the Snohomish County factor. oh, and the lack of real mass transit that one comes to expect in a major city of merit.

bring on the subways, the elevated trains, whatever. this monorail thing is just too damn ridiculous.