Growing up I was always active in sports. I started out with Martial Arts then as I got older I joined team sports, primarily football and rugby.
I played football from the 7th grade right up until the end of high school, finishing my playing career off with a Provincial Championship win. I also started playing rugby in the 7th grade and still play to this day. Rugby became my primary focus after high school ended and over the course of my playing career I have represented Team Saskatchewan a handful of times as well as playing with the Prairie Wolf Pack u19 for a season. I am also proud to say I've been a member of Regina's Campion Grads since 2013.
I have been lucky enough to transfer my passion for these sports into coaching as well. I was the defensive line coach for the Thom Trojans in 2013 when they had their best season in recent memory, losing out to the eventual Provincial champions in the Semi Finals. In rugby I coached the Campbell Tartans to a 15s City Championship appearance in 2012 as well as a 7s City Championships victory in 2014.
These Coaching experiences sparked the fire in me that led me to what I do today!
When I was 19 years old I tore my ACL, meniscus, and bruised my femur to near fracture. This happened on a Friday. Saturday I received a call from my Wolf Pack coach informing me that Team Canada wanted me to come for a work out. Not being able to pursue this life long goal put me in a major funk. I ate out of depression and that combined with inactivity caused me to put on about 50 pounds in a matter of months.
When I came back to rugby I was overweight and out of shape. I worked hard to lose about 30 pounds of that, but was then struck with another injury. I broke my fibula into 3 pieces and pulled all the muscles off of my foot. This time around I told myself I wasn't going to balloon up again and took it upon myself to eat clean and start working out as soon as I could.
It was this decision and the support of my girlfriend (now wife) and mother that helped me stay on track. It also opened the door to become a trainer at my Mom's fitness studio. I started working kids classes, then as I became more experienced and gained more certifications I started teaching our adult classes.
When I first started training again post injury I went back to what was familiar, doing the same style of training I had for years playing High School Football and Rugby. I focused on "The Big 3"; bench press, squats, and deadlifts and supplemented that with some Olympic Lifting (and of course a ton of curls). While these exercises are great and definitely serve a purpose, I quickly lost interest in them despite showing progression.
I wanted something a little different, a little more dynamic, and a lot more fluid. After all, I was training for a rugby comeback and while those lifts are great they're very rigid and rugby is fluid. So why not train that way?
This brought me to kettlebells. It answered my needs, was great rehab for my injuries, and was more enjoyable than what I was doing before. I looked into a certification and found Agatsu. This in turn brought me to picking up several certifications through them and going down to LA for a week long Masters Of Movement event.
That week in LA would change my life as that is where I got my first taste of Mace training. While kettlebells still hold a special place in my heart, I now know that it was the mace I was looking for the whole time. It answered every one of my needs and then some. Not a day goes by that I don't have a mace in my hand. Whether it be building flows, training for competition, or using it for active meditation; every time I'm holding one of my maces I'm at peace.
In the years that I have been mace training I have been lucky enough to build a list of accomplishments that I am very proud of:
I was offered Educator positions with 2 different mace companies, eventually becoming a Steel Mace Flow level 2 Educator (1 of only 4 in the world).
I had the opportunity to travel to Toronto and win my first mace competition, pulling a 10kg mace for a total of 223 pulls in five minutes which is a Canadian record that stands to this day.
I am known to do hour long sets with the 10kg or 12kg mace, something few other people in the world have pulled off.
I have also made a bit of a name for myself with even longer "endurance sets". In this category I've done a single set of 10 Thousand swings with a 5kg mace that took 5 hours and 45 minutes, a 9 hour and 3 minute set (though that time I did not count reps), and more recently a 12 hour and 6 minute long set.
I have grown my Warrior Flow classes into the largest mace training community in Canada. With that fantastic community, we were able to host Western Canada's first mace competition, and the biggest one in Canada to date. In this competition one of my athletes became the first woman in Canada to complete a five minute set with an 8kg mace and the next year a different student became the first woman in Canada to complete a five minute set with a 10kg mace in competition.
I have had many of my Warriors go on to become certified mace instructors under a wide variety of different certifying bodies.
Steel Mace Flow named me the "Steel Mace Coach of The Year" for 2021.
Beyond all that I have been lucky enough to introduce over 200 different people to the mace and travel the world doing what I love.
The mace is my passion, and I would love to share it with you!
1324 Hamilton Street, Regina, Saskatchewan S4R 2B5, Canada
