Kent Guindon , December, 2006 vol. 1, no. 9

Growing up I was never into sports.

To this day I’ve never had much of an interest in them, yet as far back as I can remember I’ve always had a deep interest in the martial arts. I admired the discipline of martial training and the resulting courage, serenity and self-control it seemed to foster in the willing student. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I could afford to pay for martial arts courses. It was at that time that I started to seriously look for a fighting system in which to train.

I knew what I was looking for: a martial training system that would take me above and beyond who I was: body, mind and spirit. Where the training would push me to my limits and allow me to break those limits to new horizons. It would have to be structured, where I would learn specific skills and which would produce results that I could take with me outside of the training area. As I once wrote to Chris and Dana, I knew I had to become a different person, a person who would attain to self-mastery, develop courage and a higher awareness of myself and of the world around me.

That was and is my quest.

So when I met Chris at Champagne Fitness Centre that fateful evening in late Nov. early Dec. 1997 and he told me he was going to give boxing lessons, I signed up that evening! After having tried a couple of different martial arts, I had heard that boxing training produced the very elements I was looking for, and here was someone who was willing to teach me the skills and the art. I was Chris’ very first student and my first class was at Champagne Fitness Centre on a Wednesday evening at 7:00pm in mid-December 1997.

Nine years later I am still at it, never having stopped and with no intentions of stopping.

During those nine years I’ve seen many changes, both in the format and the structure of the training. I’ve seen many people come, and some have gone but the majority have stayed. I’ve seen us grow from one student and guinea pig… namely me, into the school we are today, from one heavy bag, one speed bag and one set of hand pads into what we have today, and from one class a week to the Monday to Saturday classes we have now. As I look back at those nine years many words come to mind: hand pads, outdoor fitness classes at Stanley Park and Mooney’s Bay in the Summer, sparring on every last Friday nights of each month, burpies, lunges, push ups and sit ups in between rounds (called ‘active rest’), agility ladder, wobble boards, BIG RED, the fitness tests, suicides ( a type of exercise), running punch outs, Whitebrook Health and Fitness to Whitebrook Boxing Kinetics (WBK) and Get Your Ass to Class. In all these changes two things have remained consistent: the martial, high quality, no nonsense intensity of the training and its attendant results as well as the solid integrity and dedication of the coaches, Chris and Dana, to us, the students.

However, the biggest transformation was in me: body, mind and spirit. Here was training I had only read about in martial arts books, and now I am living it. I became, and am still becoming a new and better human being. To describe all of the benefits of this type of training in my personal life would require another article in itself. Suffice it to say that for me personally, this training and its benefits have become an integral part of my way of life which allows me to develop and maintain the tools to effectively meet life’s challenges. In addition, as a visual artist, it has produced a visible and tangible enhancement in my abilities to draw and paint as both art and boxing stem from the same fountainhead: the soul and the spirit expressing themselves through the body.

Hence: Boxing for Better Living.

Now, for approximately 1 year, Chris and Dana have offered me the opportunity to help others attain to the same transformation by training me to coach other students as Chris and Dana have coached me and others throughout the years. It has been a tremendously positive experience for me, and one for which I am very grateful. In a world where the measure of one’s success is erroneously (I believe) measured by how many material possessions one has accumulated, it is a wonderful feeling to be able to directly contribute in such a beneficent way to the health and wellness of another human being.

That, to me, is the true measure of success.

Finally, this article would not be complete if I did not take the opportunity to mention two things. First, I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Chris and Dana for coaching/teaching me all those years (from the time when there were no levels and then from Levels 2 to 7), and for the opportunities you’ve given me through it. It has truly been an honour. Second, my nine years at WBK would not have been half as great were it not for the high quality people I’ve met on this journey as well as the great friendships I’ve forged. So to my classmates with whom I’ve trained consistently over the years (you know who you are- the present as well as the absent), to everyone I’ve met and trained with through coaching from Levels 1 to 6, and mostly to my dear wife Fiona who’s trained with me/us for 8 years, as well as to our number one fan: our three year old daughter whose enthusiasm for boxing is revealed by her regular shadow boxing with mommy and daddy’s gloves in front of our bathroom mirror and for diligently learning the names of everyone who is featured on the WBK website: it has been a privilege for me to be part of such an elite group of people.

I’m looking forward to many more years of training with you all at WBK.