Letters to Lynn Redgrave: Martial Enlightenment for Modern Women (and Men)

Here are some photos of what Chris Hanley of Sun Yi's Taekwon Do in Raleigh did to me. I want to emphasize that we were explicitly told, light contact, no contact to the face, and yet this was his opening against me. I had been out of TKD for 13 years, and am just getting back into it. He is a fourth degree black belt at the school, a junior instructor. He then followed up by kicking me in the face and knocking the lens out of my glasses (and twisting the frame). His response to this matter is that I deserved it for grabbing his foot. I am not as skinny as I once was, but the puffiness you on the elbow is swelling. He hit me on Monday night, and these photos were taken on Thursday.

The technique taught here is very good. But during my free two-week trial, a fourth degree black belt man at Sun Yi's, Chris Henley, deliberately kicked me in the face and broke my glasses. At the very beginning of the match, he hit with a lot of force into me. I was kicking lightly, as we had been instructed to do. He was kicking hard. Also, I am a woman.


I dropped my elbow into his kick and saved my ribs, but the elbow was hit right on the nerve and hurt a lot. Even as I write this, three days later, it still hurts, and the elbow is still swollen. I told him he'd hurt me. He said to continue. Then he kicked me down my face and broke my glasses. Oh I think I have had enough of Sun Yi's.

After learning of my complaint, Henley told me that I deserved the kick in the face because I had grabbed his foot. One of the new students, a woman whose daughter is also a new student, saw him do this and was upset about it. Even with the Master explicitly telling us light contact to the body and no contact to the head, Henley just roughed me up from the beginning to the end. I urged her to talk to the master after class.

But in retrospect, I realize that this man who hit me so hard, twice, is a fourth degree black belt. That means he's been there 12-14 years. Surely I am not the first woman he decided to "teach a lesson" to. So even though the school has the best TKD technique in terms of "defend yourself" taekwondo (as opposed to sport taekwondo), I would not recommend this school. The Master, Randy Berger, simply let this happen. In fact, he ended the match for other students but kept me with Henley for another round. And I doubt I'm the first person it has happened to, given Henley's point of view that people deserve to be kicked in the face for annoying him,