1. 116 | BUSINESS CHICKS LATTE
SHOUT!
LETIT
ALLOUT
MY BIG DREAM
Mel Thomas is the enigmatic founder of KYUP!,
a self-defence program helping women and children break
the cycle of domestic violence. Here she talks with Calla
MacGregor about finding light in times of darkness, inner
strength and the art of finding your voice.
SH
OU
T!

2. 118 | BUSINESS CHICKS LATTE LATTE 2016 | 119
MY BIG DREAM
The day I spoke to Mel Thomas, 41, she’d woken up
at the crack of dawn to get from her home in Manly
to a 7am event in the middle of Sydney city. “It was
great!”shechirpedcheerfullydownthephonetome.
“Itwassoworthit!” FounderofKYUP!(pronounced
‘key-up’), a self-defence program designed to break the cycle of violence
againstwomenandchildreninAustralia,Melshootsacrossthecountry
wherever and whenever she is needed.
YoucouldsaythestoryofKYUP!begantwoyearsago,whenMelgot
acallfromLayneBeachleytosayshe’dwontheAimfortheStarsbusiness
grant for her idea to teach self-defence to girls in school. The story could
begin22yearsbeforethat,whenherthen-boyfriend,now-husbandtook
her on a date to a martial arts grading, after
which Mel took up Korean martial arts and
underwent a profound healing journey. The
story could start back even further, when Mel
joined a gang to protect her from the bullies at
school who teased her for the family violence
she was suffering at home – ironically, as she
learntlater,bullieswhoweresufferingabuseat
home themselves. Or, maybe, the story starts
in 1974, the year Mel Thomas was born; the
year Mel’s father kicked her heavily pregnant
mother in the stomach.
There’s no doubt domestic violence is a
topic that needs our full attention as a nation.
Awareness for this social abomination is
accelerating, and with it the horrifying
statistics are stacking up. In 2015, 79 women
were killed at the hands of their husband
or partner: nearly two women each week
dead from senseless domestic violence, and
a number that’s rising steadily. According to
Australia’s National Research Organisation
for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), one in
four Australian women has been victims of
physical or sexual violence at the hands of
their partner, boyfriend or date.
It’s data like this that fuels Mel’s passion.
“It’s one thing for people to say, ‘yeah, let’s
end domestic violence’, but the reality is
that nothing much is working, because the
statistics are saying that it’s still happening.
We need to move beyond awareness and
into action, and I think that’s why people are
starting to sit up and take notice of KYUP!.
I’m in a position where I do have this
experience and also my personal story, so it
comes from a place of empowerment. And I
think that’s what we need.”
Mel makes no secret of the fact she’s had a
difficult past. She grew up in a family dynamic where domestic violence
was regular, in a time when abuse at home was considered ‘normal’
social behaviour. As she moved through high school and beyond, Mel
fell deeper into a cycle of violence, dealing with a whirlwind of school
bullies,gangsandrelationships.“Therewereanumberofreallybigevents
thathappenedtome,andtheywereallviolenceagainstme,”Melsays.“I
didn’t know I was in the cycle of violence. It was dysfunction junction.”
ItwasonlywhenMelwasintroducedtomartialarts20yearsagothatshe
started to realise violence could be controlled and focused in a positive
way. “I thought the women [at the martial arts school] were amazing,
they held their own … and I thought, wow, here is all this violence that is
so controlled – I wonder if I could control violence too? I went along to
a class, and I didn’t have any intention of using martial arts in any other
way. It kind of became a healing journey for me: I started to feel stronger,
and I could control my emotions, and I learnt all those amazing lessons
that you learn in any martial arts journey.”
THE NEXT LEVEL
It was a long while before Mel thought about how her experience and
training could be used to help others. “There
wasn’t one special moment,” she tells me, “but
there were about three significant things that
happened.” One of them was the birth of her
daughter,andthesubsequentdecisiontoleave
her work in advertising. “I worked on a big
entertainment loyalty program and I loved it,
butthehourswereinsane.Ithought,Ican’tgo
back to that sort of work. And to be brutally
honest,Idon’tthinkIwasthatgreatatthejob,
either!” Mel laughs. “It didn’t suit me.”
The second piece of the puzzle came
togetherwhenshehappenedtomeetaspecial
14-year-old girl while attending a careers
workshop. “She was there with her mum,
andwejustgottalking.Itoldherallaboutmy
self-defence training, and she told me how
she had been assaulted by a group of boys in a
park.Ithadjustbeenoneofthosesituations–
we have all experienced it – where you’re just
waiting for the situation to change. She was
like, ‘I was just sitting there and these guys
were saying stuff, and I thought they would
walk off, and maybe somebody else would
comedown,andIthoughttheywouldstop…
I was just waiting for the situation to change.’
“As she finally got the courage to walk
away, one of them grabbed her and pulled
her onto his lap, and all of the mates pushed
her around and passed her around. Thank
god she wasn’t sexually assaulted, but she was
still assaulted, and she was really affected by it.
She felt so powerless. Her words to me were,
‘What did I do wrong?!’. I was just like, ‘Oh,
god, you didn’t do anything wrong!’” Mel
says. “I related to that feeling of powerlessness,
especially when you’re a teenage girl, and
you’re vulnerable and on your own. I told her
thenwhatInowsaytothousandsofgirls:you
didwhatyoudid;youdidthebestthatyoucoulddowiththeexperience
and skills you had. And now that you know better, you can do better.”
This girl found Mel and her story so inspiring she asked her to come
and speak to her friends. “The next thing I know, I had this program!”
Mel says. “I thought, what am I doing? Why am I not using what I’ve
got? People want to hear it, so why not? Then I realised that nobody
else was saying what I was saying, or doing it the way I am doing it. It’s
been a really epic journey.” But it was the phone call in 2013 from Layne
Beachley to say Mel had won an Aim for the Stars grant that really got
KYUP! off the ground. “I just had an idea [at the time] – there was no
business plan or strategic framework or any of that stuff. She rang me, and
she said, ‘Mel, I believe in your idea, we want to give you a scholarship!’ I
wasjustgoing,‘IsthisreallyLayneBeachley?’”Melrecalls,laughing.“That
was a great moment, because there was an Australian icon telling me,
‘Not only do I believe in your idea, but I am going to throw my whole
community behind you.’”
GET WITH THE PROGRAM
‘Kyup’ is a Korean word used in martial arts, meaning ‘to shout’. Mel
explains that it’s all about giving girls a voice. “What’s really important
to me is creating a space where girls don’t have to worry about feeling
uncomfortable – people are counting on that. So I feel if I have 100 girls
screaming at me then I have done my job. If I walked out the door then,
I did what I had to do: I’ve made them feel uncomfortable, push through
it and open their voice.”
The KYUP! program draws on Mel’s personal training and experience,
and is designed to give girls the best tools to defend themselves. “KYUP! is
based on the principles of self-defence: self-worth, courage, taking a stand,
speaking out and using your voice, and ethical bystanding. I did hapkido,
the Korean art of self-defence, and I’ve taken that specialist self-defence
training and my own unique perspective [to the KYUP! program],” Mel
explains. “Only another woman knows what it’s like to feel unsafe [as a
woman]. I’ve trained with the most incredible men, but they don’t get it …
theyjusthavenoideawhatit’sliketohaveamanstandtooclosetoyouon
the train, and you’re not going to bust out any commando moves at that
moment. I’ve taken that, and I have taken my own personal story to create
somethingthatmovedbeyondawarenessandintopassion–becausethat’s
what we need when it comes to violence against women and children.”
What sets the program apart is that it goes far deeper than just learning
about well-placed kicks and hits. Mel’s passion and care for the girls she
teaches comes through in her voice as she speaks about her methods.
“We talk about self-worth: if you don’t know what makes you special, if
you don’t know what makes you awesome, you might not stand up for
yourself or fight for your life if you have to,” Mel says. “And then we talk
about intuition. I am always surprised that eight times out of 10 nobody
can tell me what intuition is!We talk about awareness, but not in a daggy
way – everything is supposed to be uplifting and inspiring.We talk about
de-escalation: ‘faking it till you make it’. I tell girls stories of what I have
done, of people that I know, on how to get yourself out of a situation that
doesn’t feel right; using your smarts before your brawn. Then we do head,
shoulders, knees and toes of self-defence. They learn how to get out of
someone pulling their hair, or someone attacking and choking them or
grabbing them from behind, front and sides and we learn how to run and
shout. Oh my gosh, we do so much shouting!” Mel laughs.
NO BOUNDARIES
Finding the strength to talk about her difficult past and channel it into
something positive has been one of the greatest obstacles for Mel. “I can
speak openly now. I have written things for newspapers, I have talked
about my personal experiences, but that was something that I couldn’t
force, that came to me,” she says. “One of the biggest challenges I had was
the fear of people judging me and thinking that I was ‘less than’, and it’s
actually turned out to be very much the opposite. All the stereotypes we
have around domestic violence – one of my amazing gifts is to be able
to break that down and say that, well, hang on a second, there are no
boundaries. It doesn’t matter where you are from: culture, geography,
wealth – it just doesn’t matter.Violence has no boundaries.”
So what’s next for KYUP!? “As it’s nationwide, I have presenters that
have been trained up, and I hope to grow that – I want to have an army
of ninjas over the next five years!” Mel says. “The past two years I’ve been
giving girls a voice, now I want to take KYUP! and start taking violence
prevention education and helping boys as well. Confused boys are
just as confused as the girls,” she says. “I also want to do more with the
universities, I want to get more data. I want to get some research around
what I know to be true. That’s a big mission, so that’s on the agenda.”
Fore more info, see kyupproject.com.au.
“ONE OF THE BIGGEST
CHALLENGES I
HAD WAS THE FEAR OF
PEOPLE JUDGING ME AND
THINKING THAT I WAS ‘LESS
THAN’ – IT’S ACTUALLY
TURNED OUT TO BE VERY
MUCH THE OPPOSITE.”
“WE TALK ABOUT
SELF-WORTH: IF
YOU DON’T KNOW
WHAT MAKES
YOU SPECIAL, IF
YOU DON’T KNOW
WHAT MAKES
YOU AWESOME,
YOU MIGHT NOT
STAND UP FOR
YOURSELF OR
FIGHT FOR YOUR
LIFE IF YOU
HAVE TO.”