In the second women's movement, the emancipation of women began to be thought of from the perspective of the body. A person read as female is only liberated when the violent patterns of the patriarchal power system are physically overcome—when bodies resist and defend themselves. In the 1970s, the first dojos were founded in Berlin: in Asian martial arts such as karate, judo, or aikido, it is the space where training takes place. These were spaces that functioned as counterspaces against the heteronormative sports culture. The WenDo technique, developed in Canada, was trained. WenDo includes techniques for self-defense and self-assertion that were explicitly meant to be passed from women to women. Queer, trans*, and queer-feminist sports spaces were created, which from a historical perspective, and still today, serve as a foundation for the exploration of queer identities or identity formation.

Bärbel Düsing [00:00:00] So. Let's get ready for the basics. We'll start with cattle sun zucki ... etsch. Etsch - hook …. The first thing is, I pull it up ... And the second thing is: When I set it down, my spine goes down and makes power! I still set it down gently, but I have pressure and I really hit hard. Okay?

Stefania [00:00:54] "The feminist dojo is a space that was founded in the 1970s to give women the opportunity to learn feminist martial arts. The term 'dojo' comes from Japanese and means 'the place of the way.' In traditional martial arts, such as Karate, Judo, or Aikido, it refers to the space where training takes place. Similarly, in the 1970s, WenDo was developed in Canada, meaning 'the way of women.' WenDo includes self-defense and self-assertion techniques that were explicitly meant to be taught by women to women. These spaces function as 'counter sites' within heteronormative sports structures. Michel Foucault calls them heterotopias, places that resist, replace, or neutralize everything else in some way. Such counter sites serve as queer-feminist anchors, explicitly founded and established against a heteronormative sports culture. They provided queer, trans, and queer-feminist sports spaces, offering room and opportunities for exploring queer identities or identity formations from a historical perspective and still today."

Julia Dahlhaus [00:02:17] Exactly. We think again about the most important thing in life: the torso! This means everything you have here is firm. That means when I want to go up here, I don't need anything. I don't need my legs, but rather I take the elevator up. I take the elevator down. Okay, so always remember, what do I need? I need the torso. I do it fast, and then I'm up.

Stefania [00:02:48] On January 24, 1976, the association 'Self-Defense for Women' was founded in West Berlin. Some women had already been training together in the spaces of the Lesbian Action Center before that. This very specific place was soon followed by other foundations, such as Schokosport in Berlin, Frauen in Bewegung in Frankfurt, or in Hamburg. Clubs with a wide range of sports offers followed, like the explicitly gay-lesbian club Vorspiel (1986) and eventually Seitenwechsel (1988), both in Berlin. This foundation was closely linked to the discussion of violence against women within the second women's movement and was meant to provide space for empowerment.

Bärbel Düsing [00:03:38] Surikumi soktu into the knee, sideways kick translated ... and then Urakeni to the nose ... So, now we've got it, great…

[00:03:54] My name is Bärbel Düsing. And I am a trainer for self-defense and karate. I give training at the Schokofabrik and at Kia e.V. And I conduct many workshops, self-defense workshops with various groups. Kizami-zuki or Gyakuzuki or Junzuki or Maegeri, Mawashigeri, Ushirogeri - these are kicks, the first ones were hand techniques. Jodan Uke would be an upward block as protection against a blow to the face… It has to do with the training being structured in a way that you go through basic training which should convey how to feel their body optimized with the simplicity of a technique. Hence the rhythm, hence the commands that are given. Commands do not have a military or obedience basis or anything like that; rather, I am the impulse for what they should do. They shouldn't think too much, in quotes, not in the sense of: 'So, now I'll do this sometime,' but the impulse is the opponent who moves, who does something, and I react to it. This way, you learn to react quickly to something when an impulse comes, making you have a quick start when you take off, and that's the point of it, and the rhythm is to train the body, that means I should do it over and over again, keep repeating, so that in the end I don't have to think when I defend myself, but it's in the body, and the body can do it, even when my head switches to flight or fight. You're excited in fight situations, and pure intellectual knowledge doesn't help much then. So people are different, some quickly lose connection in the head, some can still think well, but overall, when a fight comes, it's no longer right for the head to think for a long time, because thinking slows down movements. And that would be of no use in a fight. And that's why it's useful if the body has learned it and can recall it. There are two consciousnesses, one is the brain, in the sense we use it, so I can do things ahead of time, plan, I can accumulate knowledge and recall it, and the second is the body, which also has a consciousness and mechanically stores the movements and then has them available when needed.

[00:06:39] Let's get started.

Veronika [00:06:58] Sport, martial arts, self-defense? It was or still is body training that primarily serves not only to free the female body but also to give you the feeling that you have a body that belongs to you and thus the right to defend your boundaries externally.
We wanted the night back. We wanted to conquer spaces that were previously considered inaccessible to women, the public space, the public space. And thus also be a publicly visible body and have the right to defend ourselves and our bodies.

Nives Bercht [00:07:49] My name is Nives Bercht and I am a freelance WenDo and yoga teacher. That's what I do. For 30 years, I have been teaching WenDo in Berlin. I actually started in the 80s, with others who also experienced assaults on the street - and they existed then too, organizing myself. And at that time, which was in the mid-80s, there were simply a lot of self-organized kickboxing structures. There were martial arts camps that were in the Netherlands, and that's where I learned street fighting, kickboxing, and we always passed on everything we learned immediately. And of course, it was not just about techniques, but also about substantive discussions. What do we want? How do we want to change things? What utopias do we have?
90% of communication is body language. And no matter what you say, people will always believe your body. So if you smile and flirt with someone over the shoulder, even if you may not want to, and say no, they will believe your body. And voices can be trained so that I really say an energetic no and an energetic stop and that my body also expresses it. And then it has a lot of power.

Bärbel Düsing [00:09:25] "So. When I come and want to do this, I don't do it like: I somehow come forward and now hit with my little arms, but I come and I want to do this. I want to do this. That means the thing wobbles properly. I am the thing that hits here!

Birgit Halberstadt [00:10:01] "I am Birgit Halberstadt, I am 65 years old, and have been doing WenDo since 1983. At the beginning, we had three trainers who eventually left Göttingen, and we then taught WenDo as a group, as a collective in the 80s and we did it for free. It was a lot of political work, WenDo is activism, you don't take money for it… Initially, it was for women lesbians. In the 80s, the L-word was hardly mentioned. We were still fighting in the 90s to have the word lesbian included in the program. It is hard to imagine today, but it was a very taboo topic - even homosexuality was very taboo.
Ultimately, many trainers were lesbians, but not exclusively. And at the end of the 80s - beginning of the 90s, there was a sentiment that only lesbians should become WenDo trainers, because heterosexuals also sleep with the enemy. Girls came pretty quickly because obviously, there were already engaged heterosexuals who said, I want this for my daughter too. Pretty quickly, there were also WenDo courses for girls, and of course further training, because you have a different responsibility when working with children since you also have the power dynamic of adult-child. Overall, it has become more differentiated, in the sense that it became clear women can also be perpetrators. There can also be violence among women. Women are just as racist as men and among themselves. There is not the collective of women who are all the same. Not at all. There are incredibly different privileges in this society. For example, whether you have a German passport, what skin color you have, how much money your parents bring, etc. And this has increasingly become a topic. But of course, this was very controversially discussed in the WenDo courses. In my memory, around 2000, the topic slowly emerged when two or three trainers came out as trans, meaning trainers, and then it really took off, because before that racism, exclusion, women with disabilities, these topics, although discussed differently in WenDo contexts, could still somehow be managed. But when a few came out as trans masculinity, it really took off.

Ulrike Klöppel [00:13:10] Yes. My name is Ulrike Klöppel. And I am a Kung Fu trainer at. A group that is based at Trans Inter Queer e.V. Trick e.V. and also at the large association Schandau e.V. - Weg zur Quelle is the name and is the association where I learned this Kung Fu style. At Trick, it is a group intended for trans, inter, queer, and friends, with the expansion now to non-binary as well. Yes, exactly so much is only.

[00:01:20 - 02:05] So primarily, it is simply a Kung Fu training that puts a focus on being welcoming and specifically offering a place, a space for trans, inter, queer, non-binary people. Simply also from the experience that there were no martial arts spaces back then that were so explicitly open and for these groups. I think I was just the first to start explicitly opening it.
Kung Fu as such or at least the style as I understand and teach it is that it is a very soft style or round - that might be the better term for it, and that I understand it in a way that it is not about responding to a hard attack with hardness. That means, I would also say it is actually a very health-conscious training, trying to minimize injuries. And that's why I think it is also suitable for people who are possibly particularly timid about their physicality. And I think such training can really help you feel more comfortable with your physicality, develop better self-confidence. On the basis of a soft and flexible bodywork, such as having various response options ready during attacks, especially evading and going back in. Also, that always, even if I go to the side and evade first, always leaves the decision open: Do I want to take this fight at all, or do I prefer to de-escalate? These are principles that are very important to me. Apart from that, it is also about having fun in training. So we laugh a lot together.

[00:15:46]: Naigiri Ma washi tsuki!
[00:15:49]: Very good, you did great.