Check Out the Exciting Kickboxing & Boxing Events Our Members Have Participated In...

Les Gants D'orés hosted a boxing show in Masson Quebec. Three Nomad Boxers were on their card that night. It proved to be a very exciting evening. Rega 'Rapid Fire' Jihad was making his second appearance in the open class division, Kyle 'King Kong' Elliott was competing against a more experienced boxer, and Marco 'The Mauler' Iadinardi was making his debut into the ring. Each of our boxers did an amazing job and we're very proud of them.

Take a look at Adam Mercer in action at a local grappling tournament. Adam went home with a 2nd place finish.

Michele O'Leary and Channel Villeneuve, from Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing represented Canada at the WKC World Championships. Both competitors did a great job representing their club and country. They faced strong opponents and had to give it there all.

Alex 'Attackin' Johnson was the only member from Nomad to make it down to Burlington for this years Ontario Cup. Alex did a great job of executing his game play and staying in control of the bout. It's a great bout that shows how much Alex has improved.

This year Rega 'Rapid Fire' Jihad was the only member of Nomad to enter into the boxing provincials. It was his first time competing at the open class level and he did a spectacular job against a much more experienced competitor. It's an action packed match from beginning to end.

Kyle 'King Kong' Elliott stepped into the ring and worked hard throughout against a slightly awkward opponent. Kyle threw some great combinations throughout his match but in the end Kyle lost his bout by a very close margin.

This was Michele O'Leary's first time stepping into the full-contact arena. She took the bout on very short notice but manage to show great composure in the face of adversity. Her opponent came out with both guns blazing, but Michele managed to hang on and out performed her opponent in the later rounds.

Nomad had three members that made it down for this years nationals. Channel 'The Villian' Villeneuve, Michele O'Leary, and Jamie Pudwell. It was the first time that each of them appeared at this event and each of them did a great job. Both Channel and Michele came home with the gold and Jamie came home with a bronze. Great work!

Kyle Elliott stepped into the ring for his second time in his amateur career. He trained very hard to get into shape for this bout and did a spectacular job. He has transformed both his body and his skills to start achieve higher performance in the ring and it shows.

One of our Junior Members has started to focus his training on strongman competitions. Jamieson Lalande, is 17 years old and has come a long way when it comes to his training. We're very proud of the determination he showed in a recent Trade Show for men in Ottawa where he demonstrated some of his abilities.

Hassan Fakih stepped into the ring for the first time on short notice in order to help raise money for cancer research. He hadn't been training for some time but accepted the bout with just 4 weeks notice. This is a courageous thing to do. Hassan fought his heart out but lost the match due to a referee stoppage in the final round.

Since this event Hassan has been training hard and getting in shape. He's getting ready to step into the ring again and you won't want to miss the transformation.

Watch our juniors in action. They both did an amazing job representing Team Canada in the world championship. For both competitors it was their first time competing in an international competition but you wouldn't know it. They listened well and gave it their all!

Nomad's Holly 'The Hammer' Deacon faced off against Shawna Page at this local event. Both competitors were tough and in shape. Shawna, a competitor from one of the Therrien schools,  was the crowd favourite. Cheering for Holly was a small but loud group of Nomad supporters.

From the outset of the first round Holly dominated her opponent with great combinations, superior power, and sharp skills. Special thanks go out to Aaron Cope, who helped out in the corner, and to all the Nomad cheering squad.

Please watch and enjoy the video below!

Two members from the Nomad boxing team competed in a local boxing event hosted by Final Round Boxing. Rega Jihad, one of our Junior Elite Team, competed in his 8th bout and Kyle Elliott, one of our adult competitors, was competing in his first event.

Both Rega (Red Corner) and Kyle (Blue Corner) did a fantastic job representing Nomad at the event. Take a look at the video below to see both of our competitors in action!

One of our Junior leaders, William Houtart,

Nomad had two of its athletes at this local event. It was held at the Rideau Carleton Raceway, and it brought in boxers from all over the province. Representing the Nomad Boxing team was Steve Greensides and Sandy Pembroke. Both fighters had extremely exciting matches that went the distance. For Steve, he was fighting for the first time. This was a momentus occasion for Steve, because when he first started training he was overweight, out of shape, and was a smoker. Steve has turned everything around and now gives others the motivation they need to accomplish their goals. Steve lost the fight, but won the war in so many different ways!

Sandy on the other hand has had a lot of experience as one of Nomad's Instructors. Sandy weighed in at 205lbs and his much taller oppoenent weighed in at 225lbs. Many of the spectators expected to see the much bigger opponent knock Sandy out. This of course was not to be the case. Sandy pressed the action from the start of the match right up until the final bell. In the end the fight was left up to the judges and Sandy lost by a split decision. Sandy showed a lot of heart and determination in the fight and lived up to Mark Twain's famous quote “It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

All the instructors and members of Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing had a special treat when Muhammad Ali's former manager and trainer, Angelo Dundee, came to the school for a visit. For those of our members who happened to show up for the surprise visit, they got to see the energetic and passionate Dundee in action. Many great lessons were learnt that day by everyone.

Nomad, not only participated on the competitive side of this tournament, but rather took on a leadership role when it came to running the event. Arron Cope, one of the Nomad instrutors, was a centre referee and many other Nomad instrutors, assistant intrutors, and Nomad members volunteered their time to help run this tournament. A big thank you goes out to those individuals, from Nomad, who volunteered.

The Nomad athletes definitly walked away earning the respect of their opponents. Most of the Nomad members who competed, competed from the first time. Congrats to all those people that stepped into the ring for the first time.

This year the worlds were held in Uzbekistan Tashjent. Nomad sended two athelte to represent team Canada. Cathie and Beth did a great job at doing so, Cathie came back with a bronze medal, Beth with a silver. The girls Work really hard for this event, as always the hard work payed off.

As most of you know we found out about the WAKO Nationals at the very last minute, in fact we had 10 days notice. This doesn't mean Nomad didn't show up with a strong team of competitors and supporters. In total we had 3 competitors show up for this event with roughly 15 supporters, most of whom came from our new location in Hawkesbury.

Nomad brought two well earned medals back to Ottawa and of course an experience that none of the fighters will ever forget.

A special thanks goes out to Arron Cope and John McMahon, the coaches of the event, for their special support...

After another great year of working hard in the gym it's time to look back and celebrate with a party. In good Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing fashion, we celebrated the year by watching a slideshow of images from the year. The pictures were taken from the various workshops and competitions throughout the year. It was a great chance for people to catch up with events they missed.

We also showed a number of great videos thanks to Kevin Conroy, who managed to put together a great DVD of the years events. While we didn't manage to capture all of the events...we did get to show most of the major ones.

For the juniors this year we had a seperate party. We spent it at Laser Quest and had loads of fun. All those juniors that shot me during the match at Laser Quest had better watch out...I'll be looking for you in class!!!

It was great to see everyone at the party, and it was loads of fun to pass out all the awards to people for their hard work throughout the year.

Thanks again to all the Nomad members who made 2005 a great year.

This was a great year when it comes to awards for Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing. The Council of Amateur Sport Kickboxing held it's annual awards banquet in Oakville and everyone had a great time. From Nomad, we had a group of people go down to receive awards. In total Nomad brought home 7 awards including an award for the school itself. While our primary focus at Nomad is to have fun doing a sport we love, it's always nice to get recognized for excellence from the National Kickboxing Council.

Here are the results:

1. Competitive School of the Year - Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing
2. Male Sportsperson of the Year - Victor Provost
3. Female Sportsperson of the Year - Beth Stanistreet
4. Junior Bout of the Year - Samantha Provost
5. Most Improved Junior of the Year - William Houtart-Masse
6. Most Improved Female of the Year - Sali Zeidan
7. Most Potential for 2006 - Sandy Pembroke

All in all there were some great awards given out to people who truly deserved them. When it comes to awards every member at Nomad makes a big difference in the ultimate performance of the school and its athletes. Thank you for making 2005 a great year.

To the coaches at Nomad...pat yourselves on the back. Whenever an athlete wins the 'Most Improved' award, it's in large part due to the collective efforts of the instructor team. Great work guys!

This was an exciting event from start to finish. Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing had 3 competitors at this event, all of whom performed extremely well. We also had a couple of people who made the trip down to Niagra Falls (New York) to lend their support. We were very proud of the fighters at this event.

Sandy Pembroke prepares for battle.

Aaron Cope vs. Bart Molenda

Aaron from Nomad defeats Brad

Marie-Helene stepping into the ring.

Marie-Helene loses a close fought battle

South Africa has to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world to visit. There is so much to see and do, not to mention that the hospitality of the hosts there are amazing. This year Nomad had a big group of people going to South Africa, most of whom were relative beginners. These people were definitely thrown into the fire, as it were.

As a coach, I knew that each of the individuals who went had it in them to perform on the international stage...they just didn't know that yet. I've included in this set of photos some of the early morning training sessions. To prepare for this event I met with all the fighters every morning at 6:00am and went through some...vigorous training methods in order to compensate for their lack of experience. In the end, every athlete was rock solid and ready to go.

Participating in this prestigious event was: Victor Provost, Samantha Provost, Michelle Braun, Beth Stanistreet, Sali Zeidan, Leigh Crawford, and William Houtart-Masse.

As long as I've been coaching I don't think I could say I was ever more proud of a group of fighters. For me, this was a truly special group of people to train.

Sincerely,

John McMahon
Head Instructor

This event, as you'll see by the photos, was dominated by Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing's 'Power Girls'. It was a small group of people that went this year from Nomad, but the group had a fantastic showing.

Victor Provost did an excellent job of coaching all the fighters.

This was definitely the best workshop that Nomad has put on to date. Otis Grant, former WBO World Boxing Champion, came to Ottawa, in order to put on boxing workshop and let me tell you...it was GREAT!

Everyone had loads of fun with this one. Otis kept everyone busy from start to finish. The room was packed with a great bunch of students, from all over the area, who were just eager to learn. In fact, this workshop brought people in from Cornwall, Petawawa and as far away as Toronto.

We covered a lot of great conditioning and technical training that I know helped everyone out with their boxing development.

Make sure you keep your eyes on our calendar of events so that you won't miss the next one!

Encounters Canada is an organization that puts together educational experiences for some of the brightest young minds in Canada. Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing has been hosting kickboxing workshops for Encounters Canada for several years with aim of sharing this great sport with others. These workshops are lots of fun for everyone involved.

This years provincials was a perfect testing ground for many of our fighters, old and new. This event saw one of our instructors, Aaron Cope, come out of retirement. On the other hand...we had Channel Villeneuve, Bryan Tice, and Marcel Richer make their first appearance.

This event was supported by 2 coaches this year from Nomad, Victor Provost and Angelo Chan. Their past experience helped all the fighters to perform well. Once again Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing did a great job on the provincial scene.

A special thanks goes out the Sydnee Provost, Channel's parents, and any others that made the trip down to lend their support.

Results:

Women:

Danielle Viau - Middleweight Beginner - Bronze
Adele Desrosiers - Heavyweight Beginner and Open - Gold in Both
Samantha Provost - Junior Open - Gold
 

Men:

Marcel Richer - Heavyweight Open - Gold (first tournament)
Aaron Cope - Light Heavyweight Open - Gold
Steve Lozanski - Middleweight 0pen - Gold
William Houtart - Middleweight Junior Open - Silver
Bryan Tice - Middleweight Beginner - Runner Up

This was an awesome workshop! We had people coming from all over for this one. Members of different clubs working together to perfect their craft. Martin Cantin, a former world kickboxing champion and professional fighter, passed on a lot of great advice to the people that showed up for this event.

Most of the people participating in the event found that the 3 hours flew by. Martin broke the workshop into three specific groups. Each group would work on a specific set of skills and after a set period of time the groups would rotate.

There was also an opportunity to do some sparring. In the end, everyone who showed up had a blast.

Every fighter should get a chance to fight in a location as beautiful as this one. This was an amazing trip right from the beginning. The players involved from Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing were John McMahon, Victor Provost, and Holly Deacon. John was the head coach for the Canadian Team and both Victor and Holly were fighting in their first international event.

The WPKA kickboxing worldchampionship this year was packed with 60 different countries. To many the WPKA worlds is not as well know as WAKO or IASKA, but the countries and fighters that are represented are all the top notch kickboxers around the world. Some of the countries were Russia, Germany, France, Kuwait, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kazikstan, and many more.

The event was jammed packed from beginning to end. The Canadian Team was a small one compared to many of the countries, but we were well represented. Out of a team of 25 competitors...we came home with 16 medals. Two of which came back to Ottawa's hometown.

Once all the fighting was done...we made sure to take in some of the beautiful sites.

Despite the cold weather, members of Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing, manged to make it out to support a local kickboxing event. We didn't have any fighters in this one, but its a perfect excuse for everyone to get out, watch some kickboxing, and drop by at a local restaurant for some great food afterwards.

This is just one of the many ways that we try to meet outside the 4 walls of the training area to have some fun. As we like to say...there's a lot more to kickboxing than just training and fighting. It's the friendships that are developed that seems to be the most rewarding aspect.

This was a great year for the Nomad team that went down to fight in the CASK Kickboxing nationals. We had loads of fun...as usual...and everyone competed extremely well making the folks back in Ottawa very proud.

Special thanks go out to Aaron Cope & Victor Provost for coaching and to Carianne McMahon and Steve Bedard warming up and organizing the fighters.

Results:

JUNIORS:
Timothy MacKay - Gold Junior Point Fighting, Bronze Continuous Kickboxing
Samantha Provost - Gold Junior Continuous Kickboxing
Jonathan Kyriakakis - Silver Junior Point Fighting, Silver continous Kickboxing
Leigh Crawford - Silver Junior Continuous Kickboxing
William Houtart - Runner Up - Junior Continous Kickboxing

ADULTS:

Beth Stanistreet - Double Gold - Beginner and Open Class - Women's Heavyweight
Michelle Braun - Silver - Beginner - Women's Heavyweight
Sali Zeidan - Runner Up - Women's Heavyweight
Marie-Helene Pichette - Women's Heavyweight

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!! Now this was a great event. Nomad Members that came out for the Dragonboat race had nothing but fun. This was truly a team building event. Best of all...all the efforts were going to local charities.

The weather was mostly beautiful...small rainstorm passed us by, but other than that the spirits were high, the smiles were wide, and the energy was overflowing.

This was Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing's first time trying their hand at the famous Dragonboat race and I think we passed the test with flying colors! We completed the course...we didn't sink the boat...and we didn't lose any of our crew out to sea.

Now this was truly and exciting event. This was Marie-Helene Pichette's first full-contact kickboxing match and it was being held in Lockport New York. M-H was fighting a hometown girl. It doesn't get any more exciting than this...

The fight was exciting from the get go. Neither fighter was willing to give an inch. There was no doubt that Marie-Helene was more of the finesse fighter, between the two, hitting the american with everything in her arsenal. In the end though...Marie-Helene didn't have enough to convince the judges that she deserved to win the contest and lost a split decision.

We were all incredibly proud of Marie-Helene and everyone who went down had a great time. Lots of laughs were shared on the trip down.

Click the photos below to get a look at some of the action.

Sometimes it's very difficult for Nomad fighters to find Kickboxing events that are close to home. Every once and a while though, a martial arts tournament, which has good standards, comes along that allows are members to get some practise.

Prostyle has put on their tournament for a number of years and has always done a good job. The main factor is their desire to run a safe and fair tournament. Priority being on safe.

For this tournament...it was our first time having junior fighters. Since getting juniors kickboxing experience is tougher than getting adults experience, we were forced to teach our juniors how to do point karate in 5 weeks to get them ready for the tournament. Our Junior 'Smart Kicks' did extremely well!

Here's a perfect example of how size doesn't necessarily matter. Lawrence Williams, my friend and personal trainer (while competing) shows you how natural body strength and proper technique is often more important than muscle mass.

Lawrence competed in the open class against all the massive heavyweights in this strongman competition and managed to beat more than half the field. In fact...take a close look at some of the photos...you'll see the surprised looks on all their faces. Why are they so surprised?? Lawrence is 6 fee tall weighing only 160 pounds. Not a lot of muscle mass there.

How does he do it? Not from spending hours in the gym pumping iron in order to look pretty infront of the mirror. Lawrence works on practical weight bearing excercises, does a lot of natural body exercises, and spends a lot of time doing floor work with his own body weight.

Seeing is believing!

In an effort to support local tournaments and give fighters every chance they can get to step into the ring, Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing participated in this tournament. While it didn't have a large number of opponents, the level of competition was fairly good.

There were a number of people who fought for their first time including: William Houtart-Masse, Daniel Stout, Sasha Hijazi, and Geoff Philpott. Special thanks to Victor Provost for helping coach.

Everyone did a great job and represented Nomad well.

Results:

Women:

Beth Stanistreet - Women's Heavyweight Beginner - Gold
Michelle Braun - Women's Heavyweight Beginner - Silver
Leigh - Women's Lightweight Open - Silver
Marie-Helene Pichette - Women's Heavyweight Open - Runner Up

Men:

Daniel Stout - Men's Lightweight Beginner - Gold
William Houtart-Masse - Men's Lightweight Beginner - Silver
Sacha Hijazi - Men's Heavyweight Open - Silver
Geoff Philpott - Men's Heavyweight Beginner - Runner Up

Our aim at Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing is to work with as many other kickboxing & boxing schools as possible in order to help our members get the most experience possible.
Working with other schools simply makes our members better because it allows them to see other methods of training, to work with different fighters, and get advice from other coaches.

This is the kind of co-operation among different schools that is good for everyone. Mark Kelly, the owner of the Top Ten Training facility in Cassleman, has graciously opened his doors to our members. Everyone who made it out for the training had loads of fun and learnt a lot of new skills.

The 2003 Kickboxing Nationals was an important event for Nomad Kickboxing & Boxing. It was a turning point from a part-time school to a full-time school. We still only had adult members, but the juniors were starting to come onto the scene.

Thanks go out to Devon Ramsden for coaching the team, to Carianne McMahon for organizing and warming up the fighters, to Samantha Provost for volunteering to be a time keeper, and to Vladislav Hernandez for driving down to Oakville just to cheer people on.

Sorry I don't have any action photos for you but if you'd like to see who went down to the event just take a look below:

Results:

ADULTS:

Holly Deacon - Gold Women's Heavyweight - Open
Marie-Helene Pichette - Runner Up - Open
Angie Delorme - Silver Women's Heavyweight - Beginner
Angelo Chan - Gold Men's Middleweight - Open
Andy Vogler - Silver Men's Heavyweight - Beginner
Victor Provost - Runner Up Middleweight - Open
Steve Lozanski - Runner Up Middleweight - Open
Junior Ndemma-Moussa - Runner Up Heavyweight - Open
Felix Leung - Runner Up Middleweight - Open

Before we let anyone start fighting we always get them to participate in beginner sparring workshops so that members can learn how to box and kickbox in a non-threatening learning environment. This removes the risk of injury and guarantees a positive learning experience. Many kickboxing and boxing gyms are still stuck with the old mentality that the university of hard knocks is the only way for someone to learn how to fight. The reality is...its one way...but not the best way.

This photo was taken in 2003 but the write up has come much later. There are 2 world medalists in the photo below that got their start in these workshops.