Professor Jane Carr, 10th degree black belt, whom I'd known for nearly 40 years, died early in March at 83, following health problems, the details of which I'm not privy to, that culminated in a severe stroke.
Prof. Carr started practicing jujitsu in 1960 not long after her first or second daughter was born. She was school head of the Redding Jujitsu Academy for at least the last 45 years, I think longer.
She was incredibly tough and consequently got hurt many times when she was coming up through the ranks. Bad knees, bad shoulders, thrown on her head once, etc. I remember her saying sometime in the last few years that she hoped the folks she was talking to - in a class or a side conversation - would be more careful with their bodies than she was.
She taught Danzan Ryu jujitsu and, not at all incidentally, some very serious self-defense classes. I was once present when she described how she ran the final class: she divided up her dojo, which is quite large, into screened-off sections, with one self-defense student in each, and then she would enter each section and attack, with the student having to then defend herself against a high-ranking black belt. If you survived that, well, you were well-equipped to survive a physical attack by a less-well-equipped person.
Prof. Carr taught these classes in part because of her own history of childhood sex abuse, I think by a family member. She was extremely forthright about this, unusual, I think, for a woman of her generation.
She had thousands of students over the years, in part because she had a large and active kids' program. I saw her teach a kids' class once and it was inspirational. She had rules and expectations that the kids would follow them; she was completely respectful of them as individuals, and she knew how to safely challenge them to their limits.
She was married four times (twice divorced, twice widowed) and had two daughters from her first marriage; she had several grandchildren.
She was enormously influential in the American Judo & Jujitsu Foundation and trained I-don't-know-how-many black belts, as well as being sensei to two other women currently on the AJJF board of professors, one her own daughter. I have fond memories of a short self-defense class that she taught at camp one year; I had bruises from blocking full-speed strikes for a week. And also fond memories of her beautiful jujitsu; at the 2015 AJJF convention, when she was 75 I remember her demonstrating techniques from one of the advanced lists of techniques, and I'll tell you that I have not seen them done more beautifully than she did them that day.
When I started jujitsu in 1982, Prof. Carr and Prof. Betty Maillette, who founded my first dojo, were the only active professors who were women. They were very different in teaching style and how they lived their lives. They were not natural allies and I suspect that there might have been some friction between them. I've always been sorry about that, while understanding the reasons. They were both important to my training, and because Prof. Maillette retired from jujitsu around when I started, I had quite a bit more mat time with Prof. Carr. Because I was in Prof. Maillette's dojo and a student of her students, I still trained more in her tradition than Prof. Carr's.
RIP Laurel Jane Carr-Rhyn, to give her her full name as printed in her obit. All of Danzan Ryu will miss you.
