After a lifetime of being totally passionate about horses I have come to be passionate about the martial arts.
I had a very brief exposure to Karate in my late teens in Germany. At age 44, I returned to Karate, which I practiced for about a year and a half. I quite liked it but there was too little sparring and too much kata for me.
When I started Karate, I also started PFS (JKD). This I very much enjoyed, with lots of sparring in all fighting ranges. I was introduced to grappling there. It made me a keen follower of MMA events, too. Unfortunately, there are no more PFS classes at that school.
I started BJJ in October 2008 at The Ballarat Dojo, a fantastic small Will-Machado affiliated school in Ballarat, Australia. It is run by Sensei Glenn, a Karate BB and BJJ brown belt under John Will. I received my blue belt in September 2010. I'm lucky to be training with a bunch of great people, so I don't mind being the only woman on the mat 99.99% of the time :-)
Occasionally I train at John Will's Blackbelt Studios in Geelong. I've also trained at Dominance Mixed Martial Arts in Melbourne. Both are great schools with fantastic teachers and lots of nice people who train there.
Since April 2011 I also train at Infininite Mixed Martial Arts, a 10th Planet affilitate school in Ballarat. It is run by John Campbell. Currently, I train no-gi grappling there, but I may have a crack at the MMA classes later on.
I have competed a couple of times in gi and no-gi events and look forward to more tournaments. Needless to say, I'm hopelessly infected with the grappling bug :-)
I'm a full time student (IT), and have recently commenced working in the industry as well. I hope to graduate in 2014. Aside from IT, I run a small horse stud. I used to start and train horses, but that is now taking a back seat. I still ride for enjoyment. For fun, I also read sci-fi and play with computers.
