Carmelle Wolfson, Author at LiisBeth

Decolonizing Our Hearts

Carmelle Wolfson — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 13:58:43 +0000

Decolonize Your Mind Exhibit. Photo: Krui.fm Radio 2016

When you hear the word “decolonization,” what comes to mind? Land acknowledgements, the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, or the Medicine Wheel? Learning Indigenous traditions and the history of colonization? The act of offering the lands that were taken from Indigenous people back to their rightful owners? (See further reading by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang below.)

Diem Marchand-Lafortune, who created an intensive two-day workshop called “Decolonizing the Heart,” describes decolonization as “a process” that guides us to look, with a critical eye, at the history of North America and its power structures, including economies and governments, which “have been formative in developing one’s own and one’s ancestors’ worldview.” It requires “working to dismantle and transform one’s way of seeing and being in the world,” and that means unlearning principles that we may take for granted. For instance, this could include analyzing our business practices and offering up products and services as gifts to people in need rather than expecting money for them.

Marchand-Lafortune, a Cree-Métis and Jewish woman who was adopted and raised by an Acadian/Mi’kmaq father and Scottish mother, says she synthesized and “indigenized” 40 years of knowledge, life experience, philosophy, psychoanalysis and practice in negotiations and law school within the two-days of teachings. The program is not a 101 on Indigenous issues. It includes complex ideas. Marchand-Lafortune warns that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who feel invested in exploring decolonization in more depth should be prepared for “hard work and self-examination.”

One goal of the workshop is “to understand oneself better so that one can interact with other people in a more healthy way,” she says. “I’ve put all these disparate things together that allow people to learn we can’t reconcile with other people till we reconcile with ourselves.”

I began to learn about decolonization when I was doing my Masters of Social Work at the University of Toronto through academic readings, experiential re-enactments of colonization, and cultural competency training. However, I felt my education on Indigenous issues was insufficient, especially following a poorly facilitated class discussion on the findings of “cultural genocide” from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (see further reading below). Students were upset and complained to the administration. Seeing the harm social workers have caused and continue to cause Indigenous people prompted me to take a class on building Jewish-Indigenous relationships at the Lishma Jewish Learning Project.

I heard about the Decolonizing the Heart workshop from a fellow student in my master’s program. Monica Henriques is a social worker of Dutch and Jamaican ancestry who took the workshop and became Marchand-Lafortune’s executive assistant.

The workshop was a lot for me to take in. I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the ideas floating around in my head while simultaneously trying to remember how to put the tools into action. Undoing nearly 35 years of colonial education, changing deep-rooted emotional reactions, and relating to others in new ways may take me more time and practice. However, the experience left me with a great deal to think about.

Decolonizing the Heart Workshop participants–photo by Carmelle Wolfson

About a dozen people attended day one of the workshop at the Toronto United Mennonite Church in Toronto’s east end, including educators, non-profit professionals, writers, social workers, and religious professionals. The workshop integrated seemingly disparate topics throughout, including traditional Indigenous teachings, anti-oppression practices, conflict resolution strategies, and object relations theory approach to human development. It involved lectures, group discussions, experiential activities, visual mapping of individual ancestry, personal reflective writing, role-playing exercises, and video re-enactments. A second day was added to allow more time to cover the expansive material and practice role-play exercises.

On the second day, we simulated a variety of scenarios in which we responded to racist remarks. In one role play that took place at a liquor store, a customer suggests to the cashier that she shouldn’t serve Indigenous people and uses an offensive racial slur. The workshop teaches tools to guide us in identifying what may have happened in our past to trigger our emotional reactions to the situation, and for bystanders to take a few moments before acknowledging the harmful comment so that we can “call in” with compassion for the person causing the harm, trying to empathize and understand that person’s motivation, rather than “call out” the harmful comment through shaming and blaming. As the type of person who tends to freeze up in conflict situations, I have a hard time finding the right words to speak up. In one role play, the bystander asks, “What did you mean by that?” The customer says that Indigenous people are prone to alcoholism and wants to protect them. The bystander then provides information found on their phone’s web browser on alcohol rates among Indigenous populations in Canada. When the discussion wraps up, the Indigenous customers jokingly suggest the customer making the racist comment might pick up the tab at a nearby cafe–in exchange for conversation and a reading list to deepen the learning.

The workshop led me to reflect on standard practices in health and mental health care that I learned during my master’s. For instance, the Medicine Wheel includes four sections that represent the intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and physical realms of each person. Well-being is feeling balanced in these four areas. Within health care and mental health institutions, the spiritual component of healing is usually missing. Though it may sound simple, finding that sweet spot where mind, body, heart, and soul are aligned is anything but simple. In this way, traditional Indigenous teachings hold the knowledge that Western society is lacking.

The workshop also reminded me of how important relationships are to our continued survival. This includes our relationship to other people, the natural environment, and ourselves. Indigenous societies lived on the land, co-existing with plants, animals, and their natural environments long before Europeans colonized and settled North America. Living in Toronto, I rarely have the chance to connect with nature, and I do not need to think about how the food I buy in the store is cultivated. I was also raised to compete with others for limited resources and taught to be independent and self-sufficient, ideals upheld by capitalism. However, Marchand-Lafortune explains the importance of collaboration with others and building strong ongoing relationships with the people around us.

This is the fundamental question that arose for me after attending this two-day workshop: Do you want to participate in colonization and colonial practices or do you want true change? When decolonizing the heart, you may never feel like you’re getting it right, but if you are not grappling with difficult questions, then you’re probably getting it wrong.

Marchand-Lafortune offers this analogy: “It’s really hard to be a feminist if you start acting like entrepreneurs that are in the capitalist paradigm—competition, aggression, all that stuff.” Put yet another way: though people may crave sugar, we don’t need it so why not consider what is driving that craving for sugar? She suggests focusing on meeting needs rather than creating businesses that are feeding “false needs.”

The Heart in Practice

The workshop provoked months of contemplation on decolonizing the heart. What does this look like in practice? For me, that process looked something like this while writing this article:

1. Acknowledging my power and privilege as the writer crafting this story and asking critical questions. Why am I, as a white settler journalist, believed to be an expert on decolonization after attending one workshop? Whose voices are heard and whose are not? Who is given credit for this knowledge, who is benefiting from it and in what ways (financial gain, prestige)? Why are Indigenous writers reporting on Indigenous issues rarely published?

2. Engaging in ongoing conversations with the editor, publisher, and workshop facilitators while trying to understand the motivations and needs of each one. Prioritizing relationships, by allowing time for these conversations, rather than being rigid and guided by speed and productivity.

3. Identifying my emotions when they arise (anxiety, anger, frustration, sadness) and asking which unmet need each feeling is connected to. Taking the time I need to do something to dampen these emotions before re-engaging in discussions.

4. Showing up to retake the workshop a second time even though I felt exhausted and overwhelmed by the start and end of the day. Offering to help make coffee after arriving and staying after it ended to clean up.

5. Asking for advice from friends and doing additional reading on the topic. Then giving credit to those involved in my creative process at the end of this article.

6. Connecting with the spiritual traditions of my ancestors in a way that is meaningful to me.

7. Rewriting this entire article while incorporating what I learned in steps one through five.

With files from Diem Marchand-Lafortune, Monica Henriques, freygl gertsovski, and Emily Green.

Savoy “Kapow” Howe Outside The Ring: Part Two

Carmelle Wolfson — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:31:43 +0000

Savoy Howe in the ring.

Savoy “Kapow” Howe is the owner of Canada’s first woman-owned boxing club for women and transgender people. Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club is a sole proprietorship with 12 volunteer coaches and 250 members. In 2007, Howe worked with Brock University professor Cathy Van Ingen to develop the Shape Your Life program, offering free boxing to hundreds of survivors of violence at her gym. In Part Two of this two-part interview, Carmelle Wolfson spoke to Howe about Shape Your Life, coaching people with disabilities in her gym, and making the space more trans-inclusive. You can read Part One here.

CW: How did the Shape Your Life program for survivors of violence get started?

SH: That started when one of my students who happened to be a professor at Brock took one of my boxing camps. After the camp she said, “Savoy, what you’re doing is incredible. Would you consider doing this for survivors of violence?” I mean, I was already doing it for survivors of violence, but she wanted to have a program specifically for that. So we got our first two-year grant from the Attorney General’s Victim Services Unit and that helped us set up the program in 2007.

Shape Your Life isn’t offered here anymore. It ended in April. They decided to take a new turn and moved to the west end to the Bloor Street Boxing & Fitness Club. I always say crisis equals opportunity or when one door closes another opens. So we’ve decided to do something like Shape Your Life, but upgrade it a bit.

The program we are starting is called Outside the Ring. Our goal with that is to give two four-month memberships each month to four different communities: Indigenous, new Canadians, LGBTQ2S, and people with mobility issues. It’s all based on donations. The four-month membership will allow them to come as much as they want, and then who knows? If our fundraising goes well, if they want to keep going, maybe we’ll be able to give them another four-month membership. It’s hard when you give somebody a membership with a run-out date and they really want to keep going but the funds aren’t there. How can you kick somebody out just because of money, especially if it’s having an effect on their lives? So we do a lot for free. Even with Shape Your Life, we gave away over $10,000 worth of boxing to graduates.

CW: Have you had many people with mobility issues doing boxing?

SH: For a boxing club, yeah. We’ve done a workshop for 10 people with mobility issues. Then some of those became regular members. In the past few years we’ve had about five people who happen to use wheelchairs. We’ve had a visually impaired woman box with us. That was so much fun to figure out how to do because I love inventing. When you work with people in wheelchairs, you have to invent things. How can they do abs? Okay, you put rubber bands with a strap behind them and they pull away.

CW: How did you develop that training for people in wheelchairs?

SH: I came up with a lot of it. I worked for 16 years as an attendant to a woman who was a quadriplegic. She was an advocate for people with disabilities, so we travelled all over Canada and the States. She would present at conferences and I would be her attendant. She said, “Savoy, if you ever open a boxing gym, it has to be wheelchair accessible.” So that’s why we made sure speed bag racks are height adjustable, double-end balls are height adjustable. There are a couple heavy bags at the height where somebody in a wheelchair can get under them and get close enough to punch. I’ve just been working with people with disabilities for a long time. When I understand their limitations, we just figure ways to strengthen what they can use. Like I said, I love inventing. So give me a situation and I’ll figure it out.

The gal who is visually impaired, with shadow boxing she would take up lots of space, lots of footwork. The worst thing that was going to happen in the ring was she was going to touch a rope. She loved it because in life she’s always so careful with her stick. In there, she could just fly around and touch rope. When she was done she’d say “Savoy” and I’d come get her. She’d take me by the elbow and I’d give her stick to her. Often, people would be looking at her going, “Is she blind?” They had no idea she was blind because she loves to move. And she’s good. Just another thing that we invent that works and it’s good for her.

CW: How do you think a boxing club run by a woman is different than one run by a man?

SH: My priority with Newsgirls is to create a safe space. Safe? What do you mean? It’s boxing! But I mean a safe space so that people who might not normally come into a boxing gym will come here. Usually when people come here, they’re pretty nervous. But within the first hour they get a sense that this is different. Nobody is judging me. Nobody is doing anything that is scary to me. We just make sure it’s a really safe environment so that everybody can come in, including the trans community.

I spent 14 years in men’s gyms. You walk in there and you’re walking into a mist of male aggression. I think that’s really important for men because you’ve got to be willing to deal with your fears in a male-aggression way. If a guy walks into a male gym and he can’t handle the male aggression, he should be willing to get used to it, adapt to it. A lot of women walk into that environment and are like, “Nope, not for me.” Some of them might stay and have to slap knuckles and tell the men, “Don’t touch me.” Then they might leave. Some women will stay. They’ll fall so in love with the heavy bag that they’ll be like, “No, I’m going to be here whatever it takes.” It’s just a totally different environment. Male aggression is so different than female aggression. Well, I always call it female, healthy aggression.

You wouldn’t see that male aggression in here. When my fighters are getting ready for a fight, I will take them to other gyms so that they can see what that is like. It just keeps them a little bit safer in the ring because a lot of the women that are going to be competing against my gals are coming from male-dominated clubs.

As far as running the business, I have no idea. I have no idea how the owner kept the gym alive. He was charging people $40/month, month-to-month. You can’t survive that way because half the time people don’t pay you. You need a wee bit more of a commitment from people. But that’s boxing. A lot of gyms charged their members $40/month in the old days up until 10 years ago.

CW: Do you have any rules of conduct to make it a safer space?

SH: We have a trans inclusion policy, which you can find on our website. I am looking forward to looking at the code of conduct from a friend at a martial arts studio to see if that’s something I should have in place. But we haven’t got many problems. People get the vibe when they’re here that they’re not to disrespect anybody.

CW: What have you done towards trans inclusion and how has that approach evolved?

SH: When a few of my boxers transitioned, I wanted to still be able to provide a place for them to box. When we moved over here, that was when I was like, “Okay, let’s have one night where it’s co-ed.” Then the women would go home and tell their husbands, “Oh my God, it’s so much fun.” And the husbands were like, “Hey, we want in.” By that time, some of our trans athletes were saying, “If I ever wanted to train for a fight, how? I can’t. Once a week isn’t enough.” So then we opened it twice a week, and eventually three times a week.

Before we moved here, one of my athletes came to me and said, “Savoy, I’d like to compete.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “But I have something to tell you. I was born a man.” I was like, “Oh okay, I don’t know how this works. Let me call Boxing Ontario.” And they said they follow International Olympic Committee rules, and if these things have happened around IDs, hormones, and surgery, you’re good to go. So she fought the first bout for a trans woman athlete in boxing in Canada, as far as we know.

That’s when we started doing more outreach. Some of my boxers transitioned. We came here. We put a trans policy in place, and we started doing outreach through Shape Your Life. Any time we had new dates, we’d send it to the 519 Community Centre and Sherbourne Health Centre. I think it was mostly by word of mouth after that. Anytime I have a chance to talk to media, I always mention that so that anyone reading the article will know.

CW: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

SH: As a business owner, one of the cool things about trying to keep a place like this alive is it forces me to be really creative at the end of the month. Like, how can we come up with this amount of money in under a week? It forces me to invent things out of necessity. Some of the things we invent become a huge part of what we do.

The most recent thing we invented was called the one-two combo. It’s boxing for moms and their 10-to-13-year-old daughters. We just did the pilot of it, getting it ready for when kids are back in school. I’ll work with the adults. I have a coach who will work with the kids. We’ll work at the same time separately, and then for the last half hour we’ll bring everybody back together to do some bonding between the moms and their daughters. We’ll do an eight-week session and we’ll see how it goes. I think it’s going to work. I think parents are ready to have their little daughters in something like boxing, just with how the world is going.

And the same with Outside the Ring. Shape Your Life pulls out, takes their funding with them, and it’s like, “Holy shit. What are we going to do?” So I just do lots of writing. That’s how I solve things. I would think of what the best-case scenario would be. What if we have another new and exciting program that has a similar feel, but maybe serves a different population? How are we going to fund it? I have no idea. What if I could get a certain amount of people that would donate $5/month and we’ll call them Newsgirls Sugar Mamas? We include all genders, so Sugar Mamas/Glucose Guardians. It reignites a certain excitement about being an inventor.

For more information on becoming a Sugar Mama/Glucose Guardian donor, visit the Newsgirls website.

The post Savoy “Kapow” Howe Outside The Ring: Part Two appeared first on LiisBeth.

Savoy "Kapow" Howe Outside The Ring: Part Two

Carmelle Wolfson — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 13:31:43 +0000

Savoy Howe in the ring.

CW: How did the Shape Your Life program for survivors of violence get started?
SH: That started when one of my students who happened to be a professor at Brock took one of my boxing camps. After the camp she said, “Savoy, what you’re doing is incredible. Would you consider doing this for survivors of violence?” I mean, I was already doing it for survivors of violence, but she wanted to have a program specifically for that. So we got our first two-year grant from the Attorney General’s Victim Services Unit and that helped us set up the program in 2007.
Shape Your Life isn’t offered here anymore. It ended in April. They decided to take a new turn and moved to the west end to the Bloor Street Boxing & Fitness Club. I always say crisis equals opportunity or when one door closes another opens. So we’ve decided to do something like Shape Your Life, but upgrade it a bit.
The program we are starting is called Outside the Ring. Our goal with that is to give two four-month memberships each month to four different communities: Indigenous, new Canadians, LGBTQ2S, and people with mobility issues. It’s all based on donations. The four-month membership will allow them to come as much as they want, and then who knows? If our fundraising goes well, if they want to keep going, maybe we’ll be able to give them another four-month membership. It’s hard when you give somebody a membership with a run-out date and they really want to keep going but the funds aren’t there. How can you kick somebody out just because of money, especially if it’s having an effect on their lives? So we do a lot for free. Even with Shape Your Life, we gave away over $10,000 worth of boxing to graduates.
CW: Have you had many people with mobility issues doing boxing?
SH: For a boxing club, yeah. We’ve done a workshop for 10 people with mobility issues. Then some of those became regular members. In the past few years we’ve had about five people who happen to use wheelchairs. We’ve had a visually impaired woman box with us. That was so much fun to figure out how to do because I love inventing. When you work with people in wheelchairs, you have to invent things. How can they do abs? Okay, you put rubber bands with a strap behind them and they pull away.
CW: How did you develop that training for people in wheelchairs?
SH: I came up with a lot of it. I worked for 16 years as an attendant to a woman who was a quadriplegic. She was an advocate for people with disabilities, so we travelled all over Canada and the States. She would present at conferences and I would be her attendant. She said, “Savoy, if you ever open a boxing gym, it has to be wheelchair accessible.” So that’s why we made sure speed bag racks are height adjustable, double-end balls are height adjustable. There are a couple heavy bags at the height where somebody in a wheelchair can get under them and get close enough to punch. I’ve just been working with people with disabilities for a long time. When I understand their limitations, we just figure ways to strengthen what they can use. Like I said, I love inventing. So give me a situation and I’ll figure it out.
The gal who is visually impaired, with shadow boxing she would take up lots of space, lots of footwork. The worst thing that was going to happen in the ring was she was going to touch a rope. She loved it because in life she’s always so careful with her stick. In there, she could just fly around and touch rope. When she was done she’d say “Savoy” and I’d come get her. She’d take me by the elbow and I’d give her stick to her. Often, people would be looking at her going, “Is she blind?” They had no idea she was blind because she loves to move. And she’s good. Just another thing that we invent that works and it’s good for her.
CW: How do you think a boxing club run by a woman is different than one run by a man?
SH: My priority with Newsgirls is to create a safe space. Safe? What do you mean? It’s boxing! But I mean a safe space so that people who might not normally come into a boxing gym will come here. Usually when people come here, they’re pretty nervous. But within the first hour they get a sense that this is different. Nobody is judging me. Nobody is doing anything that is scary to me. We just make sure it’s a really safe environment so that everybody can come in, including the trans community.

I spent 14 years in men’s gyms. You walk in there and you’re walking into a mist of male aggression. I think that’s really important for men because you’ve got to be willing to deal with your fears in a male-aggression way. If a guy walks into a male gym and he can’t handle the male aggression, he should be willing to get used to it, adapt to it. A lot of women walk into that environment and are like, “Nope, not for me.” Some of them might stay and have to slap knuckles and tell the men, “Don’t touch me.” Then they might leave. Some women will stay. They’ll fall so in love with the heavy bag that they’ll be like, “No, I’m going to be here whatever it takes.” It’s just a totally different environment. Male aggression is so different than female aggression. Well, I always call it female, healthy aggression.
You wouldn’t see that male aggression in here. When my fighters are getting ready for a fight, I will take them to other gyms so that they can see what that is like. It just keeps them a little bit safer in the ring because a lot of the women that are going to be competing against my gals are coming from male-dominated clubs.
As far as running the business, I have no idea. I have no idea how the owner kept the gym alive. He was charging people $40/month, month-to-month. You can’t survive that way because half the time people don’t pay you. You need a wee bit more of a commitment from people. But that’s boxing. A lot of gyms charged their members $40/month in the old days up until 10 years ago.
CW: Do you have any rules of conduct to make it a safer space?
SH: We have a trans inclusion policy, which you can find on our website. I am looking forward to looking at the code of conduct from a friend at a martial arts studio to see if that’s something I should have in place. But we haven’t got many problems. People get the vibe when they’re here that they’re not to disrespect anybody.
CW: What have you done towards trans inclusion and how has that approach evolved?
SH: When a few of my boxers transitioned, I wanted to still be able to provide a place for them to box. When we moved over here, that was when I was like, “Okay, let’s have one night where it’s co-ed.” Then the women would go home and tell their husbands, “Oh my God, it’s so much fun.” And the husbands were like, “Hey, we want in.” By that time, some of our trans athletes were saying, “If I ever wanted to train for a fight, how? I can’t. Once a week isn’t enough.” So then we opened it twice a week, and eventually three times a week.
Before we moved here, one of my athletes came to me and said, “Savoy, I’d like to compete.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “But I have something to tell you. I was born a man.” I was like, “Oh okay, I don’t know how this works. Let me call Boxing Ontario.” And they said they follow International Olympic Committee rules, and if these things have happened around IDs, hormones, and surgery, you’re good to go. So she fought the first bout for a trans woman athlete in boxing in Canada, as far as we know.
That’s when we started doing more outreach. Some of my boxers transitioned. We came here. We put a trans policy in place, and we started doing outreach through Shape Your Life. Any time we had new dates, we’d send it to the 519 Community Centre and Sherbourne Health Centre. I think it was mostly by word of mouth after that. Anytime I have a chance to talk to media, I always mention that so that anyone reading the article will know.
CW: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
SH: As a business owner, one of the cool things about trying to keep a place like this alive is it forces me to be really creative at the end of the month. Like, how can we come up with this amount of money in under a week? It forces me to invent things out of necessity. Some of the things we invent become a huge part of what we do.
The most recent thing we invented was called the one-two combo. It’s boxing for moms and their 10-to-13-year-old daughters. We just did the pilot of it, getting it ready for when kids are back in school. I’ll work with the adults. I have a coach who will work with the kids. We’ll work at the same time separately, and then for the last half hour we’ll bring everybody back together to do some bonding between the moms and their daughters. We’ll do an eight-week session and we’ll see how it goes. I think it’s going to work. I think parents are ready to have their little daughters in something like boxing, just with how the world is going.
And the same with Outside the Ring. Shape Your Life pulls out, takes their funding with them, and it’s like, “Holy shit. What are we going to do?” So I just do lots of writing. That’s how I solve things. I would think of what the best-case scenario would be. What if we have another new and exciting program that has a similar feel, but maybe serves a different population? How are we going to fund it? I have no idea. What if I could get a certain amount of people that would donate $5/month and we’ll call them Newsgirls Sugar Mamas? We include all genders, so Sugar Mamas/Glucose Guardians. It reignites a certain excitement about being an inventor.

For more information on becoming a Sugar Mama/Glucose Guardian donor, visit the Newsgirls website.

The post Savoy "Kapow" Howe Outside The Ring: Part Two appeared first on LiisBeth.

Want Change? Put a Woman in the Ring On It-The Story of Savoy “Kapow” Howe, Part One

Carmelle Wolfson — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 02:21:47 +0000

Savoy “Kapow” Howe, Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club

Savoy “Kapow” Howe may challenge your definition of success as an entrepreneur. While she is not earning anything close to a six-figure-salary (her business is struggling to stay afloat), she has accomplished a tremendous amount in terms of women’s empowerment. As the owner of Canada’s first woman-owned boxing club for women and transgender people, she has trained women with mobility issues and visual impairments in her gym. Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club is a sole proprietorship with 12 volunteer coaches and 250 members. In 2007, Howe developed, along with Brock University professor Cathy Van Ingen, the Shape Your Life program, offering free boxing to hundreds of survivors of violence at her gym. The Newsgirls have shown up at the Toronto Dyke March, the Women’s March on Washington, and in newspapers around the world, and they have successfully faced off against men’s rights activist Roosh V.

Howe’s one-woman show, Newsgirl, runs at the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club from September 21 to September 24. Carmelle Wolfson spoke to Howe about her experiences as a boxing coach and a business owner.

This is part one of a two-part interview. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CW: Tell me about how Newsgirls got started.

SH: I came to Toronto to pound the pavement as a performer, never ever thinking about getting into boxing. I came from New Brunswick, did my theatre degree in Hamilton, and then moved to Toronto. At the same time, I was coming out of the closet. Thirty years ago there were lots of stories of gay-bashing. I wasn’t one to walk around scared but that was the first time that something was starting to make me fearful. I thought, “Nope, I got to find something so that I don’t have to be afraid.” I tried an aikido class and taekwondo class, but it didn’t really grab me. Then one day I saw an image of a woman wearing boxing gloves in the newspaper and I was like, “Whatever that is!” It was almost like a big light bulb went off.

I walked into a guys’ boxing club called the Toronto Newsboys. That was in ’92, and I had my first fight with them in ’93, and I was still trying to pound the pavement as a performer. As most performers lived in poverty, I was trying to figure out how to pay the rent and I really didn’t want to waitress. I thought, “Huh, I wonder if I could convince a few people to pay me to teach them how to box.” So every Saturday I put up posters up and down Church Street and Parliament Street in the queer community that said “Boxing for Women.” Within a couple months I had 40 women. So I asked the Newsboys if I could use the gym when it was closed, and I rented the space and started running women’s-only classes.

CW: How long had you been boxing at that point?

SH: Two years. I started teaching in ’94. And then in ’96 I left Newsboys.

CW: What was the motivation to leave and get your own space?

SH: Well, I never really thought about having my own space. Our club was still surviving month-to-month because we had to pay rent. I left Newsboys because Newsboys picked up a different flavour, and it wasn’t exactly a safe place for me to be bringing my clients. So I headed for the west end and rented space in a gym called Sully’s. I started going in two nights a week with people who wanted to compete so that they could see the men’s environment, they could see the sparring. And we stayed with Sully’s for eight years. Still, I never thought about having my own space because it’s not a money-making business. But when Sully’s decided to move to a smaller space in 2006, it didn’t make sense for us to go with them because by that time we kind of had it with the boys and didn’t want to move into a smaller space. So it was either go big or go home.

So we did a PATH, which is a big goal-setting adventure. I invited about 15 of the gals down. A PATH is something I’ve been doing for about 15 years. It’s a process taught to me by Judith Snow, who was an advocate for people with disabilities. We put a great big piece of paper on the wall and we started in the dreaming section. I said, “If we could have anything, what would that look like?” And what came up was: a big space close to the TTC, showers, kitchen, an official-sized boxing ring, international travel, a competitive program, and a disco ball. Then we created first steps towards that. One of the first steps was to have a realtor show me a couple spaces. I went along with it, knowing that it wasn’t going to go anywhere because I had $200 in my pocket. But I thought, “Let’s play the game.”

He showed me a couple spaces, and then I met him at Carlaw and Gerrard. As we walked by the back alley, I heard the train go by over my head and thought, “Oh my God, that’s like Gleason’s in New York.” Their gym is below a train track and when I was there and heard the train, I thought, “Oh, that’s so cool. It makes it feel like a boxing ring.” So when I heard the train at this place, I was like, “Oh my God, is that a sign?” He kicked open the back two doors and we walked into this massive empty space with dust on every surface possible. I saw the steel beams and said, “Oh my God. This is it. This is, like, my dream space.” He said, “I’ll be showing it to three other people this afternoon,” and I said, “I’ll take it.” I signed up for a five-year lease and wrote him a cheque for two months’ rent of $9,000—with $200 in my bank account.

CW: How did that work out?

SH: I went home. I had a shot of whiskey. And I sat up all night going, “What the fuck was I thinking? I’m going to jail. I’m going to friggin’ jail. I don’t have $9,000!” It was on a Friday and I spent the whole weekend on the phone: “$20? I’ll take it! $50? I’ll take it! Oh, $500? Thank you!” I just did that all weekend. And by Monday, the cheque went through.

CW: So you raised $9,000 in one weekend?

SH: Yeah. Because I had a lot of students by that point, and a lot of people who loved Newsgirls who really supported what we were all about. I still can’t believe it. We got the set of keys on October 1, and we spent the next month dusting, cleaning, painting, and I had two heavy bags. No lockers, nothing. There were no walls anywhere. Just floor. I hung two heavy bags and I started selling. I said, “The gym is open!” [Laughs] And they came. They friggin’ came. We’re in our 21st year of Newsgirls and October 1 will be our 11th year in our own gym, and I still can’t believe it!

CW: Was raising that $9,000 in one weekend the biggest challenge you have faced?

SH: No. We’ve been surviving month-to-month for over 20 years. At the end of every month it’s kind of like, “Okay, now what do we do?” So I’m kind of used to it. I’m actually really good at it. I’m not a businesswoman. I mean, I’ve been a business owner for 20 years, but I’ve never wanted to be a business owner. I just wanted to be a coach. And the only way I can be a coach is to have a roof over our heads. So it forced me to learn to be a business owner, and I’m not even the best business owner, but I love my job.

CW: As someone who doesn’t come from a business background, did you have to teach yourself?

SH: Absolutely. And there’s still so much I don’t know. Because I am so focused on teaching my students and getting my competitors ready for fights that I’m not even thinking like a businessperson. I just take the cash, put it in an envelope, count it four days before the end of the month and go, “Holy shit. We’re $900 short. Let’s figure out how to sell a couple yearly memberships on sale.” I’m still not a good businessperson. It’s not my dream to be a good businessperson. My dream is just to keep doing what I’m doing.

CW: Have you learned any lessons about business along the way?

SH: Keep receipts. I think in my sixth year, I sat down with somebody and we went through two big hockey bags of receipts trying to get out of a tax mess. When we found out how much we owed, it was hell. So I would say, learn how to either become a businessperson before you open a business or take somebody on that knows how to run a business and let them run your business. Now I know how to, for the most part, stay legal, so I do it. But I’d rather be doing something else.

CW: Have you considered hiring someone to run the business side of things?

SH: I think I’m getting to the point where in my 21st year, maybe it’s time. I just don’t know who that would be, what kind of skills I’m looking for, because I’m pretty much the boss of myself. So it would be hard to have somebody telling me what to do. But if I can meet somebody who got it, understood what goes on here, who could take that on, that would be great.

For more information on Newsgirl the play, go to: http://www.soulo.ca/newsgirl/. Limited run from Sept. 21 to 24 at the boxing club. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door.

Related Article: Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club on the ropes, but optimistic, by Joanna Lavoie (Inside Toronto, Aug. 22, 2017)

Punching Bag Therapy, by Carmelle Wolfson,

The post Want Change? Put a Woman in the Ring On It-The Story of Savoy “Kapow” Howe, Part One appeared first on LiisBeth.

Want Change? Put a Woman in the Ring On It-The Story of Savoy "Kapow" Howe, Part One

Carmelle Wolfson — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 02:21:47 +0000

Savoy “Kapow” Howe, Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club

CW: Tell me about how Newsgirls got started.
SH: I came to Toronto to pound the pavement as a performer, never ever thinking about getting into boxing. I came from New Brunswick, did my theatre degree in Hamilton, and then moved to Toronto. At the same time, I was coming out of the closet. Thirty years ago there were lots of stories of gay-bashing. I wasn’t one to walk around scared but that was the first time that something was starting to make me fearful. I thought, “Nope, I got to find something so that I don’t have to be afraid.” I tried an aikido class and taekwondo class, but it didn’t really grab me. Then one day I saw an image of a woman wearing boxing gloves in the newspaper and I was like, “Whatever that is!” It was almost like a big light bulb went off.
I walked into a guys’ boxing club called the Toronto Newsboys. That was in ’92, and I had my first fight with them in ’93, and I was still trying to pound the pavement as a performer. As most performers lived in poverty, I was trying to figure out how to pay the rent and I really didn’t want to waitress. I thought, “Huh, I wonder if I could convince a few people to pay me to teach them how to box.” So every Saturday I put up posters up and down Church Street and Parliament Street in the queer community that said “Boxing for Women.” Within a couple months I had 40 women. So I asked the Newsboys if I could use the gym when it was closed, and I rented the space and started running women’s-only classes.
CW: How long had you been boxing at that point?
SH: Two years. I started teaching in ’94. And then in ’96 I left Newsboys.
CW: What was the motivation to leave and get your own space?
SH: Well, I never really thought about having my own space. Our club was still surviving month-to-month because we had to pay rent. I left Newsboys because Newsboys picked up a different flavour, and it wasn’t exactly a safe place for me to be bringing my clients. So I headed for the west end and rented space in a gym called Sully’s. I started going in two nights a week with people who wanted to compete so that they could see the men’s environment, they could see the sparring. And we stayed with Sully’s for eight years. Still, I never thought about having my own space because it’s not a money-making business. But when Sully’s decided to move to a smaller space in 2006, it didn’t make sense for us to go with them because by that time we kind of had it with the boys and didn’t want to move into a smaller space. So it was either go big or go home.
So we did a PATH, which is a big goal-setting adventure. I invited about 15 of the gals down. A PATH is something I’ve been doing for about 15 years. It’s a process taught to me by Judith Snow, who was an advocate for people with disabilities. We put a great big piece of paper on the wall and we started in the dreaming section. I said, “If we could have anything, what would that look like?” And what came up was: a big space close to the TTC, showers, kitchen, an official-sized boxing ring, international travel, a competitive program, and a disco ball. Then we created first steps towards that. One of the first steps was to have a realtor show me a couple spaces. I went along with it, knowing that it wasn’t going to go anywhere because I had $200 in my pocket. But I thought, “Let’s play the game.”
He showed me a couple spaces, and then I met him at Carlaw and Gerrard. As we walked by the back alley, I heard the train go by over my head and thought, “Oh my God, that’s like Gleason’s in New York.” Their gym is below a train track and when I was there and heard the train, I thought, “Oh, that’s so cool. It makes it feel like a boxing ring.” So when I heard the train at this place, I was like, “Oh my God, is that a sign?” He kicked open the back two doors and we walked into this massive empty space with dust on every surface possible. I saw the steel beams and said, “Oh my God. This is it. This is, like, my dream space.” He said, “I’ll be showing it to three other people this afternoon,” and I said, “I’ll take it.” I signed up for a five-year lease and wrote him a cheque for two months’ rent of $9,000—with $200 in my bank account.
CW: How did that work out?
SH: I went home. I had a shot of whiskey. And I sat up all night going, “What the fuck was I thinking? I’m going to jail. I’m going to friggin’ jail. I don’t have $9,000!” It was on a Friday and I spent the whole weekend on the phone: “$20? I’ll take it! $50? I’ll take it! Oh, $500? Thank you!” I just did that all weekend. And by Monday, the cheque went through.
CW: So you raised $9,000 in one weekend?
SH: Yeah. Because I had a lot of students by that point, and a lot of people who loved Newsgirls who really supported what we were all about. I still can’t believe it. We got the set of keys on October 1, and we spent the next month dusting, cleaning, painting, and I had two heavy bags. No lockers, nothing. There were no walls anywhere. Just floor. I hung two heavy bags and I started selling. I said, “The gym is open!” [Laughs] And they came. They friggin’ came. We’re in our 21st year of Newsgirls and October 1 will be our 11th year in our own gym, and I still can’t believe it!
CW: Was raising that $9,000 in one weekend the biggest challenge you have faced?
SH: No. We’ve been surviving month-to-month for over 20 years. At the end of every month it’s kind of like, “Okay, now what do we do?” So I’m kind of used to it. I’m actually really good at it. I’m not a businesswoman. I mean, I’ve been a business owner for 20 years, but I’ve never wanted to be a business owner. I just wanted to be a coach. And the only way I can be a coach is to have a roof over our heads. So it forced me to learn to be a business owner, and I’m not even the best business owner, but I love my job.
CW: As someone who doesn’t come from a business background, did you have to teach yourself?
SH: Absolutely. And there’s still so much I don’t know. Because I am so focused on teaching my students and getting my competitors ready for fights that I’m not even thinking like a businessperson. I just take the cash, put it in an envelope, count it four days before the end of the month and go, “Holy shit. We’re $900 short. Let’s figure out how to sell a couple yearly memberships on sale.” I’m still not a good businessperson. It’s not my dream to be a good businessperson. My dream is just to keep doing what I’m doing.
CW: Have you learned any lessons about business along the way?
SH: Keep receipts. I think in my sixth year, I sat down with somebody and we went through two big hockey bags of receipts trying to get out of a tax mess. When we found out how much we owed, it was hell. So I would say, learn how to either become a businessperson before you open a business or take somebody on that knows how to run a business and let them run your business. Now I know how to, for the most part, stay legal, so I do it. But I’d rather be doing something else.
CW: Have you considered hiring someone to run the business side of things?
SH: I think I’m getting to the point where in my 21st year, maybe it’s time. I just don’t know who that would be, what kind of skills I’m looking for, because I’m pretty much the boss of myself. So it would be hard to have somebody telling me what to do. But if I can meet somebody who got it, understood what goes on here, who could take that on, that would be great.

Publisher’s Note: Watch out for Part Two of this article on September 26. And if you like what you read about this enterprise, note that they are looking for donors (they call them Sugar Mamas). Even as little as $5/month will help.
For more information on Newsgirl the play, go to: http://www.soulo.ca/newsgirl/. Limited run from Sept. 21 to 24 at the boxing club. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door.

Related Article: Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club on the ropes, but optimistic, by Joanna Lavoie (Inside Toronto, Aug. 22, 2017)
Punching Bag Therapy, by Carmelle Wolfson,

The post Want Change? Put a Woman in the Ring On It-The Story of Savoy "Kapow" Howe, Part One appeared first on LiisBeth.

Selling Up, Moving Up

Carmelle Wolfson — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 03:19:42 +0000

When co-founder of Women on the Move Heather Gamble introduces herself to me following a networking workshop at the Dundas Street West co-working space, she describes how she “climbed up the AT&T corporate ladder” before the age of 35 because she “could sell any early adopter technology.” After leaving her roles in sales and marketing at the company, she launched her first business with Eva Gooderham in 2004. In her first year with their business-to-business marketing firm SalesFuel Inc., she won a $1-million contract with Shaw Communications. Her story sounds to me like a well-rehearsed sales pitch, which I imagine her delivering hundreds of times.

An unapologetic saleswoman, Gamble knows the value of a good story. She insists that every entrepreneur needs sales skills to survive. Gamble models this commercial spirit in her work. Unlike many other organizations geared to female entrepreneurs, she points out that Women on the Move is a for-profit enterprise. “We don’t believe that if we’re teaching women entrepreneurs to make money that we should be non-profit. That’s hilarious,” Gamble says. “You cannot build a business on government grants and loans. If you really want to build a business, we can start you off. And we start you off by saying sales is number one.”

This approach to business makes some women uneasy. After opening their business accelerator (a co-working space, business training program, community network and venture capital fund) in January 2015, Gamble and co-founder Nicola Morgan discovered their biggest hurdle has been changing women’s negative connotations with sales. “This is what we see: women in particular have an aversion to selling,” Gamble explains. “The stigma is [that] in sales you have to be aggressive, you have to be manipulative.” Morgan suggests the solution to this problem is to make the medicine taste good. “The way we have overcome it is by showing them it’s not what they think it is. Sales is a transfer of enthusiasm.” The two longtime friends met at Carleton University back in 1981. Between Gamble and Morgan, a former Arthur Murray Dance Studio franchisee, they have accrued around 35 years of experience training people in sales. As Gamble explains it, she observed a market need for their endeavour, and, being a serial opportunist, decided to take advantage of the opening. “I saw more women going into entrepreneurship, and I saw more women not being successful, and I saw more women going back to that job they didn’t like.”

Data collected by Statistics Canada shows that women small business owners had less revenue growth than men (57.7 per cent compared to 62.4 percent) between 2009 to 2011. According to Forbes Magazine, only 2 percent (4 percent in Canada) of female-owned businesses in the United States reach $1 million in revenues while male-owned businesses were 3.5 times as likely to do so. Gamble lays the blame more on women’s own inhibitions than on systemic discrimination, noting that women tend not to speak up when men are around. “I felt it was imperative to give women their own place and space for them to say what they really believe, come up to the table and be fully engaged participants,” she explains. In terms of preparing students for the reality of life outside of the training, Morgan says they assess what skills each individual might require and focus on helping them understand and sell effectively to both male and female buyers. While women often take a more complex approach, when men are doing business, “it’s just business,” says Morgan. “We do work with women to (help them) understand how men think and that they do think a little bit differently than we do. So, really, it’s all about understanding your buyer, whoever that buyer may be,” she explains. “Men don’t really care how you feel,” but women, generally speaking, are much more focused on their feelings, according to Morgan.

Women on the Move member Michelle Isocianu and co-owner of Board Again Games happened upon the space when she was searching for a location to rent out for board game nights and ended up registering as a student in the She Factory business training program. She says the course has taught her “basic business 101 stuff” and how to apply that specifically to her own enterprise.

But it has been the support of fellow participants and the instructors that has benefited Isocianu most. “It’s nice to know that other people are going through the same thing,” she says, adding that the course has helped her to increase revenue and make wiser investment decisions. “I think going back every week and Heather being like, ‘You’re perfect and you’re great,’ – as cheesy as it may be – it does give you the confidence,” she says. “I certainly have gotten the confidence to put a value on what I do.” Isocianu admits that at first she was intimidated by the “all women kind of approach,” but now sees the critical need for such a place.

The She Factory is an intensive training program that runs weekly from September to June. Although students can be anywhere in business development, from just starting out to two years in, Morgan urges women to enlist sooner rather than later. It incorporates elements of sales and business education for women entrepreneurs, with individual classes starting at $40 and personalized coaching that is tailored to individual budgets.

Gamble’s initial mission was to train 10,000 women by 2020 and position them each on their “$1-million path” within three years. One of their first students, a business consultant in the mining sector, saw her business jump from $400,000 to $2-million in revenue after just one year. But their latest training session, which ran from September to June, brought in just 25 women. “It takes time to build a business,” admits Morgan, explaining they pour whatever financial resources they have into rent rather than marketing, which she notes can also be costly. They hope to increase their numbers by taking their business on the road — or rather the train — for a cross-Canada tour that aims to connect and train women entrepreneurs. In June, Women on the Move rolled out its “Save Our Sales” service, an app that offers access to a branding specialist, sales specialist, writing specialist and interpersonal personality specialist. The personality specialist can help business owners understand how to sell to different personality types by communicating and connecting with them more effectively.

Don’t expect their training to include tackling the systematic barriers to equality that women entrepreneurs often face. Morgan herself claims that she has never personally experienced sexism as an entrepreneur; however, she acknowledges that inequality does exist and that women deserve equal opportunity. But she and Gamble choose to focus their efforts on helping women work within existing structures to boost sales and revenue.

“I don’t know that I have to put myself into any particular category,” says Gamble when asked if she would call herself a feminist. “I categorize myself as one thing and that’s a woman on the move.”

Publishers Note: Gamble and Morgan have also launched a new workshop series called Accelerate Your Success. It is held on Wednesdays from 12 – 2 p.m and includes a one hour workshop plus an hour of networking and a catered lunch. The focus is on developing effective sales and marketing skills with an emphasis on using social media to increase sales and find prospects. Tickets start at $40. You can learn more at www.womenonthemove.club.

Additional Business Support Groups for Women in Toronto

SheEO: A peer-based venture capital fund for women;
Shecosystem: A community that holds weekly co-working events with a focus on wellness; and
Ember: A co-working space with mentorship opportunities for women.

For a more complete list of supports for women entrepreneurs across Canada, visit http://weoc.ca/ or download their eco-system diagram Womens-Entrepreneurial-Ecosystem_2016_03_01_weoc (1).

The post Selling Up, Moving Up appeared first on LiisBeth.