#60: Alex & Laurien Zurhake: The Many Ways Trauma Informed BJJ can Widen your Window of Tolerance
Alex and Laurien are two BJJ purple belts, active competitors and own a trauma informed martial arts and yoga school in Munich, Germany as well as Off The Zone, an online interactive platform where they help fellow martial artists to become trauma informed.
Georgia, Laurien and Alex discuss:
- Both their journeys from suffering sexual harrasment under a coach to founding a trauma informed school
- What trauma is
- What the difference is in their trauma informed school vs a regular bjj school
- The potential value of competitions
- Dealing with sexual harrassment at your school
- The pillars of the Off The Zone coaching program
- Why martial arts can be therapeutic
- And (of course) why people often say "Bjj saved them"
To connect with Alex and Laurien check out their website and their instagram. (@off_the_zone)
You can listen to the book Alex mentioned about play for free on Audible:
Title: Play it Away (A workaholic's cure for anxiety)
Author: Charlie Hoehn
Sign up to the Conscious Combat Club newsletter here to get the latest updates about mindful and trauma-informed martial arts practices, clubs and research.
Join the Conscious Combat Club on Facebook to meet fellow listeners of this podcast and help us transform martial arts into more inclusive sports for everybody.
If you'd like to join The Fight Back Project, you'll find the waitlists for Melbourne here and online here.
If this podcast has inspired you to create your own trauma-informed martial arts program, you can register for my 12 week online course here.
Thank you so much to Nari for the beautiful song "Shape Me" heard at the beginning and end of this episode. Nari wrote this song about Shape Your Life, a boxing program for self-identified female survivors of violence in Canada. She wrote this song using the words and experiences shared by participants with Cathy Van Ingen. You can find out more about Shape Your Life in my interview with Cathy in Episode 8. You can hear more of Nari's work by going to her Instagram: @narithesaga
