Episode #67: Self-Defense + Empowerment w/Tasha Ina Church

Pax Tandon is an author, producer, wellness advocate, and teacher. Her book, Mindfulness Matters, was released in 2018, alongside her Mindfulness Matters short film, which she co-produced, co-wrote, voiced & starred in. Tandon holds a Master’s Degree in Positive Psychology, earned a BSE from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania & a BA in Psychology from the College. She also holds a Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology, a Certificate in Positive Psychology Coaching, 200 hours of yoga teacher training, & a certificate of training in Past Life Regression Therapy. Enjoy listening!

Molly Singer is the quirky down-to-earth type of person you could sit and speak to for hours. Molly Singer has over twenty five years of experience building effective strategies, programs, and teams to achieve ambitious goals to expand opportunities in communities. She comes to ESD Global from Washington DC where she was the executive director of Capitol Hill Village, a model and leader among the Village movement in the United States. Singer has distinguished her career by focusing on equity and inclusivity of populations, before those terms were popular. Enjoy listening to Molly share her story!

Meg Stone is the Executive Director of IMPACT and the Project Director of IMPACT:Ability. Meg has led IMPACT since 2005 and in that time she has led the development of abuse prevention and safety training programs for schools, homeless shelters, rape crisis centers, disability service agencies and domestic violence organizations. Meg’s writing about abuse-related issues has been published in the Washington Post, Ms., WBUR’s Cognoscenti, the Huffington Post, and the Patriot Ledger. For more check out the interview and learn of her great work in the ESD Community.

I got to meet with the IMPACT Personal Safety Team and wow! What an amazing experience! What is IMPACT Personal Safety? IMPACT is an organization of women and men working together to end the cycle of violence. It is a global organization focused on violence prevention, personal safety, and empowerment self-defense. In this interview, we get to meet Dani, Jennifer, Nicole, and Don. What a great team of knowledgeable individuals!

I met the IMPACT Personal Safety team in during my training through IMPACT Global in November 2021.

Gentiana Susaj graduated in Law from Tirana University and post university studies in International Migration, Human Rights and Development by FLACSO University in Ecuador. She is the first Albanian women with a black belt (Shodan) in Aikido. With over 200 hours of seminars with Yamada Sensei, 8th Dan Aikikai, and Senseis of Sansuiaki Federation in Europe and Latin America. In 2017, she began combining her experience on human rights with the Aikido for empowerment for victims of trafficking in human beings and women and girls. In 2019, she was certified for Empowerment through Self Defense, by ESD Global Self Defense, in New York. In the last year, she has trained over 450 women and youth in Albania.

Toby Israel is an Empowerment Self-Defense Instructor in Costa Rica. She shared her empowerment journey and current work on The Empowered Hour, ElleLiveAction’s Talk Series.

She searches for dragons, searches for cross-cultural understanding—and then shares those discoveries with you. Here is her interview on ESD, Vagabondess the book, and her yoga/empowerment self-defense retreats. Listen, learn, grow.

To watch her interview click the video and enjoy!

Ron Ragusa been training in Aikido for 45 years & Mary C. Eastland for 35 years. They operate a dojo in Great Barrington Massachusetts. They both trained under Shuji Maruyama, founder of Kokikai Aikido until 2001 when they decided to become an independent dojo. They have been my Sensei's for over a year and I love their energy! Listen, learn, hear their journey! Love what you hear? Tap on the link and enjoy hearing about their empowerment journey and work co-teaching Aikido.

Yehudit Sidikman is a philanthropist and social entrepreneur who goes beyond vision, implementing solutions through action. She has founded both non-profit organizations and private companies dedicated to teaching Empowerment Self Defense (ESD), violence prevention, and personal safety strategies to all who want and need them.

She has spent 25 years focused on Empowerment Self-Defense. She is currently the CEO of MyPwr.

I met Erin Jones over 14 years ago and have seen her transformative journey as a leader, a public speaker, and an Equity and Education consultant. Erin Jones is an Independent Education and Systems Consultant, a Public Speaker, as well as, Former Candidate for State Superintendent (OSPI). Jones has been involved in and around schools for 30 years.

I have been friends with Erin for over 13 years and she is a powerhouse in the world. She has so much valuable knowledge to share. Enjoy!

Sheila is an empowerment self-defense (ESD) professional, a 4th Degree Black Belt in Chang Hon (ITF) TaeKwon-Do, and a personal trainer. She is the owner and head instructor of Iron Fan Martial Arts and Empowerment and has been practicing martial arts and ESD for nearly 20 years.

Sheila was a mentor of mine in ESD. Sheila is highly skilled and is now teaching across the globe.

Meet Nina Mercié, a Vibrant Lifestylista who is part of the High Performance Launch Pad! She does private coaching, challenges, and programs to drastically improve people’s lives. I met Nina in 2010 at the HayHouse Publishing Cruise along with a bunch of amazing ladies, some who became friends for life.

The Empowered Hour: Interview with Nina Mercié: Heal Your Heart in 7 Days

Nicole Snell is the CEO of Girls Fight Back, and is a dynamic international speaker, advocate and full-contact self-defense instructor specializing in sexual assault and violence prevention education, and empowerment. Nicole is an outdoor enthusiast and created Outdoor Defense, an IGTV/YouTube series, to combine her loves of nature and self-defense education to provide safety strategies to encourage people to enjoy the outdoors solo.

For more on her work, click on the interview on the left!

The Empowered Hour: Interview with Jackie Hyman, an Empowerment Self-Defense Instructor in Israel. Coming from a mother's perspective no matter the side you are on, things look different. While there are sides, this is more of a look at what is happening on the ground level, with families; the worries, the stressors, the fears, along with the hope for a better tomorrow. Jackie Hyman creates safe spaces for women and teen girls to step in their full power, through self-defense and fitness. She is a mother of three, brown belt in Kung Fu, senior Empowerment Self-Defense instructor, co-founder and CEO of her own venture Queen Rise Power Training, spreader of spiritual teachings about the Divine Feminine, and host of the female empowerment podcast Queen Rise Radio.

The Empowered Hour interviews those working on empowering others throughout the globe. Empowerment Self-Defense Instructor and Martial Arts Instructor Silvia Smart is one such person. With over three decades of experience teaching self-defense, host Silvia Smart is a sixth-degree black belt and Head Instructor at her martial arts school in Oregon. Smart was recognized for her dedication when the Association of Women’s Martial Arts Instructors inducted her into their Hall of Fame class of 2020. For more on her work, click the video & see the YouTube subscription.

The Empowered Hour: Interview with Empowerment Self-Defense Instructor and MMA Fighter, Rachel Collins. Rachel Collins is a self-defense instructor currently based in the Pacific Northwest United States who has been organizing for access to empowerment-based self-defense and martial arts training since 2013. She is a dedicated student of martial arts and combat sports, and made her amateur mixed martial arts (MMA) fight debut in May 2021.

We met at the 2019 ESD Global Training in Upstate NY.

The Missing Link — What is Missing for BIPOC Communities in Self-Defense Trainings

Empowerment Self-Defense is about supporting people from all walks of life surrounding violence prevention. The Empowered Hour: The Missing Link — What is Missing for BIPOC Communities in Self-Defense Trainings & How Can Practitioners Educate Themselves to Be Better Equipped to Serve. This interview goes over how to cater and teach to different backgrounds.

Hear Differences from some of the most Bad*ss Females of our generation doing both!

Aloha from Maui! I have had so many young & seasoned self-defense practitioners come to me saying they same thing. It is such a challenge at times explaining to people, mostly male, mostly martial artists or other fighters, what the vast difference is between martial arts and self-defense. How their work (as martial arts instructors) is like night and day to an Empowerment Self-Defense Instructor’s work. In this episode, I had the pleasure to interview veteran martial artists who are also Empowerment Self-Defense Instructors and Practitioners.

The Empowered Hour: Interview with Producer of Beauty Bites Beast

Ellen Snortland’s book, Beauty Bites Beast, has been featured on NPR and Dateline NBC. She and her writing partner, Lisa Gaeta wrote The Safety Godmothers. Ellen’s TEDxPasadena talk encapsulates decades of her self-defense advocacy. http://tinyurl.com/tedx-ellen​ A long time women’s rights advocate, she has had a column in the Pasadena Weekly for decades. Snortland is a writing coach on-line with www.authorbitebybite.com of which she is the founder. Her acclaimed one woman show, “Now That She’s Gone” is a memoir about growing up Norwegian American in Colorado and South Dakota staged at the Edinburgh and New York Fringe festivals. Snortland has attended United Nations world conferences and annual UN meetings as an NGO delegate, self-defense advocate and UN Press Corps credentialed journalist. “Beauty Bites Beast,” a full length documentary feature based on her self-defense advocacy has screened all over the world including New York, Islamabad and Jerusalem. You can view the movie’s teaser here: http://tinyurl.com/BBB-Trailer-2016​

The Empowered Hour: Interviewing Co-Founder & Co-Owner of Thrive Self-Defense

Lauren Bailey is a cofounder of Thrive Empowerment Center, which offers practical, female-led, trauma-informed assault-resistance education and therapeutic programming to the Greater Cincinnati area.