Growing up in Amman, Jordan, where extracurricular activities for young girls were few and far between, Lina Khalifeh jumped into Taekwondo lessons at age five at her second cousin's martial arts studio. She was good at the sport, and her coach told her so. Because being "good" at anything wasn't something she ever head at school, Taekwondo became her school, and helped her develop her physical, mental and emotional awareness.
Years later, after seeing a friend suffer from physical abuse by her father and brother, Lina grew determined to train women how to defend themselves. That's how SheFighter-the first women's-only self-defense school in the Middle East-was born.
Since launching her company in Amman in 2012, Lina and her all-female staff of 500+ instructors have trained more than 15,000 women across the globe. In addition to Jordan, SheFighter studios operate in Palestine, Armenia, Holland, South Korea and Mauritius, an island off the southeast coast of Africa.
