SEATTLE, Wash. -- More than a hundred women punched and kicked off a self-defense workshop called "Fight The Fear," a campaign created in honor of a Seattle woman who lost her life last year.
"Bam! Right to the head," organizer Melinda Johnson showed as she demonstrated techniques with her elbow. Johnson, a martial arts instructor and one of the event organizers, also told participants to yell "No!" or "Stop!" or anything that came to mind.
"Whatever you want to say," she told the crowd. "The point is your bringing out your voice."
Fight the Fear found its roots in the early hours of July 19, 2009, when Teresa Butz and her partner were sexually assaulted and stabbed in their home in Seattle's South Park neighborhood. Butz died of her injuries, but her death inspired Johnson and several other local women to hold 35 free self-defense workshops in the Seattle area in one year.
"This one [murder] was especially difficult for my peers to deal with," said Seattle Police Detective Kim Boguki, who works in South Park and is one of the event organizers. "It was just extremely violent. It was just horrific. It in some ways was probably stuff that some people go to the theater and watch, and... how could it happen in Seattle?"
It was days before police arrested a suspect, Isaiah Kalebu, who is now charged in Butz' death.
"It immediately instilled fear," said Boguki, "Across the board, not just with law enforcement, but community members, [lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender] community members, and actually I think just women in general."
One of those particularly touched, nationally renowned singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, another event founder and Maple Valley resident.
"It really affected me," she said. "I had a hard time leaving my house for a few days, and I just became crazy about keeping my windows closed and windows locked."
Eventually, she said, "I realized that all my reactions were based in fear, and I had to rethink that, and that was a really profound experience for me personally."
And Carlile, who performed at the Sunday evening kickoff event, said she hopes these workshops can help teach people to turn such strong emotions in their favor.
"Kind of refine that fear," she said, "and make it something to be reckoned with."
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