Our Story
Empowered Defense, LLC was founded in 2016 by Melissa Palmer. Melissa began her martial arts journey in 2009 at Karate International. She quickly recognized how martial arts benefited her as a female and gave her the ability to control and be responsible for her own safety. Having the ability to take care of herself gave her the freedom and confidence to live her life and do things on her own. Wanting to share this kind of freedom and self-confidence with others, whether they were interested in martial arts or not, she became very involved in Karate International’s Take Control Self-Defense program (read more below about Kathy Olevsky, aka Mrs. O, and her self-defense journey). Through the encouragement and mentorship of Mrs. O, Melissa took over the Take Control program as the head instructor, and expanded the types of classes offered and brought the classes to various groups in the community. Melissa’s purpose with Empowered Defense, LLC is to offer self-defense classes to anyone interested in learning how to defend themselves and provide help to survivors of abuse by giving them the knowledge and confidence to be able to protect themselves.
In 2018, at the request of a few Take Control students, she created Warrior Fitness, a martial arts insprired fitness program. The program is designed to work around all fitness level. It helps develop skills like endurance, speed, power, reaction time, and self-defense knowledge. It’s a fun and engaging workout that not only makes students sweat, but also layers in self-defense techniques to add a more offensive and aggressive side to self-defense training.
Melissa Palmer holds a 5th Degree Black Belt in Sanshinkai Karate, 4th Degree Black Belt in Sanshinkai Jujitsu, 1st Degree Black Belt in Judo and 2nd Brown in Iaijutsu. She has attended various seminars for Krav Maga, BJJ, and many other martial arts styles. In addition to teaching at the Karate International schools, she is also an adjunct professor at Meredith College teaching karate, self-defense, and kickboxing classes and runs a karate program at Carolina Country Club.
By continualy training in multiple arts and challenging herself as a martial artist to grow and learn, she is able to offer a unique opportunity to provide quality instruction that can be modified and customized for groups and individuals based on their needs and strengths.
Take Control Self- Defense was founded in 1985 by Kathy Olevsky (aka, Mrs. O). The birth of Take Control happened when Mrs. O was helping Mr. Welendorf as his assistant teaching self-defense classes for women. She realized that most of the techniques were more directed toward men and not as helpful for women. He challenged her to create a course that was based on what she had learned as a karate student that would actually benefit women. Mrs. O spent several years crafting something that could be taught in a few classes with very little practice. Some of the techniques were based on her life growing up in a family with 4 brothers. Some of it was based on her Karate training. Some of it was based on the flaws of the program that were shared with her from women that had participated in previous self-defense classes. After many reviews and modifications, the Take Control Self-Defense course was created and being taught to women with no martial arts experience. It’s original concept and design was to provide self-defense knowledge and techniques for women.
Kathy Olevsky is an 8th Degree Black Belt in Karate. She also holds a Brown Belt in Judo and a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Sanshinkai Jujitsu. She began her studies of the martial arts in 1978. Kathy is the managing partner in the group of Karate International schools in North Carolina. She teaches Black Belt classes and mentors the staff of all the Karate International locations. Kathy writes a monthly Blog for Karate International and is also a featured monthly columnist in MA Success Magazing. In addition, she is the author of the Take Control, a comprehensize book on Women’s Self Defense. Kathy is known for her abiliuty to evaluate and systemize martial arts schools and to help them reach their goals.