In a crowded room, you wouldn’t expect Heidi Sarmiento-Wilson to be able to take you down in seconds. But she can.
It’s another Wednesday morning in San Diego State University’s recreation center, and Sarmiento-Wilson is teaching her third Women’s Self-Defense session of the day. The class is taught in the mat studio, where punching bags sway along the sides of the room and an array of young women pair up to practice the technique of the day.
Sarmiento-Wilson surveys the room, correcting students when necessary and laughing along with them as they try out moves they’ve never done before. The room is filled with young women, each on a personal journey, one that Sarmiento-Wilson has embarked on herself.
“I see myself in a lot of the women. Not only was I that tiny little 100-pound person when I was a student here, but I was the one that looked scared. I was the one that was unsure of herself,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “So I can pick it up in some women in my class and go, ‘God, I'm so happy they're here,’ because I want to see a transformation.”
Inspiring transformation in others is the crux of Sarmiento-Wilson’s work, and self-defense is at the center of that mission. She teaches martial arts and self-defense classes at SDSU, Mesa College and Cuyamaca College, and kinesiology at Steele Canyon High School. On any given weekday, Sarmiento-Wilson is instructing at three different campuses, and on weekends she works with her personal training clients.
Sarmiento-Wilson, a black belt in multiple martial arts and an accomplished boxer, is constantly immersed in her work.
“I don't expect everybody to learn every single throw and technique, but if you walk away with a good handful of them, at least you have a plan for it,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “I want people to walk away with a mindset, with an attitude that says, ‘Not me. Not today. I'm going to make you pay.’”
The Start of a Lifelong Journey
As a child, Sarmiento-Wilson never envisioned that her life would take her to where she is now. Her father was physically abusive throughout her childhood, and she cycled through the foster care system. These experiences, she said, led her self-esteem to be low and made it difficult to seek out healthy romantic relationships.
“When you grow up in abuse and foster care, you don’t see the future,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “If someone would’ve told me then that this is what I would be doing now, I wouldn’t have believed them. I think my younger self would marvel. I think she would be proud.”
Sarmiento-Wilson studied at SDSU for many years, earning her bachelor’s degree in nutrition, her master’s degree in public health and another master’s degree in nutrition with a chemistry minor. She also worked as a fitness instructor at the Aztec Recreation Center as a student.
During her time at SDSU, she experienced many instances of sexual harassment, which she shares with her self-defense students. Through her vulnerability, she hopes that other women can see themselves in her and feel less alone.
Her journey in martial arts didn’t truly begin until after she decided to leave an abusive romantic relationship. Sarmiento-Wilson enrolled herself in martial arts training, where she developed her zeal for self-defense and met her late husband, James Wilson, who was the instructor at the dojo she was attending. In a particular class early in her training, Sarmiento-Wilson recalled a pivotal interaction with Wilson.
“I started crying when he was choking me, and he trained us to get out of it. But at that moment, I had a flashback. I was completely frozen. He said, ‘Your tears mean nothing to me.’ I was like, ‘What an asshole.’ I'm dating this man and he's being such a jerk to me,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “But then he said, ‘I have to be this mean because a guy out there is going to be meaner, uglier and he's not going to care that you've had a bad experience. I trained you to get out of it. Get out of it.’
“I was able to get out of it. I cussed him out. I left. I roamed around in my car and then came back to apologize. He pulled me into his office and he said, ‘Use this. Whoever's in front of you, they become him. I don't care if you're crying. Cry. Get it out.’ That was so long ago…but that was a total turning point for me. And that was where I found a true passion.”
Initially in her teaching career, Sarmiento-Wilson was only instructing academic classes, but when she got the opportunity to teach a kickboxing class, she entered the world of teaching self-defense and martial arts and never turned back.
Part of her motivation to share her knowledge comes from her desire to carry on her husband’s legacy. Wilson, who died in 2015, was a grandmaster in martial arts, a local judge, a law professor, husband to Sarmiento-Wilson and father to their three kids.
“I married Superman. I know he's looking down proud like, ‘That's my wife. She continued with this journey,’” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “This is a passion for me. I would do this without getting paid, and I've done that. There's a little saying that when you find what you’re passionate about, you never work a day in your life. And that's what I feel.”
Building a Community of Empowerment
Sarmiento-Wilson is a busy woman.
Teaching 28 classes a week at multiple campuses, most of which involve physical activity, would be a challenge to anyone. For Sarmiento-Wilson, it’s a challenge she is glad to take on – with the help of a few snacks and some power naps. Her commitment to empowering women is obvious to her students.
“What’s special about the way that Coach Heidi teaches women is her empowering attitude and her patience to go through techniques slowly and with a full explanation of why it’s an important skill,” SDSU Women’s Self-Defense student Virginia Nguyen said. “She’s special because she has a very well-rounded background in mixed martial arts. It makes me fully believe in her knowledge.”
Many students also attribute Sarmiento-Wilson’s effectiveness to her being a fellow woman.
“The man who teaches self-defense, when I've gone to that person's class, there's value in it, but he presents it as if a guy jumps out of the bushes. He does that and I'm sort of rolling my eyes – I’m not saying that doesn't happen – but those ones get reported,” Sarmiento-Wilson said.
“The ones that I care about are the multitude of women that never report it because they're in a relationship with the guy or used to be. That’s who attacks women: people they know. Their brother's friend or co-worker, their boss, their boyfriend or ex-boyfriend, their husband, their father, their uncle. That's who attacks women. And that's why we're in shock and we're blaming ourselves, because we believe we should have seen the signs, or we didn't call it out, or we're literally having an out-of-body experience watching ourselves get raped.”
The Women’s Self-Defense courses that Sarmiento-Wilson teaches are personal for her. She develops relationships with her students, many of them confiding in her and finding solace in her classes.
“Every semester, I'll have a woman stay after [class] and talk to me and tell me about how she was attacked or she's in an abusive relationship, And I count it as an honor that she would share it with me,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “I've been there as a victim so I can spot them in the class sometimes.”
In 2022, a student in her self-defense class created a TikTok account for her and one of her instructional videos went viral overnight, garnering around 7,000 followers. Today, her TikTok account has nearly 40,000 followers, and her most popular video has over 500,000 views. Sarmiento-Wilson says this speaks to the need for her content.
“I'm not the first woman ever to get attacked, and I won't be the last,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “That's why I started training: because I was a victim and I became a survivor. And now I'm a warrior.”
Looking to the Future
Beyond her teaching endeavors, Sarmiento-Wilson seeks to create space for women to feel powerful. This was part of her motivation for founding the Southern California Women’s Boxing Network. The program, aimed at giving female boxers a way to spar with and support one another, started with just three women but now includes 40 women.
“There's a common denominator with the women that I know that have gotten into boxing later on in life like myself,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “We've been victims. We've had bad relationships, and boxing is our therapy. Martial arts is my therapy.”
The network is home to female boxers of all ages and experience levels, some members even being professional MMA fighters and national champions. Currently, Sarmiento-Wilson is in the process of making the network a nonprofit and establishing a sister chapter in Los Angeles.
“We go to a boxing gym and men don't take us seriously until we actually do something. And then they’re like, ‘Hey, she's pretty badass,’” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “That's because most of the coaches in boxing are men until you get more women there.”
In addition to teaching and running the WBN, she leads women’s self-defense seminars for sororities and businesses to continue to spread the word.
“I think there's always going to be a need for it because, unfortunately, women are going to get victimized until society changes or until men stop victimizing women,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “The whole culture needs to change for that not to exist.”
All three of Sarmiento-Wilson’s children, now adults, learned self-defense growing up. Her dedication and love for martial arts permeate every aspect of her life.
“I see my sisters – one’s a marketing director and one’s a software engineer. They make so much more money than me, but they are so miserable,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “I wouldn't trade with them. I really wouldn't. I wouldn't trade lives. You can have more money than me. That's fine. You can drive something better. You can have a bigger house, but I'm happy.”
For Sarmiento-Wilson, preparation equals prevention. She works every day to prepare herself, and the women around her, so that they are never caught off guard again.
“When I have a woman who I’m going to promote to black belt, and I know how she started, that’s a big deal for me,” Sarmiento-Wilson said. “When I see someone’s journey, that’s when I feel the most powerful. To me, my power isn’t in me, it’s in what I produce. I’m just a vehicle. I don’t want it to stop with me. So many women need this. You guys are my trophies.”
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