Four young men, with their hands curled into fists to guard their faces, prepared to launch a kick.
“Aim right, aim true, hit the target” calmly stated Gus Nuñez, who was leading a self-defense class at BAAD, the Bronx Academy for Arts and Dance on Barretto Street on a recent Saturday.
Recent assaults against the homosexual community, and especially the gang attack on four men in Morris Heights last October, encouraged Nuñez to do more to battle homophobia.
“Enough is enough,” said Nuñez. “We’re not going to allow this to continue any further.”
Pride Force from Hunts Point on Vimeo.
Nuñez and his co-facilitator Maxxavier Santiago lead a team called Pride Force. It started about a year ago at the Bronx Community Pride Center, but was temporarily suspended when the space was no longer available. Nuñez and Santiago revived Pride Force in January at BAAD.
Rooted in martial arts, Pride Force also acts as support group. The class gives students tools to protect themselves against physical, verbal, and emotional violence, whether it’s rooted in homophobia or not.
“We definitely are geared and in support of the LGBT community,” said Nuñez. “But we welcome anyone into our group.”
Jorge Manuel Santiago, 23, a stocky man eager to learn, says he “got hooked on the first class.”
He has already put his self-defense lessons into practice.
As he rode the 6 train one evening, the only other man in the car approached him with his hand in his pocket, as if he was going to jump him. “We learned about yelling, about how it intimidates your opponent,” he said. So he yelled, and the man “actually got intimidated and he backed off,” he continued.
Self-defense at a glance:
- What: Self Defense class for the LGBT community
- Where: Bronx Academy for Arts and Dance,
- 841 Barretto Street, 2nd Fl.
- When: Saturdays from 11am – 1pm
- Cost: Suggested donation of $5 – more if you can, less if you can’t
- More information: bronxacademyofartsanddance.org or (718) 842-5223
Santiago called Nuñez right after the incident. Nuñez was grateful to hear the feedback. “When you take that approach, you basically send a very clear message to the other person, to the perpetrator, that no, this is not going to be tolerated,” he said.
Santiago joined the class with his friend Esteban Lora, 24. Shy and slender, Lora has been attacked several times. “I’ve been through a few cases where I get robbed for my stuff,” he said. “It’s usually more than one person.”
While students may join to class at any time, each class builds upon the last. Class begins with warm ups so that students can “get into the actual movement,” Maxxavier Santiago explained. “We wake up the body and the mind comes afterwards.”
Nuñez then leads the group through a practice of the martial arts techniques they’ve learned the week before, and then teaches new techniques, which they are encouraged to practice at home. Before the end of class, Nuñez gives individualized tips to each student.
Nuñez depends not only on Maxxavier Santiago, but on the other students as well, to demonstrate techniques and keep new students up to speed. “I myself can teach them but it’s important that the students also take a leading role,” said Nuñez.
The participants also encourage each other along the way. When Lora produced a more confident yell as he hit the target, everyone gave him a round of applause.
“A lot of the times we’re coming from a situation where we felt that we’ve been put low, or rejected and so what we try to do is try to bring each other up,” Maxxavier Santiago said.
Nuñez has a degree in social work and closes each session with a half hour of support group discussion, co-facilitated by Maxxavier Santiago, in which everyone is encouraged to participate. Each discussion is devoted to one topic, such as “survivor’s guilt,” and students have the opportunity to share experiences or issues they’ve dealt with during the past week.
Nuñez wants “to show the rest of the community, the rest of society, the fact that we’re gay and that’s fine. All we want and all we hope to have is just the right to exist.”
Reflecting on progress, Maxxavier Santiago said, “It would be great if we could stand up and people would think twice before turning around and gay-bashing someone, but we can only take small steps at a time. One day it shouldn’t matter who you love, or how you love, it’s that you love at all.”
A version of this story appeared in the April 2011 issue of The Hunts Point Express.