About

Luminous Warrior

PageLines-LWS-Final-A-NoText-white-outline.pngLuminous Warrior was founded by Sara Salam with the intention to heal, transform and empower people’s lives. The 1.0 version of Luminous Warrior was a Self Defense and Healing Center owned and directed by Sara Salam in Washington DC. It brought energy medicine, shamanic healing, and sacred ceremonies into self defense training. View the Luminous Warrior Center web archive.

Sara eventually closed the DC Center to focus solely on healing, teaching and coaching, and to bring her Luminous Warrior programs into warrior and veteran communities worldwide. Her Luminous Warrior programs emphasize an inclusive, integrated, powerful and embodied approach to self defense and trauma healing at the level of the body, mind and spirit.

Sara’s is currently working on the 3.0 version of Luminous Warrior, which is an online training with live coaching components for those who want to integrate trauma healing into self defense training or inherently traumatizing professions. To find more about Luminous Warrior Training 3.0, please contact Sara directly.

Sara’s Luminous Warrior programs meet individuals and groups where they are and are customized to the needs of those attending. Read our  testimonials, or read a detailed testimonial of one of our students who went through an unfortunate mugging attack in Washington DC and utilized the Luminous Warrior approach for healing.

Sara Salam

Sara Salam is the founder of the Luminous Warrior. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Maryland, an MBA from Georgetown University, and she spent a decade as a senior change management consultant for Fortune 500 companies before founding Luminous Warrior.

Sara has been certified by the Four Winds Society as a Master Practitioner in Energy Medicine and Luminous Healing, holds a Brown Belt in Krav Maga, is an Expert II Krav Maga Instructor certified by Krav Maga Worldwide, she is a certified Fit To Fight Coach by Ryan Hoover’s F2F Republic, and also a formerly certified Rape Crisis Counselor in the state of California.

Sara also served as a Senior Trainer for Personal Safety and Emotional Self Care for Global Journalist Security (GJS) from 2012 to 2016. During her time with Global Journalist Security, Sara helped activists, human rights defenders, aid workers, and numerous individuals from NGOs prepare for traveling to potentially hostile environments and helping them heal trauma they may have experienced after having returned from such deployments.

Sara’s programs emphasize an inclusive, integrated, mindful and embodied approach to healing at the level of the body, mind and spirit with the purpose of creating ecosystems and communities that are healthy, healed, safe and thriving. 

For more about Sara, visit her Path of Power website or join one of her ongoing live Soul Circles.

Luminous Warrior Approach

Our programs focus on education, hands-on techniques, and experiential exercises to more fully understand, utilize and strengthen the mind~body~spirit connection and how it impacts other areas in our lives. Our programs foster personal growth, assist with creating and maintaining successful relationships, build communities of support, and provide essential coaching for any challenges that come with transitions in life.

Luminous Warrior takes a non-clinical, non-sectarian, inclusive and integrated approach to healing the body, mind and soul. We integrate energy medicine, shamanic healing techniques, sacred ceremonies, mind-body practices and mindful movement to help warrior and veteran communities heal, transform and empower their own lives. Shamanic Healing and energy medicine practices are particularly well-suited for warrior communities because they emphasize movement-oriented mindfulness, embodied healing practices, and earth-based ceremonies.

Luminous Warrior distinguishes itself from other self defense modalities in 3 ways:

1. Our self defense coaching focuses on practical tools that give you options, rather than giving you answers

We give you information and options that help you decide what to do in a specific scenario. You learn when to defend yourself, and what’s is worth fighting for. These are deeply personal decisions and choices, and we help you get to your own answers of how you would like to live and create your life.

2. We focus on empowering individuals and groups rather than fostering a me-versus-them mentality or a desire to control situations or other individuals

A desire to control or have power over situations and other people may in fact attract more trouble; while being empowered with options, choices, tools and techniques attracts sustainable tools of self empowerment and the possibility for a more peaceful life.

3. We use self defense tools to heal trauma from past events

Healing with self defense techniques must be done in a specific way and taught mindfully. Our knowledge in brainwave development, the function of the sub-brains, psychosomatic imprints, and the mind-body connection are at the core of these tools. In this way we can heal trauma and fears that can come up during self defense coaching or may have come up previously in life.

To learn more about Sara’s approach to Luminous Warrior training, refer to our blogposts or read “Bullying – A different approach“.

Luminous Warrior Self Defense focuses on 4 specific areas:

1. Emotional Self Care

We focus on combative and physical fitness techniques (punches, elbows, kicks, knees, etc.) that empower the individual. When guided in a mindful and specific way, self defense techniques employed for the purposes of emotional self care can:

  • Transform emotions such as depression, sadness, powerlessness, hopelessness, anger, and fear
  • Increase emotional resilience
  • Build mental stamina and strength

2. Physical Self Defense

This training is tailored and customized to address self defense scenarios that are relevant for the specific group needs. Our training can include:

  • Internal and external awareness drills for scenario detection
  • De-escalation and avoidance techniques
  • Low impact avoidance, escape, and de-escalation techniques (attacks can include verbal attacks, grabs, holds, etc.)
  • High impact self defense techniques (attacks can include chokes, headlocks, bearhugs, attacks on the ground, attacks with weapons, and more)

3. Trauma Healing

The same techniques that are learned to defend oneself physically can also heal trauma when used in combination with specific mind-body, meditation and healing techniques. Our knowledge in brainwave development, the function of the sub-brains, and the mind-body connection allows us to teach a powerful combination of tools for self healing and self empowerment. Our tools focus on:

  • Removing the traumatic imprints of past events
  • Neutralizing triggers that were created by past events
  • Reclaiming parts of the self that may have been lost due to trauma

4. Scenario-based training

Our self defense training -whether used for emotional self care, physical self defense, or healing trauma- focuses on the following self defense scenarios:

  • Harassment / Sexual Harassment
  • Mugging / Robbery
  • Murder / Rape
  • Home / Office Invasion
  • Abduction / Kidnapping
  • Multiple Attackers / Mobs

To lean more, visit Sara’s Vimeo channel where she has posted over 100 instructional videos on body (including Krav Maga and self defense), mind, and spirit.