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The professional violence prevention staff at Thousand Waves is made up of six women and men who had undergone an intensive teacher training program, plus three lead instructors who are nationally certified.
Our team includes professional teachers and individuals with extensive teaching experience with adults and teens.
Nancy Lanoue
Executive Director and Head Instructor
Kate Webster
Director of Violence Prevention Programs
Susan Barney
Yesica Barrera
Jeff Edwards
Michal Eskayo
Rebecca Epstein
Aileen Geary
Becky Kidd
Ryan Libel
Sophia Newman
Carla Riggs
Hope Robinson
Margarita Saona
Peggy Shinner
Danielle Wash
Executive Director and Head Instructor:
Nancy Lanoue has been training in martial arts and self-defense since 1977. Her primary martial arts are Seido Karate and Kajukenbo, in which she holds the ranks of 6th degree and 2nd degree black belt.
As a student and later a teacher at the Women's Martial Arts Center in New York, she developed a political analysis of violence, and began to see how martial arts and self-defense training could empower women to fight back against the everyday violence in their lives. In these early years, she also trained at the Civilian Defense Training Center, a co-ed program. In 1979, she co-founded a violence-prevention organization called SAFE that offered innovative, low commitment/high impact self-defense and empowerment workshops from their Center in Greenwich Village and also on an outreach basis to schools, community groups, and businesses.
Her years of teaching empowerment based self-defense to women, men, teens, and children have led to a commitment to explore the many root causes of violence and the inter-connections between individual, societal, and global issues. She has developed a framework for teaching that both encourages students to assert their rights to safety and respect and also to explore their potential to speak and act violently. The objective is not only to have students be able to keep themselves safe, but also to develop the courage and commitment to take a stand against, intervene in, and interrupt violence.
Since 1985, Nancy has co-directed the martial arts, fitness, and violence prevention trainings
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offered at Thousand Waves Martial Arts & Self Defense Center in Chicago with Co-Executive Director Sarah Ludden. More than 350 women, men, teens, and children currently participate in the ongoing martial arts and fitness programs there. Over 100 adults have earned their black belts and 25 have gone on to complete teacher training and now instruct at Thousand Waves or in their own Seido karate programs. In addition, 31 youth and teens have earned a junior black belt and play leadership roles in the Center's popular Camp Kokoro for youth. More than 1000 people have graduated from the Center's acclaimed Five Fingers of Self-Defense 12-hour course, and hundreds more participate each year in workshops offered at schools, non-profit agencies, and corporations across Chicago.
In addition to her work at Thousand Waves, Nancy has presented workshops for the National Women's Martial Arts Federation, the Association of Women Martial Arts Instructors, and the World Seido Karate Organization. She has served on both the New York City Mayors Task Force on Rape and the City of Chicago's Advisory Council on Women as a member of the violence committee. She was a co-founder of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, and was inducted into the City of Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1993.
Nancy holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in Asian studies and a Master’s degree from Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs with a specialization in communications. Before embarking on her path as a teacher, she worked as a journalist in New York City.
Director of Violence Prevention Programs:
Kate Webster Ph.D., has been teaching self–defense since 1997 and is the lead instructor for Thousand Waves’ violence prevention programs. She oversees both onsite and offsite programs, and works closely with the Thousand Waves instructor corps to provide self–defense trainings to non–profit organizations, schools, and businesses throughout the city. She has developed specialized curricula for LGBTQ self–defense, which Thousand Waves has used in workshops throughout the Midwest. In 2009, Kate was certified by the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation (NWMAF) as a teacher of feminist, empowerment based self–defense, and has since been a presenter at their national Self–Defense Instructor’s Conference. Currently, she serves on the NWMAF’s Self–Defense Leadership Committee which coordinates the organization’s many self–defense related initiatives. She is a certified Sexual Assault Crisis Counselor through the YWCA of Chicago. Before joining Thousand Waves, Kate was an instructor with Chimera Self–Defense for Women.
Kate trains in Seido karate at Thousand Waves and holds the rank of third degree black belt. She has taught in both the youth and adult karate programs. Before studying Seido, she practiced Shotokan karate for three years.
Kate’s passion for violence prevention comes from many years of studying gender–based violence in girls’ schooling and from her academic teaching experiences in varied settings. Currently she is an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University in Sociology, Women’s Studies, and the School of Education. Prior to this, she taught for several years at the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School in Chicago. She has a Ph.D. in Comparative Education from the University of Chicago where she studied barriers to girls’ schooling in Kenya. She recently published a book titled: “Difficulties African Women Face Accessing Education” that documents the gender–based violence issues girls face.
Susan Barney holds a 3rd degree black belt in Seido Karate. She completed the Thousand Waves Violence Prevention Teacher Training Program, and has participated in the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation’s Self–Defense Instructor Training Conference. Susan is also a licensed massage therapist and the Career Services and Continuing Education Director at the Cortiva Institute – Chicago School of Massage Therapy.
Yesica Barrera has been part of the Thousand Waves community since 2000. She earned her second degree black belt in June 2009, and started as a full time staff person in 2010. She currently teaches in the youth, teen and adult karate programs, as well as the violence prevention programs, with which she has been involved since 2006. Yesica holds an MFA in Photography and brings her background in the visual arts to Thousand Waves as the Visual Communications Manager.
Jeff Edwards holds a 2nd degree black belt in Seido Karate, having trained in this martial art since 1999. In early 2006, he completed a Thousand Waves teaching apprenticeship. In 2006 he co–taught a week–long violence prevention and self–defense course for teenagers at Thousand Waves. He holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota, and is a professor of political science and women’s and gender studies at Roosevelt University.
Michal Eskayo holds a 1st degree black belt in Seido Karate. She has been teaching violence prevention courses at Thousand Waves and in the Chicago community since 2003. In addition to the teacher training courses at Thousand Waves, she has participated in self–defense and martial arts training through the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation. She is a professor in the ESL/FL Department at Harold Washington College.
Ryan Libel has been involved with Thousand Waves’ violence prevention program since 2004, and earned his first degree black belt in Seido Karate in November 2009. Ryan brings his background in NFP management to bear full time at Thousand Waves as our Director of Operations. He also holds an MA in Linguistics and speaks Spanish.
Peggy Shinner is an instructor in all the martial arts and violence prevention programs offered by Thousand Waves. She holds a 4th degree black belt in Seido Karate and a 1st degree black belt in Kajukenbo Kung Fu. She has completed the Thousand Waves Violence Prevention Teacher Training Program; attended the Self Defense Teacher’s Conference at the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation Special Training Camp in 2006; and also completed the NWMAF’s 9 session Self–Defense Track for teachers. A fiction writer and essayist, she currently teaches at Roosevelt University.