Society Nine: The Fight Within Podcast

Ivy Richardson (she/her) is Nuxalk and Gusgimukw on her mom's side and Irish, Scottish and English on her dad's side. She is the founder of Red Girl Rising, a wellness-through-movement initiative and head coach of Team 700, Vancouver BC's first competitive Indigenous youth boxing team. She also is the co-founder of Matriarch Resistance which is a new initiative created in a direct response to the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2 spirit (MMIWG2S) crisis, the program is rooted in sisterhood and empowering Indigenous women and femmes. Ivy's experience as a competitive boxer, student and her working and lived experiences have guided her to become a community builder. She seeks to create a community that centres itself around accessible, safe and empowering movement programs. Follow her on Instagram: @ivyrichardson @team700bc @matriarchresistance Learn more about Red Girl Rising: https://www.redgirlrising.com/

**Disclaimer: mentions of disordered eating. Please listen at your own discretion. Today's episode features the founders of A La Ligne Method, Katie McKenzie and Taren Grewall, and newly joined boxing coach Anna Farrant! We chat at length with the team at House of A La Ligne about nervous system regulation when it comes to body movement choices, and we discuss complex but necessary topics like body, gender and racial privilege within the fitness industry, as well as the need to self define what empowered movement means for every individual. The House of A La Ligne is collective of practitioners dedicated to transforming the way you connect to your body and self through Pilates, Strength, Boxing and Pre & Post-Natal training. The House is a place for all Humans to experience movement in a way that honours and celebrates their unique and individual body's journey. Follow the crew on Instagram! A La Ligne: @alalignemethod Katie: @katiemckenziemvmt Taren: @tarengrewall Anna: @vancitybanana Website: https://alalignemethod.com/ **Get a FREE MONTH with the House of A La Ligne with unlimited access to all full length classes and live classes, ranging from Mat & Reformer, Strength Training and Boxing. Head to https://alalignemethod.com/ and use code SOCIETYNINE after clicking "START YOUR FREE TRIAL"

**Disclaimer: we discuss topics of disordered eating. Please listen at your own discretion. Today we're talking with Gabby Villasenor, and her pronouns are she/her. She moves, works and lives on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples — including the: Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam nations. She's the founder of a Mindful Movement company called Fuelled by Feeling, and an OG Society Nine brand ambassador! From competitive soccer, to boxing, to strength training, to mobility - Gabby believes in using one's inner intuition and mindfulness to drive decisions around movement, so long as it brings JOY and empowerment to you. Through her work, she supports people by transforming their relationship with the way they move their bodies. Fuelled by Feeling is all about creating a sustainable movement practice, keeping it simple, and TRULY allowing yourself to celebrate your body for EVERYTHING it can do. Follow her on Instagram: @fuelledbyfeeling On TikTok: @fuelledbyfeeling Her website: https://www.fuelledbyfeeling.com/ **Get 50% off your first month of mindful movement with Gabby and Fuelled by Feeling - sign up at her website, and use code: SOCIETYNINE

Box United is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that uses the sport of boxing to connect communities of young women across the world. Fight Like a Girl (FLAG) is their signature boxing and leadership development program for high school girls run in partnership with the U.S. Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa. FLAG is fiercely committed to developing young female leaders who are proficient not only in jabs and hooks, but in social impact and cross-cultural collaboration. FLAG runs at the same time in Chicago, IL and Somerset East, South Africa, and includes several opportunities for students to collaborate with peers from across the city and world. Follow them on Instagram @box_united, and learn more about their program at boxunited.com!

Core to Coeur offers exceptional guided Pilates, Yoga, and Functional Movement Instruction for all bodies. Core to Coeur clients workout in the privacy of their own homes, on their own time, in a community-minded setting with movement practitioners that care. And on this episode, Society Nine founder Lynn Le and Core to Coeur founder Madison Page talk about their motivations for creating communities that encourage movement regardless of body size, age, skill set and athletic background. Episode recording courtesy of the Stretched Podcast, powered by Core to Coeur, and distributed in collaboration with Core to Coeur. Check out Core to Coeur at coretocoeur.com and search SOCIETY NINE in the search box for our channel!

Louise Green is the Founder of the fitness brand, Big Fit Girl. She is the author of the book, "Big Fit Girl," founder of the Big Fit Girl Fitness App, Big Fit Girl Uncensored Podcast and a leading Columnist at SELF Magazine. Louise is currently working on her second book with Penguin/Random House USA. For over a decade she has forged a career as a plus-size Personal Trainer, Global Fitness Coach, Fitness Activist and Author changing the narrative and the idealistic standards of our fitness culture. As an influential change-maker, Louise has helped thousands of women find their inner athlete and love their bodies, at every size. Her mandate is a trifecta: to level the playing field by influencing more size-diverse imagery in fitness media and advertising, highlighting the importance of size inclusive education by the fitness industry educators and leading women to stop waiting on the weight and to step off the sidelines, in the body they have right now. She believes that when we combine all three we create a climate of unlimited possibility for every “body.” Follow Louise on Instagram at @louisegreen_bigfitgirl and check out the Big Fit Girl Fitness app at bigfitgirl.com!

Society Nine Brand Ambassador Jennie Bender is a kickboxing and spin instructor, personal trainer and Muay Thai enthusiast. She joins us today to share her passion for turning fitness influencer culture into a culture that leverages social influence for civic activism, with her recently launched initiative Fit2Vote. Fit2Vote is a new campaign that's bringing together the Austin fitness community including instructors and trainers as well as clients and members to amplify the importance of participating and voting in the upcoming election. To learn more, follow Jennie and Fit2Vote on Instagram at @jennmeibender and @fit2vote2020

Our guest is Jessica Ng (pronounced 'Eng'), a first generation Chinese-Hong Kong American from Queens, New York with a Muay Thai fight record of 17-10. Passionate about Muay Thai and training out of Sitan Gym, by day she is a fashion designer and recently launched Southpaw Stitches. Disheartened and frustrated with the lack of support to our NYC communities during the pandemic, she and her co-founder diverted their energy from designing new Muay Thai apparel to building high quality masks. Join us as we talk about how the fighting spirit is so important now more than ever - spiritually and mentally - and what gives us hope.

It's Women's Equality Day! And we have a *long* way to go to making sure this is EVERY day. Society Nine founder Lynn Le and this episode's special guest Taylor Rae Almonte deep dive into where progress has been made, but also where we still have such a long way to go - in fitness, sport, culture and society. Taylor is a Brooklyn based actor, athlete & activist. She is an NYU alumni, having graduated with honors and a double major in Drama and English & American Literature. She utilizes her unique skill set to educate, empower and amplify marginalized voices in all aspects of her life. Her unique brand of Fitness Activism —combining the mental health benefits of movement with the opportunity to educate and raise funds for social justice organizations—has been sponsored by brands such as Women's Health Magazine, Carbon38, Popsugar and more. She has a weekly newsletter discussing this work along with a new topic every week relevant to fighting systemic oppression. As an actor and model, she's done everything from being on the Broadway National Tour of Motown the Musical, to campaigns for Olay Skincare, Benefit Cosmetics, Cole Haan and more. Follow her on Instagram at @taylorraealmonte and www.taylorraealmonte.com/

Society Nine founder Lynn Le and Boombox Boxing co-founder Angela Jennings have a deep discussion about what it's like to re-open a gym mid-pandemic, and to be a Black leader in the DC small business community as well as the daughter of a police officer. Angela co-founded BOOMBOX based on her love for boxing, music and community. Their goal is simple: to empower and inspire, while making the health benefits of boxing-inspired training accessible to all fitness levels and backgrounds. Check them out at boombox-boxing.com, on IG at @boombox_boxing and @aj_boomin.

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Connie Wun. She is the co-founder of AAPI Women Lead, the Founder/Director of Transformative Research: An Institute for Research and Social Transformation, and a PHD researcher for the National Organization for Asian Pacific Islanders Ending Sexual Violence. She's also been a professor and teacher. Her body of work spans all realms of social and racial justice and she has spoken on such topics on national television alongside the likes of Senator Cory Booker and former Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. Follow Dr. Wun at @seewun on Instagram, and AAPI Women Lead at @aapiwomenlead.

We talk about "allostatic load" in today's episode - what it is biologically, how it relates to stress, and why just working out, eating well, controlling sleep, etc for basic health maintenance is actually a lot more complicated than we'd think.

Paige Hendrix Buckner is the Program Manager of Founder Gym. Founder Gym is the first online training program specifically designed to help underrepresented tech startup founders raise money to scale their startups. A Brazilian jiu-jitsu enthusiast, loving mom and partner and former startup founder herself, Paige shares her journey with our community today and the importance of creating generational wealth for the next generation of entrepreneurs and people of color. Follow Founder Gym on Instagram at @foundergym.

Society Nine is back from a somewhat long hiatus from our last podcast episode, which at this point was in 2017. We're catching you up on what this whirlwind of a 2020 has been like so far, and what kind of future we'd like to write for Society Nine - as a company, and as a community.

We chatted with and gained some wisdom from 2x former world boxing champion and owner of McConnell's Boxing Academy, Coach Molly McConnell.

We sat down with Society Nine Brand Ambassador Allison Kemon, aspiring amateur boxer, Haymakers for Hope alum and membership advisor at Equinox at Dartmouth Street in Boston. We discussed all things boxing, including how she discovered her passion for it as well as her continued desire to compete and make boxing a full fledged part of her life's journey.

We spoke with Amber Trejo, the Marketing Manager of WorkTrainFight in NYC. She's a boxing instructor, personal trainer and a nutrition specialist and she's dedicated her life and passion to helping women uncover their power. She volunteers coaching time as well to the WorkTrainFight Teen Women's program, which does boxing training classes for high school students from Harlem in order to create a positive sense of community through sport, and to empower these youth in a safe space for them to learn.

Lindsay Coke, aka The Boxing Blonde, is a multi-faceted fitness trainer and boxer based in Los Angeles. She shares her take on what the fight means for women in this day and age, and shares some of her passions including giving back to young women in her community through boxing fitness like the RUBY Project.

Jess Storch is the founder of Knockout Women's Boxing Club. She is a 2x Chicago Golden Gloves champion (2010 and 2011) and founded Knockout Women's Boxing Club in 2011. Her mission is to empower women to feel strong inside and out, and to help create a world where physical perfection isn't the goal, but instead feeling good and doing what is true to you is the goal.

Meghan and Lynn reflect on the wins, learnings and memories behind the scenes at Society Nine in 2016.

Kayla is an amateur boxer from Reading, PA. Once lacking motivation and direction, Kayla stumbled into boxing and found her fight. In a little more than three years her dedication proved itself in 2015 when she became the 2015 Ringside National Champion at 119 pounds, the 2015 Golden Gloves State Champion at 119 pounds and the 2015 NYC Pure Breed tournament champion at 125 pounds. Passionate about pushing her skills even further, she was invited to train with one of the top MMA camps in the world, American Top Team, in Coconut Creek, Florida where she resides now.

Natalie Matushevsky is an amateur boxer out of Boston who competed in her first boxing match at the annual Belles of the Brawl charity boxing event, organized and hosted by non-profit Haymakers for Hope. She shares the trials and tribulations of what it takes to prepare for your first fight, the feeling and the adrenaline rush in the ring, and what's next for her. Want to know what it's like to prepare for your first ever boxing match? You don't want to miss this one.

Gemma Fleming is an amateur Muay Thai fighter currently living and working out of New York as a photographer and filmmaker. She recently completed a film project titled "SENSHI" showcasing the artistry and spirit of the female fighter and her various forms. We sat down to talk to her about the importance of translating fighting into art.

Our podcast welcomes Jill Morley, a Masters Golden Gloves champion, filmmaker, boxing instructor and mental health advocate. She wrote, directed and produced the documentary "Fight Like A Girl," about women overcoming their demons through boxing, while telling a larger story about abuse, trauma, mental illness and healing. In a gritty, first-person narrative that was shot over a period of five years, she delves inside the little-known world of female boxers to meet the women who are passionate about fighting hard.

We sat down with Amy DePaola, filmmaker and amateur boxer. A proud Haymakers for Hope Belles of the Brawl alum (2015), she is gearing up for the release of her new film, Amy Dee, loosely based on her own experiences as a fighter in life and sport, and illustrating what it means to go through a personal evolution as a fighter - in every sense of the word.

We chatted with Julie Kelly, the co-founder of Haymakers for Hope about her journey as a fighter, in life and sport, and how it led her to create Haymakers for Hope. She's a Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor, 2x NY Golden Gloves winner (132lbs), and an activist dedicated to finding a way to both literally and metaphorically knockout cancer.

We hung out with Society Nine Brand Ambassador Jennie Trower of Jarrett & Jennie Customized Self Defense. Jennie Trower is half of the dynamic duo that is Jarrett and Jennie Customized Self-Defense. Training in Martial Arts for over 15 years, it was Krav Maga that got her hooked and led her to pursue numerous teaching certifications and begin building a career around helping women develop effective self-defense training. Most recently Jennie has joined forces with Society nine Brand Ambassador Jarrett Arthur to offer free learning opportunities, online educational resources and live training experiences to increase their ability to reach thousands of women each year.

We chatted with LA Jennings, a writer and feminist thinker with a doctorate in Literary Studies and a passion for fighting sports. After ten years of training, competing, and coaching kickboxing, submission wrestling and Mixed Martial Arts, she is delighted to bring her dual passions of scholarly research and competitive martial arts into one comprehensive text. Her book, "She's a Knockout: a History of Women in Fighting Sports," is the culmination of two seemingly divergent fields of academic and combative explored through the lens of feminism. She is also a co-owner, trainer and coach at Train. Fight. Win., a Mixed Martial Arts gym in downtown Denver that provides training for both male and female fighters.

We hung out with Society Nine Brand Ambassador Jarrett Arthur of Jarrett & Jennie Customized Self Defense to learn about her personal evolution as a college elite athlete, to one of the highest ranking female Krav Maga black belts in the country, to now one of the biggest leaders in women's self defense. She also talked about her new women's empowerment retreat called I AM POWER. She's been featured on The Ellen Show and Good Morning America for her extensive knowledge!

We had the honor of being invited to the United State of Women Summit, hosted by the White House! Lynn, Society Nine founder and CEO, recaps the sentiments, insights and passion learned and gained from the women in attendance, the Obamas and Joe Biden. And then there was that time she was in the bathroom with Gloria Steinem.

We spent some time talking with pro-boxer and mental health advocate Maureen "The Real Million Dollar Baby" Shea. At 25-2 (12 KO), she is the current IFBA Jr featherweight World Champion, current NABA Champion, former interim WBC Featherweight World Champion and former NABF Champion. While her boxing career is what elevated her personal brand, she is focused on utilizing her platform to speak out for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as individuals suffering and healing from mental health issues. We learned so much from this inspirational woman, and know you will, too.

We went on a 10 day gym tour in LA and Orange County training 2-3x a day at different gyms everyday, and also visited Boston's badass boxing community. Join us as we recount the calories we consumed, the powerful stories we heard from the fierce women of our community, and the incredible friends we made along the way.

In Episode 03, pro MMA fighter Glena "Heartless" Avila joins us to talk about what it means to have hunger, ambition and inspiring other women and young girls to get after their dreams.

In Episode 02, we host our special guest Emily Corso! Emily is a former professional MMA fighter (#11 flyweight in the world at one point, in fact!) turned self-defense coach and personal trainer at her own business, Bold and Badass Fitness. Come hangout with us!

This is our inaugural podcast episode, kicking off Society Nine's podcast series focused on conversations around female fighters in life, culture and sport! We reflect on the mainstream and sport media reactions to the Rousey/Holm fight and talk about why as women we shouldn't be shaming ourselves for throwing down that turkey. Join us!