Dr Jenna Macciochi

that I could have this fight response.

Because I think there's a certain amount of adrenaline when you're very new to a martial art that you need to go and spar with someone because you're like literally six minutes trying to fight to choke, you know, submit the person.

And it was kind of after that, I realized that

This is what I'd been experiencing.

I'd been in this freeze phone, but stuck.

And my nervous system didn't know how to fight.

And it was like just in that safe environment with this amazing community of people that I reconnected with a bit of my body that I...

a function I had that I didn't know how to use.

And I think this is really important because when we speak about the nervous system, it's always like, you have to regulate, you have to be calm, do the calm breathing and the calm self-care routine.

And it's like, no, no, I have to be able to fight when I want to fight, come back to baseline, be calm when I need to be calm.

I need to be able to like respond to what life throws at me because I don't know what's coming.

I need to be able to run away if I need to, fight if I need to, freeze or fawn if I need to.

I need to do all of these things and have access to them

And I realized that I didn't.

So it was kind of like a relearning of how to use my fight response because we have these for a reason.

And I think it's important that we get activated for those six minutes of intensity and come back to baseline.

And I think that a lot of the messaging around telling people to be calm all the time, it's like you just need to maybe not be calm because if someone's stressed, telling them to be calm is quite hard sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, I thought I was going to be sick.

I was like, and I'm in the middle of like, you know, having a round of sparring.

I could feel myself not wanting to practice the technique.