Meet Rebecca Durr Moffett, an ambitious Judo practitioner who practices transcendental meditation and has worked in a battered women’s shelter for more than 30 years. She also earned a master’s degree in Public Administration while working. Listen to her great insights here: https://anchor.fm/andrea-harkins/episodes/Rebecca-Durr-Moffett—Far-From-Ordinary-eo1qt7
or here:
Rebecca refers to herself as an ordinary martial artist and in many ways, I understand. I, too, am the every day type ordinary martial artist who pushes and plods along in practice, but with high ambition and anticipation. Still, after talking to Rebecca I realized that she is far from ordinary and has wonderful insights on being a martial art woman.
Bio:
Rebecca Durr Moffett, one story of one ordinary martial artist
On one level, at 54, I am an unlikely judoka. On another, it makes perfect sense. I don’t have a school and I don’t a black belt. But as my Sensei always said – a belt is just what keeps your pants up.
I do have passion and since I started later in life, it wasn’t about entering competitions or winning, but about seeing that passion in those who catch the “judo bug” and be able to keep pushing. Especially to see that in girls.
I did every sport my school allowed for girls – thank God for Title IV – but there was no dojo around the corner, either at the Y or in a strip mall. When I moved to Charlotte at 23, I had my first opportunity to study when at the local
community college, I jumped on it….or should I say ukemi rolled into it (yikes bad pun). But alas, just before I was going to take my first yellow belt test, I dislocated my clavicle. Not in Judo, but biking.
I was drawn to judo because of Dr. Kano’s story and his maxim’s – Mutual benefit and welfare for all. As well as maximum efficiency. Don’t those just have a way of summing up how we should all live our lives.
At this time I also started my job just out of college at a Battered Women’s Program. It was supposed to be for 7 months before I went to graduate school to continue my studies in Philosophy. Yes, that ‘super practical’ degree with the only cool thing going for it was, that’s what Bruce Lee and Alex Trebek studied! I wasn’t deterred. I found Philosophy the thing I most wanted to learn about. How to think, to write, to ask why. Science without the math.
The day I got accepted in the Master’s Program at University of Georgia, I was asked to stay full time at the Shelter. A fork in the road moment. I chose working at CVAN Battered Women’s Program and have been there ever since. Seeing the strength of battered women each day, and helping to be part of a bigger movement to create a culture where women and their children are no longer battered, is to important not to do when given the chance.
I was able to get a Master’s in Public Administration at night while working the Shelter. And my studies in Philosophy became on the back burner and night time reading.
At 30, I also began to practice Transcendental Meditation. Notable because it is perhaps the only thing separate from having children that I can definitively say there is a before and after in my life. A short hand of before TM and after TM. In the process, I had 2 daughters, now 19 and 22. When my youngest was 7, she asked about doing martial arts. And boom, a light came back on in me. I saw a flyer at my local Y – “Do you want to learn Judo and Jujutsu? It said. I called right away and my daughter and I got gi’s and got started.
She found gymnastics 6 months later, and I, at 43 got the yellow belt I didn’t quite get exactly 20 year’s prior.
Currently I am sankyu brown and I help coach at Champions Judo. And, I feel like those I have met along the way are my judo family. What stays with me the most and who I admire most are the girls who stay with it – Camilla getting her black belt at 16; there is Sophia, Stella, and GiGi. They are tough as nails and just so much fun. Judo is hard work for body and mind, and to see girls staying with a sport and an art that is not well known in America is incredible. To live in a society that can name Kayla Harrison as easily as Michael Phelps or Simone Biles – wouldn’t
that be something.
My Sensei’s – Ken Nazemetz and Kevin Flynn in particular – shepherded me through many a classes and tests that were no joke. I won’t forget my green belt test – I was given the brown because, one must go above and beyond at our school. I have stayed on the mat with a broken 5th metatarsal on my left foot (okay, my Sensei’s didn’t know that happened until after class – my choice to stay and I wouldn’t recommend that to other students).
Meeting idols and just basic women like me The Greatest Camp on Earth – yes that is what it’s called – is a shot in the arm each summer. Hosted every year by CAJA (Carolina American Judo Association). A highlight for sure was being on the same mat as Sensei Lynn Roethke, a force of nature (or as many call her, the energizer bunny). A few years ago at Camp we were all in a long line to throw Uri Nage, Sensei Lynn ran the entire line to point right at me (and before I could think – yikes what did I do wrong) she yelled… “Good throw!”
The little moments are sometimes the biggest.
During the pandemic, I have not been helping to teach, so I have used it as an opportunity to take one-on-one lessons (masked and outside) with Sifu-Guru Reuben Griffith, Jr. And to read the book I gave myself when I turned 50 but still had not read, Bruce Lee’s the Tao of Jeet Kune Do. I am an embryo in a new sphere of martial arts and just like when I began with judo and jujutsu, the more I know, the more I realize I do not know.
At this stage, I see myself as a weekend warrior who carries the martial arts spirit with me all week. I didn’t have the path where I dedicated my life to competing, opening a school or traveling far to study. I am not the judoka on the other side of the mat who is saying hey, this is how you get there. But, I am the judoka on the same side of the mat as perhaps many other women and girls. Like many who quietly and slowly are sharpening their sword saying isn’t the
journey worth it.
Links & Info:
https://www.thehotline.org/ – National Domestic Violence Hotline
https://championsjudo.com/ – Rebecca’s martial art club, Champions Judo
Andrea’s Books & Resources:
