About Tèja VanWicklen

Tèja VanWicklen is a writer focused on reimagining self-defense for women and parents, and a consultant specializing in realistic violence depiction for writers and filmmakers. She coined the term "protective offense" to help women lean into the ideas that we may be called on to protect children and loved ones (not just our "self") and that to do this we must embrace the empowering concept of strategic "OFFense".

Teja has spent much of her life studying multiple martial arts, edged-weapons, firearms, wilderness survival, biomechanics, and health. She has seen martial arts and self-defense though many lenses: as a neglected, neurodivergent child raised around drugs and violence, an instructor, personal trainer, EMT, filmmaker, manager of a stunt performance team.

Teja has trained with elite military and law enforcement personnel and was a founding member of a blog and information site run by a collective of renown safety professionals. As manager of Art of War, Teja oversaw international stunt performances for major events, film festivals, and movie premieres worldwide including the Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and The Matrix: Reloaded premiers in NYC and LA.

In her earlier years, Teja won multiple grand championships, was featured in magazines, and interviewed for TV. Her screenplays have won awards and her short stories have been published by literary magazines like Burningword and Everyday Fiction. Reimagining Women’s Self-Defense (YMAA) is her first book.

Teja endured a difficult pregnancy and over a year of recuperation which fundamentally changed her approach to self-defense and caused her to rethink her training. Teja’s quest is to find the place where self-defense meets common sense; where self-awareness, situational awareness, strategy and problem solving intersect; to create a paradigm of empowerment for those who want to dismantle anxiety, see conflict as opportunity and raise productive, resilient children who won’t become victims (or criminals).