I first got started into martial arts at 16 years of age when I experienced bullying at school. I decided to take up kickboxing as I felt this was a great all round martial art and believed it would be a good art to use if I needed to defend myself. At school I was a bit soft spoken and often the bullies would have a go at me, so my passion for martial arts was a necessity. Kickboxing is full contact and tough and by starting with kickboxing it will get me tougher and for this reason I started my martial arts with kick boxing.

My brother Paul had someone knock on his door, he joined and attended his first class, when he got home he was buzzing and phoned me to tell me how great it was, I had always thought about doing a Martial Art but had never got round to actually doing something about it, so when he said I should go along I thought ‘why not’. At my first class, I had so much fun and the instructor praised me on my round kick, which was such an encouragement, I was hooked and immediately started training twice a week.