The beginning

Twelve years ago, my friend and colleague Jill Shames and I borrowed  the wonderful idea of gathering female martial artists and self defense instructors for a once of year Special Training and made it our own. We honor the women who came before us and built the NWMAF ST program in the US and are thrilled to be carrying forward the amazing energy generated and experienced by us into our country. What once was a once a year, one afternoon event has blossomed into a national organization known as El HaLev (To the Heart - The Hebrew pronunciation of the acronym IWMAF). El HaLev is a full grown not-for-profit organization with two main branches and outreach projects being run all over Israel.
                           

Today, our organization is built of a dedicated staff of 13, about 50 Martial Arts and Self Defense instructors and we see approximately 4,000 participants come through our doors yearly. We run dozens of outreach programs per month and have started to see our first generation of home grown black belts starting to emerge as leaders in the Martial Arts and Self Defense community. We are very proud of the women we work with.

In order to celebrate our Bat Mitzvah year, our coming of age, we have chosen to spend 10 days touring and teaching all over Israel in doer to share our passion, expertise and knowledge with as many women, children and others who need as we can. In doing this, we have invited some of the highest ranking women martial artists from around the world to join us. They will be teaching side by side as we tour the country and reach out to those who most need us.

Peace

Yudit Sensei