I was lost, having had little education in the field at that point and I was angry about and intimidated by the whole subject. Talking to her one-on-one I often had the stark sense that, “This woman is staring directly into my brain,” I wanted to dive out the window. One of her photos hangs in our apartment, another graced the cover of a book I wrote.

In the martial arts form of aikido, the intention is not to hurt the other person with your own force, but to use their force to put them in a position where they cannot hurt you. There are no punches or kicks to throw. One is supposed to take the opponent’s momentum and sweep them along, dropping them in a place they didn’t mean to be. This is what Sandra Ullmann did for me, taking the motivation I wasn’t acknowledging and gently throwing me into a place I never expected. Without her interventions, this tug of the sleeve and a hip-check spin, I think my life would be much poorer. I hope she knew this.