Our Story

AJ and Rae met as dance majors at The Ohio State University in 2009. They quickly became friends as Rae helped AJ pick up on ballet terms and moves he’d never heard before. Their friendship has seen them through a spectrum of experiences: advanced level dance technique and composition classes, concert dance performances, high intensity interval training regiments, and even event production. Their bond in those days was very unique and very special. Once they graduated, they both moved to NYC, but life took them in very different directions.

Having worked in a Krav Maga studio for several years and becoming certified as an instructor, Rae started to notice that certain populations weren’t being adequately represented in the training space. Moreover when asked to teach “women’s” Self Defense, the existing curriculum was incredibly heteronormative and limited to a particular lived experience. Having come to better understand her own queer identity and caring deeply for her community, Rae put her cultural research background to work to try to determine what could be done to provide better self defense resources to the queer community. This led to the unfortunate discovery that there wasn’t much research on self defense needs within the LGBTQIA+ Community.

AJ has been working in NYC as a performer, personal trainer, choreographer, nightlife employee, and activist since 2012 where the relationships he builds mean everything to him. His passion in life is supporting and guiding people to explore, discover, and express their most authentic selves. He has created programming for community development on his own and as the Director of Advocacy for Impulse Group NYC. But as threats of violence began to rise, he also noticed a growing fear surrounding queer self-expression. He was on a mission to find a way for the community to harness its power.

A serendipitous reunion of the two immediately sparked the idea of Enough and the two quickly got to work on creating a program totally tailored to the queer experience.

Through one-on-one interviews, group discussions, surveys, delving into what limited resources already existed, and lot of time punching each other, Rae and AJ developed and piloted Enough in 2021 as a virtual five-part workshop series.

Since then, they have continued researching and editing and have created a company that is queer-centric and seeks to hold space for the wide array of beautiful lived experiences within the LGBTQIA+ Community.

Enough offers a wide variety of ways to gain self defense training while cultivating local and national communities that proudly support and take care of one another.

While systemic change needs to happen, we firmly believe that starting with ourselves and uncovering the power we each possess is an essential step forward. Providing relevant and accessible safety resources to individuals within our community will help us strengthen and heal as a whole, providing the groundwork for safer spaces protected from violence.