Image: Georgia Verry. Photo by Rachael Imam.

Content note: In this article, we touch on topics like violence and trauma. Go gently. If you need support, head to our support services page and find the help you need.

Competitive kickboxer and sports specialist, Georgia Verry, has a unique insight into the mind-body connection. Founder of Conscious Combat Club, she supports women and gender diverse people to gain new strength and skills, and most importantly, process trauma.

Like so many of our grants funded since ‘85 — of which there are hundreds — Conscious Combat Club is a healing response to entrenched gender inequality. In a newly fitted out warehouse space in Collingwood, Georgia and the team provide martial arts training for people who have experienced violence. It’s a relatively new type of therapy, rooted in somatic teachings, helping people to create positive narratives on their own terms.

You don’t have to look far to find evidence of why such a service is needed today. For instance: last week, ABC News reported that sexual violence in Australia reached its highest level in 33 years in 2024, and shows little sign of slowing down. In August, research from Melbourne University revealed younger generations are more likely to hold hostile views towards women. 24.7 per cent of boys surveyed (aged 13-17) believe that “feminism is damaging to our society” and “should be resisted with violence if necessary”. Throw in the Manosphere and a chronically underserviced DV sector, and is it any wonder that women feel unsafe?

That’s why stories like Conscious Combat Club stand out. It’s a reminder that there are people out there doing the work. I spoke with Georgia Verry about Conscious Combat Club, and why it matters to create inclusive spaces for women and gender diverse people.

Ally: Tell us about the origins of Conscious Combat Club.

Georgia: “Conscious Combat Club started really in 2019 when I was working as a clinical exercise scientist, prescribing strength training programmes for people with mostly lower back pain. One of my clients was a psychologist. He and I got to talking about the intersection of mental health and physical health — trauma informed practice, martial arts — and he was saying, have you ever thought about running a kickboxing programme for women who’ve been through violence? There’s budding research in this area, I think that you would be a great person to run something like this. 

I had never really thought about doing something that was so at the intersection of everything that I care about. He recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, and it was a huge, pivotal piece of work for me to sink my teeth into. I felt that this is exactly what I want to do with my life, this just makes so much sense.” 

Can you tell me a little bit more about the research that inspired it?

“Yes. So, The Body Keeps the Score talks about quite a lot of things, but part of it is around this idea of fight, flight, and freeze responses that get stuck in the body. This also borrows from other researchers like Stephen Porges and Peter Levine, who have looked at ways that trauma gets stuck in the body, not literally, but in the way that our nervous system processes trauma and can get stuck in some of its adaptive responses, which can become maladaptive. So when people are experiencing a threat and they need to utilise a fight, flight, or a freeze response, those responses can become learned. 

There’s loads of other types of research that have now contributed to the story because mental health is incredibly complex. Essentially, when you learn a skill, like how to kick something really hard, or how to deliver an effective punch, or how to escape a position, that fundamentally gives your brain evidence that you are capable, and so it becomes easier to change that narrative to ‘I am someone who’s confident, capable, and has agency’.”

What have you observed in participants over time?

“It’s so different from person to person. Some people come in very, very timid, very unaware even of how little space that they are taking. So if you think about throwing a punch and punching a bag, some people will stand quite close to the bag, almost extending, like not fully extending their arms when they go to punch, doing shortened punches, and over time will start to take up space. 

There’s groups of clients who will go out for coffee together, or they like hanging out outside of classes, and being able to have that community because experiences of violence are so isolating. Some of the really huge changes are where clients are struggling in areas of their life, like being able to go to the supermarket, being able to walk around at night time, where they’re starting to take those areas of their lives back, sometimes after a few weeks of of training, which is really quite profound.”

Conscious Combat Club received a grant from the Victorian Women’s Benevolent Trust via the Con Irwin Sub Fund. What did this grant enable you to do? 

“Yes, so thanks to the Trust, we were able to deliver 50 fully funded scholarships. We worked with 50 women and gender diverse people throughout 2025 to complete the eight beginner trauma-informed kickboxing classes.

Investment in our physical and mental health is oftentimes a luxury that we don’t have access to when we’re really struggling with rising food and rent prices. It was so valuable for us to be able to deliver those scholarships for people who absolutely wouldn’t have been able to access the program otherwise.”

Special thank you to Hilary Irwin, and everyone who supports our grants program.

Exciting news! Next month, we will be announcing our newest round of successful grantees of 2026/2027. Sign up to our mailing list to be the first to know →

Learn more about our Sub-Funds →

• Video Production Luna Truong, Frame Click Pop
• Interviewer Rachael Imam
• Class participants Victorian Women’s Trust Team
• Thank you to Georgia Verry for sharing Conscious Combat Club’s story
• Music Low Mileage by Hold You [NCS Release], provided by NoCopyrightSounds