Unstoppable Adaptive MMA Athletes

We meet Heather Winkeljohn, a trailblazer in the world of adaptive MMA. As the President of IncredAble and co-owner of JacksonWink MMA Academy, Heather shares her inspiring story of empowering youth and teens with environmental, physical, and cognitive challenges through the benefits of Mixed Martial Arts. Get ready to be moved by her passion and dedication to creating opportunities for all athletes to thrive. Tune in for an immersive storytelling experience that will leave you feeling motivated and inspired!

IncredAble Adaptive MMA (link)

Jackson Wink Gym (link)

Smart Girl Women's Self-defense (link)

#AdaptiveMMA #IncredAble #WomenInSports #ImmersiveStorytelling #Inspiration #mma #jacksonwink #hollyholm #UnstoppablePodcast 

Unstoppable Podcast blends cinematic storytelling with immersive sound design and insightful interviews, celebrating women in sports — past and present.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It started in the chaos of a school yard, where laughter and jeers turned sharp like daggers. A young boy, cornered by his bullies. Their words stung, but what followed cut deeper. They knocked him down, ripped off his prosthetic leg, and turned it into a weapon against him. The humiliation was suffocating. He clutched the earth beneath him, powerless as the world seemed to cave in. But that wasn't the end. That moment, as cruel as it was, became the turning point. Enter Heather Winklejohn with her incred-able martial arts class. Week by week, the boy learned not just technique, but strength, confidence, and control. The lessons didn't just teach him to defend himself. They taught him to stand tall again, piece by piece, skill by skill. And the next time the bullies came for him, it wasn't like before. This time, he wasn't the one on the ground.

SPEAKER_04 1:07

welcome to unstoppable the podcast where passion meets purpose i'm your host lori lewis and i'm excited to share stories of nostalgia inspiration and determination join me as we explore the power of perseverance and celebrate the unstoppable spirit that drives us to keep going no matter what I'm talking to Heather Winklejohn from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hi, Heather. How are you doing? Great. How are you? Good. Tell us the name of the gym that you, well, you're one of the owners or your husband is?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Yes. So my husband and I co-own the Jackson Wink Academy. And then I have the Smart Girl Self-Defense Gym up in the northeast part of Albuquerque. And then we have our nonprofit, Incredible Adaptive MMA, which is primarily run out of the big gym, out of the Jackson Wink Academy.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

The gym is known for MMA artists and a lot of really well-known fighters, actually. When did you start this program in self-defense and everything for women? How long have you been doing that?

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Gosh, we've been doing that, I want to say maybe 12 years. And we had a small family gym where Smart Girl is now located. And we ran a kids and family program out of there for MMA. And then I taught cardio kickboxing classes and things of that sort. But I started getting a lot of requests from women about self-defense and they didn't necessarily want to invest the time or money into doing MMA. That's when I sat down with my husband. It was about 12 years ago and said, I want to create a program. So that's what started it all.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

How did you yourself get involved in martial arts? I mean, how long have you been doing it? Oh,

SPEAKER_02 3:41

gosh. I started back in, I think it was about 1990. Way back, I was a first-year college student at the University of New Mexico, and I saw there was this elective for self-defense, and it was with this old guy, World War II kind of salty veteran who taught it. So I Took that for a few semesters, and I signed up, but it was kind of a controversial class because it was men and women, and it was a lot of jiu-jitsu, and people were getting hurt. So, in fact, one of the girls in the class when I was taking it suffered a broken nose, and people were breaking fingers. So... At the beginning of the semester, there'd be all these people. And then by the end of the semester, there'd be like a handful of us left. But that's kind of how I started. And so, yeah, I went off to Colorado to explore college there. And that's where I actually utilized what I learned. I was in a bar. at the time, and I shouldn't have been in the bar because I wasn't old enough to be in the bar. And so I ended up, long story short, a woman grabbed me by the throat and pinned me. And so I ended up using what I learned in the class in UNM. Wow. Yeah. So that's kind of how it all started. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

But you've done different forms of martial arts, too, from what I understand, right? You have some Kenpo background as well?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

I do, yes. And then fast forward a few years later, and I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, and I was married to someone else at the time. After I birthed her and got through that, I was looking for a new martial art, new way to work out, get back in shape. And then I stumbled into American Kenpo karate. at that time. And then over time, you know, my husband who was one of my instructors, but we, I didn't like him at the time. I thought he was kind of a jerk. And we were both married to other people. And so I, but I got into Kempo there and that's kind of what started my, my whole journey.

SPEAKER_04 5:57

So now you've developed all kinds of things within your program. I actually saw it on the International Women's Kempo page. They posted about your program and how you've just developed a new aspect of it. And is that Women's Smart Girl Self-Defense and then your IncredABLE programs, do those work together or are those separate entities?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

They're separate. I mean, our IncredABLE program I developed, I formed a nonprofit and that was just because my oldest daughter had a massive stroke at birth and she suffered from birth trauma. So she has one side of her body that's affected. So she has a form of cerebral palsy called hemiplegia and struggled with seizures and all kinds of stuff. And so she grew up in the gym because we were running our family gym and she was always around it. And then all of a sudden she wanted to be involved in it. And I was like, um, all right, well, let's see how this goes. Cause I'm not sure how she's going to do with not having use of one side of her body, but she did it and she did really well. And she got super strong and loved it. And it helped her immensely with so many things, control and strength and communication. And so I was like, wait a minute, we might be onto something here. She got frustrated at times because she's going up against a kid that's got full use of their body and she's only got one side of hers that's working effectively. So it was frustrating. But then I did see that there was an opportunity there to use that to help kids with disabilities.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

See, people like your daughter really inspire me. As I'm getting older, you know, I'm going to be 65 in a couple of weeks, and some days I just am like, I don't want to keep going, you know, I don't want to keep pushing myself. But then you see people who are dealing with really great challenges like that. Tell me then how this program, this must have been what inspired you, right, to kind of go into this area more. Tell me about that and about some of the students that you've had and the effect that it's had.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yeah. I mean, we started, I started talking to my husband about it and I honestly really did not know where to start or how to put this together. And I just said, let's just try a few coaches that are willing to provide some lessons and see how comfortable they are with it. And let's see who we get. And before I knew it, we had 45 kids signed up for this thing and they were loving it. It just kind of took on a life of its own really. And, I've noticed probably the biggest success stories are, you know, a lot of times kids with disabilities are bullied, sadly, and they're often marginalized. They're, you know, there's special Olympics and things like that, but, you know, they're always kind of sitting on the edge of the court or sitting on the edge of the mat and, you know, not really being invited in because people are uncomfortable. They don't know, is it okay to ask this question? child with a disability to participate or they have autism, so I'm not sure. And our whole approach is bring them in. If they want to try it, bring them in. And so that's kind of what started it all. And the biggest success story that I can think of, this is crazy, but we had a student who had a prosthetic leg and he was being bullied. And to the point where one day at school, this is Albuquerque, some other kids, took that artificial leg off and prosthetic leg off of him and were beating him with it. Primarily one really means kid was doing this. And he started with us, got his lessons, same kid tried it again. It ended very badly for the bully. So I'm not condoning violence, but sometimes... That's what it takes. And that was the last time that kid ever messed with him or any other kid for that matter. Yeah. So they hold themselves differently. They're confident, you know, and if you have confidence and you can pretty much deal with whatever life throws you, in my opinion, if you have confidence and you have support, you know, you can, you can deal with a lot. And so that's been the biggest thing is seeing these kids just walk taller and hold themselves differently, carry themselves differently. And they train in the Jackson Wink Academy with some of the best fighters in the world. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:52

That really is incredible. That's such a great name for your organization. Are there any limits? I mean, are there kids that can't do this or if someone wants to get their kid into martial arts, especially in the New Mexico area, but can anyone do it?

SPEAKER_02 11:10

It's pretty much open. I mean, we've got a very large guy and he's functioning at about maybe a two-year-old level and very hard at first to engage and keep his attention. But this coach has been so persistent and it works. Everyone's got their own learning curve and their own capability, but we really do have kids with all kinds of challenges. And the parents typically have a good sense of of, yeah, this might be good for my kid or no, this isn't the greatest fit. They usually come in there knowing, hey, this might be a good thing to try. And we do a meet and greet and the coach meets them first and they see the gym, make sure that they're not too overwhelmed with the gym because it can be a crazy place. A lot of different strong personalities in there. And sometimes things happen in the gym. Then you're like, oh God, oh no, you know? People lose tempers and that sort of thing when they're sparring. But for the most part, everyone else, they're typically very accommodating to the kids and they're very welcoming.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

A lot of those professional fighters are probably really encouraging to the kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is really wonderful. Well, also that carries into, so women, we live in a day and age where I think most women should be in some kind of martial arts self-defense program or something. Tell me some of the stories. How have you seen it affect women or how, you know, maybe some people have blossomed within that?

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah, the Smart Girl program, you know, it's my passion because, you Absolutely, I think women need self-defense. We try to be very realistic and practical with how we approach it. Because honestly, like jujitsu, for example, it takes a lot of practice, a lot of devotion, repetition to get really good at that, to be effective with it. So we wanted to teach things that were very practical. And honestly, when I first started Smart Girl, the attitude that was pervasive at that time was, We don't want to teach women self-defense. We don't want to put too much pressure on them should something go wrong. We want to educate the men not to be violent. And I understand there's a place for that. But as far as I know, violence has pretty much been going on since the beginning of time, right? I don't see it getting any better. And New Mexico is very violent in terms of violence against women. So, you know, we've changed that mindset or we approach it differently. We're like, no, you need to take some of this into your own hands. You need to be responsible for yourself and no one's coming to save you. And, you know, we don't expect women to necessarily fight off an angry six foot four adrenalized man, but if we can do things preemptively to keep it from getting to that point, That, then we've won. And then if the fight's on, the fight's on. That's when we go to the techniques and whatnot. But we try to be very realistic in our approach.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

And I'm sure you want to just do what you can and get out too. You're not really getting into a fight, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Right. It's all about escape and avoidance and situational awareness. One success story, I had a little 12-year-old girl. My mom wrote me a letter and she was so happy because they took the class. And a lot of what we teach is being aware, but also using distance, using timing, because distance gives you more time. And this young lady was being followed home from school by a guy on foot. And she remembered distance, distance, keep away. So she would cross the street. He would cross the street. She would go back the other side. He would go back to the other side. So they did this for a while. But she ran into a business and was able to get some help. But that right there, if you just recognize it before it happens, if you can pick up on those clues, we talk a lot about intuition, the value of that. It's not just a woo-woo thing. It's a real thing that we're hardwired with, God-given innate sense that we have. We also talk a lot about the freeze response and how to work with that because so many of us are gonna freeze if there's a crisis or we're being violently attacked. So we want to mitigate the time women spend in that freeze.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

And I imagine it's easier for some people to not have to learn traditional martial arts where you're learning all the katas and all the forms. And it takes lots of years to learn that, as you know. But being able to learn self-defense and being able to think like you're saying, it's probably easier for a lot of people to get into. What would you say if someone's afraid to approach it? How would you encourage them?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Yeah, I mean, the self-defense, that's why we offer free refreshers because we do want people to come back and practice. But absolutely, you'll walk away with something. If you come to our class, you walk away with something. whether you're 85 years old or you have a disability or you're 12 years old, you're going to walk away with something. And that's our goal. And then if you want to get good at the techniques, you can come back every month for free with other classes too. And practice, practice, practice.

SPEAKER_04 16:56

And maybe some people will be interested enough then to learn more, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Yes. And, you know, self-defense is intimidating. I mean, I've had women walk in for the class and they, you know, they look so scared. Like, what have I done? Why am I here? And it's like, no, it's going to be okay. We want it to be welcoming. We want them to know this is a safe place. If you make mistakes, it's okay. We're going to challenge you. We're going to put you through a little simulation. It's going to be, you know, it's going to be intense, but we're not going to berate you and kick you out the door. We're not going to belittle you. We want them to be successful.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

So two things. One, I was thinking about how that awareness thing is so important. And every day I see women, you know, pushing a stroller down the street and they're on their phone and they're barely aware of traffic around them, let alone a person who might be dangerous, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Oh, it's so true. Yeah, that's a huge thing. And honestly, the little kids that are growing up on the devices all the time, I say it kind of dumbs down their people reading skills because you and I, you know, we grew up without the internet. So we had to rely on interactions with people and we have this whole library of millions of interactions we've had. And we build a library of, we assess whether we're aware of it or not. People's body language, how they're looking at us, how their voice sounds. We pick up on the, oh, I don't feel right about this person kind of stuff. But the younger ones that are on the devices, it's kind of dumbing down that people reading ability. And also for like what you just said, the very basic thing of, hey, my head's here in the phone, whether it's women or kids, I'm not aware of what's going on around me. And sadly, that's what the predators are banking on. They're hoping you're going to be distracted.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

Yeah, if you carry yourself with confidence and you're ready, I mean, it's a plan. I used to work in radio in California and we would have the earthquake week, right? And it's all about preparedness. People get hurt the most in earthquakes because they run out of a building and things fall on them. So the more prepared you are, the less afraid you are, and hopefully the less you'll react in a panic mode, right? So I think

SPEAKER_02 19:27

that's kind of the same philosophy, right? Absolutely. And we talk about that a lot. There's 10% of people in a crisis, they're going to stay really calm, focused. 80% are going to freeze or not really know what to do, can be kind of numb. The other 10% are going to freak out And they're going to make it really hard for any person that might be in control of the situation. It's going to make their job even harder because now this person that might be in control is dealing with the crisis and dealing with this person over here who's in hysterics, right? So we do, we want to be prepared mentally and physically.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

I really appreciate you spending this time to share with people. And I hope that we inspire some women and maybe mom, daughter, you know, getting into a self-defense class together. And for the children that are dealing with disabilities and challenges, wow, that's a thing. That really motivates me. What are the things that keep you going in life? What's your inspiration? Because it's not easy to do. It's

SPEAKER_02 20:34

not. But I think just seeing the successes, it's really validating. And ultimately, my feeling is that's what we're here for. We're here to make a better world, a better place for other people that might be in some way or shape or form disadvantaged. And what can we bring to this life? And to me, that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

Another thing is maybe you'll inspire other teachers to do similar things in their parts of the country, or do you have any sort of dream or plan that this would spread for you?

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Oh, I mean, I wish I knew a way to do that. I mean, I've had people say, Hey, we want to do an incredible adaptive over here. And it's so tricky with the nonprofit stuff, but you know, I always encourage, I don't, I don't think you really need to have that. I think if you have a dojo, if you have a martial arts instructor, um, You can open it up to your kids with special needs. And, you know, I try to encourage them to get a little one-on-one time with the coach to see where they are, see what their skills are like, and give them frequent breaks and maybe not teach them during a time when the gym is too overstimulating. But if you've got the patience and the motivation, anybody can do it.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

That's really wonderful. And I thank you so much for spending the time to share this with us all. Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to

SPEAKER_02 21:58

talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

As I reflect on Heather Winklejohn's incredible journey, I'm struck by her dedication to using martial arts as a force for good. Her work with children and women is truly inspiring. I'm also very moved that she has championed fighters and top trainers giving of their time and expertise to help these kids thrive. I mean, people like Holly Holm, who is one of my heroes and is truly remarkable. It's all about community and giving back. And it's a powerful reminder that women in sports can be a catalyst for positive change.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

They called you names, they pushed you down. Every scar, every story in this battle. The mirror stares back with a fire inside. The world can't see the warrior you hide.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Thanks for listening to Unstoppable. We appreciate your support and would love for you to join our community. Please subscribe to our podcast and follow us on social media. We'd love to hear from you. A huge thank you to Don Conrad for bringing these inspiring stories to life and to our guests for sharing their experiences. Unstoppable is mixed and produced by Terry Mack. For links and more information on this episode, visit unstoppablepodcast.net. That's a wrap for this episode. Until next time, stay unstoppable. Run!

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Just the