Michael first started his martial arts journey in 2006 at the age of nine. He wasn’t particularly good at other sports, and his mother thought it might be a good outlet, so he started kickboxing in his hometown of Windsor. He continued kickboxing at the same club as a child until the age of 13, briefly moving to the adult class when he had a break for a couple of years.

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Sadly in December 2012, Michael’s brother, Marc, passed away. This became a very tough period of time for Michael, and to recentre himself and find a new outlet, he restarted the kickboxing in early January 2013. This enabled him to deal with issues of confidence, anxiety and depression that he would have struggled with had he not had this outlet.

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Not only did he restart his journey learning martial arts from white belt, but he also joined the coaching team at his club. During this time, he’d go from just helping set up and holding pads to running warmups, and eventually moving on to running the classes.

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As he progressed through the belts as a coach, he passed every grading he took, although he did take some breaks in participating in the gradings due to injury, including a back muscle tear that knocked him out for 6 months.

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On his journey to a black belt in kickboxing, he also took up jiu-jitsu at Combat Academy under the tutelage of Eighth Dan Black Belt, Sensei Ian Gauldie in 2018, though only once a week compared to the four days a week he was training kickboxing.

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He then took his black belt grading with his club in 2018 and, unfortunately, was failed by them. However, this didn’t deter Michael; he continued training under Adnan Ahbab to retake the black belt and passed.

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Since then, Michael has worked to broaden his horizons by studying jiu-jitsu in more depth, as well as Brazilian jiu-jitsu and continuing his kickboxing training with Kong Martial Arts, led by Third Dan Black Belt, Sarah Bennett.

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Both Ian Gauldie and Sarah Bennett have guided Michael and shown him a new way to work and teach martial arts with an emphasis on growth and community with others outside of one individual club. He now works through this philosophy of “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

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He first met Adnan, his co-founder, when he first started in 2006, as they started roughly at the same time. This friendship has remained firm throughout, with Adnan providing both inspiration and support to Michael, and they founded Ace Martial Arts to foster the principles they share in the sport.

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