After 46 years in the same San Pablo Avenue storefront, the future of Oakland’s venerable Hand to Hand Kajukenbo Self Defense Center is up in the air like a roundhouse kick.
The martial arts studio, which opened in 1980 to train women and the LGBTQ community, was recently informed by its building owner he planned to sell the building and they would have to vacate their longtime studio. As the group began searching and fundraising for a new location, the owner relented and offered a two-year lease extension — albeit with higher rent.
It’s left the studio’s leaders mulling over what’s the next move: stay or find a new home.
“We’re closing down a chapter that’s been so very meaningful,” said lead instructor Professor Sonya Richardson before learning of the potential lease extension. “We are the school, but this is our home.”
As students of varying degrees and belts gathered for evening classes during a recent day, there was a sense of melancholy as well as excitement over a potential change of location.
“It’s like losing a little piece of yourself,” said student Ana Sheriff. “Like physically, like an arm, a body, a piece of your heart a little bit.”
Joe Rosato Jr./NBC Bay AreaJoe Rosato Jr./NBC Bay Area
Students at Oakland’s Hand to Hand Kajukenbo Self Defense Center perform kicks during a recent class.
Though the upheaval had shaken up the school, Richardson, who’s served as lead instructor the last 24 years, had nothing but praise for the building’s owner, who she said long offered below-market rent.
“Our building owner has been an amazing person,” Richardson said. “I feel like he has had such an act of love with us over 46 years.”
The studio was founded by the late Professor Coleen Gragen with a goal of teaching self-defense skills to girls and women. The school teaches Kajukenbo, a hybrid of five different styles of martial arts. Hand to Hand’s legacy of inclusivity expanded over the years to become a welcoming space for the LGBTQ community.
“I feel like the day I walked in the door I looked at people of all colors and shapes and backgrounds,” said student Lex Martin. “And so many kinds of people doing something together.”
The leader of the studio said it isn’t just a self-defense school, but a community within itself.
“We’ve had so many students come through and say, ‘This is where I feel most safe, I can be myself, I can express myself here,’” said seventh-degree black belt and assistant lead instructor Aarin Burch.
Joe Rosato Jr./NBC Bay AreaJoe Rosato Jr./NBC Bay Area
Students at Oakland’s Hand to Hand Kajukenbo Self Defense Center perform kicks during a recent class.
With the future unsettled, Richardson felt waves of nostalgia as she looked around the studio she’s been a part of for 30 years — the creak of the highly-sheened wood floors, the art on the walls, the altar created by a student, and the sign bearing the studio’s mantra: ‘The more sweat in peace, the less blood in war.’
“I love just pausing even in these days of feeling some loss,” Richardson said. “It really gives me a chance to pause and appreciate who we are, who we’ve been.”
Wherever the school goes next, if it moves at all, Richardson said it was important to focus on the fact that Hand to Hand was ultimately about the people, not a building or even a space. Just like the act of facing an opponent is about applying lessons but focusing on the present.
“We have to let everything go in the movement – the wins, the losses, the benefits, the fear – and just stay right there with the person who’s right in front of you,” she said.