Our Mission IMPACT Personal Safety of Colorado is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to restoring empowerment and choice by equipping our participants with the emotional, verbal, and physical skills to move freely in the world.
Our Vision We envision a world in which human beings more deeply and authentically connect as they declare their individual boundaries and reclaim their inherent right and responsibility to universal safety & well-being.
What We Do
We teach practical skills to promote safety within the world. The skills we teach work in all scenarios, for all ages and body types, and are informed by the context of our culture. It is grounded in an understanding of social inequity and social justice and attempts to address the whole spectrum of violence within our society.
In short, we teach people to do whatever they need to do to help them feel safe, strong, and respected in all situations.
How We Got Started
Full force, full contact has its roots in early 1970s when martial artists developed a new form of self defense that would address the needs and capabilities of women, acknowledge women’s issues, and use training methods that featured more realism and therefore better results. In 1984, Lisa Gaeta (Impact Personal Safety’s founder) took a Model Mugging class and once she fought off the first mugger, she knew her life had changed. She trained to be an instructor and began to develop the verbal skills curriculum that is now so prevalent in all IMPACT classes.
Amelia Dorn received her instructor training from Lisa Gaeta and went on to found IMPACT Personal Safety of Colorado (IPSCO) in 2006. Lisa and the Southern California chapter sponsored the Colorado program until it was ready to stand as a fully developed chapter in 2012. IMPACT Personal Safety of Colorado has been at the front of developing innovative curriculum, such as our Empowered Family class (that teaches parents/guardians and children in conjunction), our Safe Schools training (to prepare students and faculty to handle any crisis that occurs at schools), or our Bystander Intervention training (provides realistic training in adrenalized states to help people learn how to safely intervene when witnessing harassment). IPSCO continues to partner deeply with IMPACT Personal Safety of Southern California and now sits as the Canada and United States Headquarters for Empowerment Self Defense Global— a global movement founded by Yudit Sidikmen (founder of El Halev– IMPACT’s Israel Chapter) designed to make empowerment self defense more accessible by training instructors all over the world.
IMPACT Colorado remains on the cutting edge of developing curriculum that serves to train traditionally underserved communities, prevent violence in any form, and reconnect everyone with their own power.
