>From the gym to the gun range, anti-fascists across the country are training to take on the far right.
>Gym members drift in through the door of the Breakaway Social Center in the Little Village neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. The two-story corner building was once home to a $10-a-haircut barbershop, but now the walls are lined with posters bearing anarchist symbols and advertising a recent lecture on militant suffragettes.
>The couches are pushed back to the walls, next to shelves stacked with political journals. On the floor, warm-ups begin. The class splits into small groups to learn a couple new moves — thrust kicks, palm heel strikes.
>Lean in, turn hips for momentum, and follow through once, striking the jaw — that’s how to punch a neo-Nazi.
>One of the gym’s organizers, who goes by Meyer Lanski (a play on the Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky), instructs participants to stand in line. Lanski, 32, holds out a kick shield and braces himself to receive their blows. Even some of the new participants are landing their kicks. Within the hour, the women and men start sparring, learning self-defense tactics they can use in their private lives, or at protests.
>Members of Haymaker and other more militant anti-fascist factions consider the far right a threat, and one they must physically prepare to defend themselves from. As reports of hate speech and violence have dominated this past year, antifa say their membership is increasing not just with militants, but also with people who have been targets of racism and bigotry. The methods they choose to employ are as diverse as their ranks — with some taking up arms and others turning to hand-to-hand combat. Beyond just self-defense, the increasing intensity on both sides could mean bigger brawls than anything seen at Charlottesville, with neither side prepared to step down.
>“At the end of the day, stronger people are harder to kill,” Lanski said.
