WOMEN’S SELF-DEFENSE

WOMEN’S SELF-DEFENSE

Decades of Experience.

One Goal — Your Safety.

We offer a Women’s Self-Defense program that is recognized throughout the Chicagoland area. Our instructor, Shihan Eddie offers a unique realistic perspective based upon over thirty-three years in Law Enforcement and over fifty-five years in Martial Arts combined. group seminars.

We are available for private, semi-private or group seminars.

A woman in boxing gloves practicing inside a boxing ring at Shidokan USA Chicago, with a trainer holding focus mitts for her.

First Responders

Flight Attendants

Food and Beverage Personnel

Health Care Professionals

Hospitality Industry

High School and College Students

Human Trafficking Survivor Groups

Model and Talent Agencies

Physically Challenged

Public Housing (Cabrini Green and Robert Taylor Homes)

Real Estate Agents

YMCA

Group of women and one man at Shidokan USA Chicago, some women showing muscle, and man in protective gear kneeling in front, with a Shidokan USA's logo on the floor.

Sensei Marie

Sensei Marie has two happy places: teaching women self-defense, and equipping models to lead safe, healthy, and successful careers. Marie found a safe space at Chicago Fitness Center in 1995. Recovering from the trauma of her own experiences with violence, she discovered the women’s self-defense program in their Shidokan Karate dojo, along with a community committed to women’s empowerment. There, she found the support she needed to change her psyche from victim to warrior.

Marie’s athleticism and martial artisanship has not come without grit. She’s never been called a natural; rather, she is acclaimed for her heart and fighter’s spirit. Undeterred by the challenges and struggles in her fitness journey, she learned to trust that each day and each class would result in incremental improvement. This perseverance led her to Tokorozawa, Japan, where she earned her Shidokan Karate Shodan (first-degree black belt) in 2003 and her Nidan (second-degree black belt) in Chicago, Illinois, in 2021.

When she’s not taking classes or teaching women’s self-defense, Marie is either managing a small group of fashion models or participating in global activism through public speaking and writing to create safer work environments for models—both through her company, Boss Babe Models. By combining martial arts and her extensive model industry expertise, she has the best of both worlds.

Sensei Marie wearing a martial arts uniform with a black belt, smiling and showing a fist at Shidokan USA Chicago with other practitioners in the background.