What is your name and how long have you been training Enshin?

My Name is Klew Still and I have been training with Enshin for 13 years. My first day of training was my first day of freshmen year at CU Boulder – and my 18th birthday!

What do you love most about Enshin?

There is so much to love. The community, the physicality, the excitement, the challenge. On the days I am hungry to move, to work – I can’t do anything harder than Enshin. On the days I need reflection, and rest, and slowness, I can’t find anything more regenerating that Enshin.

How has your intention changed from when you started until now?

I was attracted to Enshin because it was a practical, challenging, and structured style that used a lot of intelligent strategy. And I still train for those reasons! But a lot more has opened up for me over the years as well. Now I train as a teacher. I am learning and growing in a whole new skillset – so, as we say, “the challenge never ends.”

Which females inspired you in your journey in Enshin?

My biggest inspiration is Sensei Dani Coleman at Boulder Dojo. When I started training she was the only woman training there, and she had just fought Sabaki Challenge 3 times. I wouldn’t have kept training if Sensei Dani wasn’t there to help me. I remember watching her old Sabaki Challenge fights on VHS and seeing all these incredible female fighters, like Hisako Iwai, Angie Yeoh and later on Korina Schiemann – I was so inspired!

How have the principles of Enshin/Sabaki helped you in other areas of life?

In the Dojo Kun we say “We will following the meaning of Enshin in our training and our daily lives.” I take that seriously. It means that everything is a process of improvement. I naturally just want things to be done and I don’t like being ‘in process’ – but that’s not how life is, and Enshin reminds me of that. Everything is an ongoing process. Nothing is ever done.

It is well known history that the origins of karate came from white crane in Fujian, China.  The founder of that style was a woman named Fāng Qīnián.  What message do you want the next generation of female martial artists to receive from your experience?

I am going to be really honest. It’s hard being a female, or a smaller person, in combat sports. No matter how talented and how conditioned you are, you have an upper limit of size that you can really compete against. For someone like me – I want to be able to beat anyone! But it doesn’t work that way. You can only do what you can do. It takes so much more courage for a girl to fight up than it takes for a naturally big guy to walk in and learn to punch. Embrace what that courage means, and what it gives you!

What does it mean to be a female warrior?

For me, there are two essential qualities of being a warrior: facing your failure, and not quitting. If you can look deeply at the possibility of your own failure – your mortality, your defeat in combat – and fight through that, that’s being a warrior. That means you have to put yourself in the position where you face a possibility of defeat in a meaningful way, which is frightening and uncomfortable. But you cannot be a warrior without that moment.

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