The foundation of the joy, fun, and power of our Kidpower programs is in large part thanks to Co-Founder Timothy Dunphy’s deep commitment, expertise, healing energy, and love.
Timothy recently told me, “My life work is to focus on the vibrations of TRUST, JOY, and GRATITUDE to bring every part of ourselves into harmony with everything and everyone – including each other, our earth, and the universe!”
Timothy is recognized by the World Taekwondo Federation as a Master Instructor and holds an 8th degree blackbelt. He is also a Reiki Master and provides Chi-Aura Energy Integration workshops and healing sessions for people all over the world.
Please join me in celebrating Master Timothy’s birthday as he turns 80 years young on May 13, 2026.
I hope you will enjoy these short stories about our partnership during Kidpower’s early years.
Over the years, our partnership and Kidpower grew through heartwarming experiences like these.
Click a title below to see more stories:
Breaking the Board
In 1989, the year Kidpower began, Timothy, Jerilyn (a master Aikido teacher) and I were sitting in Timothy’s back yard, talking. Some planning for Kidpower. Some getting to know each other.
I was still feeling sad because of having just left another organization of mostly martial artists because we were better off working separately rather than together.
“Before all this happened, the main thing I really knew about martial artists was that they broke boards,” I said wistfully. “And, I never got to see anybody break a board!”
Timothy grinned. “Do you want to see me break a board, Irene?”
“Really? … Sure!” Then I got nervous. “But you can’t hurt yourself or anything. I mean we need you for our class.”
Timothy laughed and then looked around until he found a satisfactory piece of wood. Holding it in one hand, he hit it with the other. It didn’t break. and the thunk sounded like he must have hurt his hand.
“Be careful!” I worried.
Timothy ignored me and hit the board again. It still didn’t break, and he winced a bit.
Part of me felt guilty for asking and really wanted him to stop. But more of me felt that what was happening was somehow important. So I stayed silent.
Then Timothy gathered in all his concentration and focus, and I could feel him aim it at that piece of wood. This time, even though he seemed to barely tap the board, it fell into two pieces.
Later, I thought about how when all of Timothy’s will focused on that board, it broke.
I realized, if we were ever going to make Kidpower a reality, this was what we were going to have to do.
I asked Timothy for those two pieces of broken board, and he gave them to me. Many years later, they still sit on my desk.
Coffee or Tea?
It was about 5 a.m. We had to leave very early to catch an airplane on the first trip Jerilyn, Timothy, and I took together. Timothy slept at my house to save the extra drive from Watsonville.
I tapped gently at the door of the room where he was sleeping. ”Good morning, Timothy!” I called out joyously to him. “Would you like coffee or tea?”
”Oh no!” he groaned. “I’m in terrible trouble!”
”Why?”
“Because you sound so happy! At this hour! And what am I supposed to do when you ask me like that if I would like coffee or tea?”
I decided not to try to answer that question since he was doing what I wanted anyway by waking up. “So,” I asked cheerfully, “What will it be–coffee or tea?”
“I think I need coffee!” he muttered, giving up….and getting up.
No More Hiding Behind the Helmet
Like many men who use the head-to-toe padded suit to help teach self-defense skills, Timothy was extremely attached to the security blanket of being inside his helmet whenever he was acting like an attacker.
“That won’t work with kids!” I told him. “Unless they are actually fighting with you, they need to see your face!”
“They will mix up the real me with the attacker!” Timothy worried.
“Kids are smarter than that!” I told him. “Besides, the children need to know that someone who looks as…as WONDERFUL as you do could still be dangerous to them.”
The look on Timothy’s face was one I was getting to know–and enjoy–because that particular glint in his eyes and half smile meant: I’m not used to this, kiddo… but you win!
Chi 😉
Timothy, Jerilyn, and I were flying back on the airplane after our first Reno workshop.
“At the graduation, I noticed something strange,” I told them. “Every time the kids did an eyestrike, I could see flashes of light around the helmet. What do you suppose that was?”
Timothy’s and Jerilyn’s eyes lit up. This is the sort of stuff martial artists live for.
They embarked on a very esoteric discussion about the forces of chi, which went literally right over my head, while I sat between them on the airplane, still puzzling.
When I figured it out, they had evolved such amazing theories that I hated to disappoint them. Oh, well.
“It was the flashbulbs,” I explained. “Every time the kids did an eyestrike, somebody took a picture. The angle of the light from where I was made it look like the helmet was lighting up.”
The crestfallen looks on their faces made me feel like I had taken candy away from a couple of babies.
Pygmalion
At first, I never intended to teach the physical self-defense. It seemed just too hard for me, between my physical dyslexia, my aversion to fighting, and my utter lack of confidence.
I was there to organize the program; co-lead the boundary-setting, help-seeking, and awareness practices; and manage the parents and kids. I figured it was better to have the martial artists- Jerilyn and Timothy -lead the physical stuff.
But then Jerilyn wasn’t able to continue teaching with us, which meant that I was the only person available to teach the physical self-defense skills with Timothy.
The first time I stood next to Timothy on the mat in front of those kids, I was really scared. He smiled at me reassuringly, utterly committed to making things work.
It seemed stupid to me not to use this talented man for his talents. “You know how to teach these fighting techniques, and I really don’t,” I told him. “You teach and use me as a helper.”
So Timothy did, class after class. He used me to demonstrate, his body guiding mine so that I just couldn’t do the techniques wrong, until I could finally teach on my own.
When my balance was shaky, his arms kept me from falling down, until my confidence grew strong enough that I could finally stand up there on my own.
And when my heart was shaky from the trauma of the bad training experiences I had had early on, he sheltered me with his spirit, until I finally healed.
And class after class, during the parent’s workshops, I would introduce myself as, “I’m not a self-defense teacher, just here to help.”
Then one day after class, Timothy said, “Irene, I know you always say that you are not a self-defense instructor. But today, when you were coaching that girl who didn’t know you to hit hard, you told her to knock my head off my shoulders and smash it into the wall like a pumpkin. And she gave a big whack to my helmet! So please tell me, what exactly what kind of teacher WERE you, when you said that?”
The look on my face was one Timothy was beginning to know–and enjoy– because my downcast eyes and shy half smile meant: I hate having anybody tell me what to do, but oh all right! … you win!
Teamwork
Irene: (matter-of factly) “I know you think it’s unreasonable, but we really need to teach the kids to ___________________ (something important), Timothy.”
Timothy:(scornfully) “It IS unreasonable, and that idea absolutely won’t work!”
Irene: (very sweetly) “Surely with all your years of martial arts experience, you could figure something out.”
Timothy: (pondering) “Well, I suppose we could try ________________ (something brilliant).”
Irene: (enthusiastically): GREAT!
Beautiful Sweat
I really don’t mind the smell of sweat, and certainly not sweat generated in the kind of work we do, but Timothy was obsessed with not smelling sweaty. He doused his equipment in minty alcohol until it started to give him an allergic reaction. He aired it and washed it. And incensed it and meditated over it.
He did sweat a lot sometimes. One time, we were being filmed by a TV crew for The Home Show. Timothy was in the middle of teaching something to the students.
“Can I interview him now?” asked the camera man.
”Please wait until Timothy’s done.” I told him.
”But I want to capture that beautiful sweat on camera!” the camera man explained.
I laughed. “Honest! Timothy won’t run out of beautiful sweat!”
I thought Timothy smelled fine, but he kept working on it. He’d try anything. The worst was when he put the Pine Sol room deodorizer tube someone gave him as a joke into his equipment bag and forgot about it.
The next time we were in a class together, Timothy definitely did not smell like sweat. Instead, he reeked of artificial pine trees. The smell was so intense, it made me dizzy. I tried not to stand right next to him.
Poor man, he was dizzy too. Of course, since he was wearing the equipment, he had no escape from himself.
During one of our workshops, a little girl started crying and crying in a way that had us worried that something bad might have already happened to her.
As always, Timothy and I worked together to help her to be successful in kicking him. Even when her foot was inches away from his groin protector, he would leap into the air as if he had been hit.
Then this child whispered to me, “Timothy smells.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “He does.”
“I think he smells like pee,” she whispered.
In one of those intuitive leaps that one can’t quite explain, I asked her, “Do YOU need to pee?”
“Yes!” she whimpered.
“Well go to the bathroom!” I pointed the way and she went running off in relief. When she came back, she had fun the rest of the class. (And later, Timothy and his suit had a very long hot bath.)
“Now, Irene….”
For a long time, anything in a fight that looked unsafe was apt to trigger me into glowering and muttering abrupt comments into someone’s helmet.
Timothy saw it as part of his job to protect the full-force instructors we were training from my overreaction. After all, they had enough to deal with without trouble from me.
In one class, a fellow new to being in his suit picked up a student awkwardly, slipped on his own sweat, and dropped the child onto the mat. He turned to Timothy and said, “Oops!” The child bounced up and ran to safety.
A frown on my face, I came bustling over. A grinning Timothy blocked my path. “Now, Irene….” he said, sending waves of soothing energy over me.
I didn’t want any soothing, and I didn’t want any “Now, Irene” so I tried to walk around him.
I discovered after a moment that this was not so easy to do. Everywhere I tried to go, Timothy was in my way, smiling and soothing.
Finally I gave up and glared at him. “What!”
“Now, Irene…” Timothy grinned again. “I know that he dropped the kid. But did you see how gracefully he recovered and kept himself from stepping on him? Everybody’s safe and he’s learned from his mistake. Everything is okay.”
I contented myself with one more glare. “Oh….. Well…. all right then.”
Airport Psychopath
Timothy and I were using our time from an airplane delay at the Burbank Airport to prepare for our first middle school workshop.
We had asked the kids to write down the situations they wanted to practice handling, which were a lot more intense than what we had been doing with younger kids up to that point. We were trying to figure out the right language and intensity for this older age group.
Having had to contain his creativity within Kidpower boundaries all weekend, and more than a little annoyed at having to wait at the airport an extra hour, Timothy was in the mood to play a little rough.
He picked up a situation a student had described and said, “How about this, Irene?” He stood up and launched into acting like a fairly intense attacker, far beyond anything we would do in any workshop.
I stood in Ready Position, smiling up at him peacefully.
”Too much for you?” he asked aggressively, mugger style. “Hah! Well what about this?” He dramatically demonstrated another psychopath from his repertoire. And then another. And another.
I laughed at him the whole time. Then I noticed the stunned people in the waiting area, staring at both of us nervously, completely unable to imagine what was going on.
If Timothy had been doing this by himself, he could surely have been arrested. But he was directing his tirades at me, and my utter lack of concern had everyone floored.
Oh well, we surely gave our fellow passengers something interesting to watch until the plane was ready to take off.
The Snowball Effect
The first time we were teaching in a place with snow, I innocently picked up a handful of the interesting white stuff and glanced at Timothy, not a thought in my mind about what to do with it. (Well, you don’t have to believe this if you don’t want to.)
Timothy gasped, shook a finger at me, and said sternly, “Don’t you dare throw that snow at me!”
”Huh?” I grinned at him and raised my hand to show my friend the pretty snow.
Timothy jumped into the air with a wild yell and started running down the street.
Now I know what happens to dogs when cats run away. I couldn’t resist chasing him, tossing snow in his direction pretty inefficiently the whole way.
After that, snowball fights became a tradition. It was an equal contest. Of course, Timothy was much faster and stronger and could dodge better and had much better aim than I did. But I was trickier, waiting until some off guard moment to start, and more relentless, counting myself successful if I got any snow on him at all, no matter how much snow ended up on me.
As our organization kept growing, our trips together became less frequent. On one weekend, Timothy was in Colorado Springs and I was in Boulder, Colorado, over 100 miles apart.
Well, there was a fair amount of snow too lovely to waste on the ground. So I called to ask Jan Isaacs-Henry, our Kidpower Colorado Center Director, for some help.
At my request, Jan waited until Timothy was in a completely off guard moment. She threw a large snowball with perfect aim right onto Timothy’s astonished face.
Then she said, “This is from Irene. She says to tell you that community organizers can throw snowballs farther than martial artists can!”
A PERFECT Present!!
Once, I was suddenly overcome with temptation by a little battery-operated fire engine alarm clock on the sale table.
At the time set, it’s tiny wheels whirred, a loud siren went off, and an annoying voice shouted, ‘WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”
This is a PERFECT present for Timothy, I thought. And I know JUST when to give it to him.
A few weeks later, on one of our trips, I snuck into his bedroom while he was at dinner, and set the alarm clock to 6 am, when he would need to be getting up. I carefully put it under his bed, so he wouldn’t see it.
To my great astonishment and disappointment, it didn’t go off!!! After I woke Timothy up to get breakfast, I snuck it out of his bedroom and put it in my suitcase in my own bedroom.
The next night, at 3 am, the stupid thing DID go off, waking ME up. I staggered out of bed and around the room trying to remember where I had put it – and then had trouble figuring out how to turn it off.
It WAS a perfect present, just not in the way I had anticipated, because Timothy could not stop laughing when I confessed.
The Arm Pad
My brother Ken, who first brought Kidpower to Colorado, mailed me something that Timothy had accidentally left after a training session in Boulder.
I peeked inside the manila envelope and chuckled. It was the old arm pad from Timothy’s suit.
I pulled it out. The yellow arm pad was tattered a bit, but still usable. I smelled it. A hint of sweat, mint rubbing alcohol, and maybe even Pine Sol evoked memories of Timothy standing near me on the mat.
I hugged it for a moment, feeling happy. The arm inside this yellow piece of cloth didn’t let me fail, didn’t let me fall down, and didn’t let me stay hurting.
Where is Safety? I thought. Safety for me was always near Timothy.
He lent me his credibility in his martial arts world, until I had the chance to gain my own kind of credibility.
Even when I was often clumsy and had a squeaky voice and looked wimpy, he acted proud to be standing next to me on the mat.
He always honored what I could do well while helping me find ways to deal with what made this work hard for me.
The Power of What We CAN Do!
On the last long trip we took together, Timothy and I were in Montana, teaching Kidpower’s first workshop for adults with developmental disabilities.
As always happened when we moved into a new arena with our work, I struggled inside myself not to feel overwhelmed with the pain that people have already suffered and to focus instead on the power of what we are doing with them.
As always, I took great comfort from Timothy’s strong presence right by me, helping me make things work, figure things out, and not let anything go wrong.
One very bright young woman in the group had been severely disabled physically by a brain aneurysm. She sat propped in a wheelchair, barely able to move or speak. Definitely the most vulnerable person in the room.
So of course I asked Timothy to work with her I watched the compassion pouring from his being. My heart felt full watching the creative and non-judgmental ways he helped her practice over and over how set a boundary by using her motorized wheelchair to move back and her voice to make a noise – and the joy he shared with her in celebrating the power of what she COULD do.
Gratitude!
Although we now live on different continents, Timothy and I both remember the FUN we had working together. In my low times, he still is a generous, compassionate, and healing force in helping my spirit get back into balance.
Our conversations are full of laughter. We understand and trust each other. We never pretend to be perfect.
And, slowly, step by step, inch by inch, this community that Timothy, as he puts it, helped me create out of my imagination, keeps on growing!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR TIMOTHY!!!!!!
And, from me and the millions of people helped by Kidpower,
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Published: May 13, 2026 | Last Updated: May 13, 2026
Irene van der Zande, Kidpower Founder and Executive Director
Kidpower Founder and Executive Irene van der Zande is a master at teaching safety through stories and practices and at inspiring others to do the same. Her child protection and personal safety expertise has been featured by USA Today, CNN, Today Moms, the LA Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Publications include: cartoon-illustrated Kidpower Safety Comics and Kidpower Teaching Books curriculum; Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe; the Relationship Safety Skills Handbook for Teens and Adults; Earliest Teachable Moment: Personal Safety for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers; The Kidpower Book for Caring Adults: Personal Safety, Self-Protection, Confidence, and Advocacy for Young People, and the Amazon Best Seller Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels.