CLASS LEADERS

 
CLASS LEADERS

Susan

One of Pan Am’s longest term volunteers and class leaders, Susan has been teaching high energy, intensive boxing classes at Pan Am for many years. Susan learned how to box at Pan Am and had her first white collar fight in 2005. She continues to lead Pan Am’s classes with enthusiasm, drive and determination to inflict "Winnipeg’s Hardest Workout" on the general membership.

Consistent with Pan Am’s training focus, all Susan’s classes encompass the core boxing components of heavy bag work, skipping, shadow boxing, abdominals, push-ups and technical training. Susan offers her experience and love of the sport to ensure your workout is challenging and guaranteed to make you want to come back for more.

Darcy

By day, Darcy is a musical chameleon producing and engineering local and international music talent. By night, Darcy changes his tune and delivers an exhilarating class at Pan Am Boxing. Darcy places strong emphasis on push ups, bag drills and core fitness needed in boxing. One of the most Darcy’s favourite (and grueling) sequences is 10 seconds non-stop punching on the bag followed by 10 push-ups.   Get over the hump day with a class that packs a punch!

Gino

“ Boxing is the type of sport where you have to be fully engaged and make demanding commitments upon yourself as it is the type of sport that is a very physically and mentally demanding” -   is what you can expect to hear from Gino, a boxer since 2002. Gino and Ray Oaks (a lawyer in downtown Winnipeg ) started the 1 ^st Executive White Collar Fight 4 ½ years ago.

An athlete all his life he began playing Hockey when he was five years old, advancing very quickly from a community club level to Double A, then Triple A Hockey then to Junior A Tier 2.   During the off season Gino would train like a boxer and would always be in great shape for training camp in late August early September.

Gino structures his class by providing a good warm up (running, skipping, stairs and shadow boxing), and he will do 200 push-up per class in intervals of 25 usually at the end of most 2 minute rounds when the bell rings. Also, part of his lead role is to review the basic fundamentals of boxing making sure the members do not pick up any bad habits. Then he moves on to heavy bag workouts that allow members to work on their technical skills and sharpen their punches. During this time, Gino will work individually with willing class members in the ring to work on focus gloves or body sparring. After the heavy bag workout Gino will do a few rounds of Technical Sparring where the class gets a chance to go against a real body without ever touching. Lastly, he will split the class and work on abdominals with the Medicine ball and continue on heavy bags doing pyramids. He always conclude with an abdominal work out and cool down……class members, at this point are enjoying the endorphins!

“Boxing is a wonderful sport; it promotes discipline, commitment, dedication and perseverance. FYI 50% of my classes are women, ever since Million Dollar Baby – Hillary Swank movie, women have become an essential part of this great sport.“

Ami

Ami joined Pan Am in 2002 and has been a class leader for the past year and a half.   His classes are characterized by high energy, a blend of cardio and boxing technique and terrific music.   In a recent survey, they were unanimously selected as Pan Am members’ favourite class.   (It should, however, be noted that Ami wrote the survey and this was the only possible answer.)

  Ami believes in creating a positive and enthusiastic environment where every participant – regardless of age, fitness level or experience – is encouraged to find his or her inner world champion.

Roland

Roland Vandal has featured in many newspaper articles and TV shows. He is living proof of how a sport can positively impact people’s lives. He calls Pan Am his home and treats it as such. He not only teaches the youth class but is also in the centre of any competition Pan Am takes a part of. He is a well rounded and skilled boxer who has fought at the amateur and professional level. He is Pan Am's go to coach not only for boxing tips but also for life lessons. He takes an interest in keeping track of his students and making sure they stay out of trouble. Sparring is an essential part of his workout.

Bridget

Growing up Bridget was not a fan of boxing. But once she actually sat and watched some fights, she realized the beauty of the sport.

"Boxing is the ultimate challenge. There’s nothing that can compare to testing yourself the way you do every time you step in the ring." Sugar Ray Leonard

And with years of involvement in the sport as a volunteer, fighter, spectator and now coach, Bridget continues to develop her skills within the Pan Am family. She still volunteers every Sat morning at the front desk and regularly teaches her evening class, as well as being a substitute class leader when required. As a member, perhaps you’ve heard of the plank as that is a staple in her Friday evening class.

Bridget to this date has 5 fights under her belt with more pending. She recently competed at the Ringside World Championships Tournament and won her division.

Lisa

Lisa joined Pan Am in 2006, had her first fight in late 2007 and now leads classes, coaches and was part of the contingent of fighters and coaches who went down to compete at the 2008 Ringside World Amateur Boxing Championships in Kansas City, MO.

Though small in stature she’s scrappy and those who see her down at the club just about every day would say she just keeps going and going and going. Lisa has affectionately earned the nickname “Queen of Mean” from her morning class members and has built a reputation for delivering a tough hour of training. Her classes vary in terms of warm up and bag work drills but you can always count on her trademarked "grasshopper" pushups as well as her killer ab routine which consists of slow, QUALITY vs quantity, PERFECT reps.

"As a leader at the club, my mission is to teach you, coach you, motivate you and push you. I will push you farther that YOU think you can go, but not farther than I think you can go. The difference between the two distances is evidenced every time I see someone slow down, lose form, or stop doing an activity. Sometimes all it takes is a ‘Come on - you can do this - give me everything you’ve got!’ comment and suddenly the individual is cranking it out. It’s there; you’ve got it in you - and I’m going to get it out of you".

Holly

Holly started coming to Pan Am in January 2008 with hopes of getting in shape for a holiday the next month. After a few weeks of participating in the classes she realized this was going to be more then a one month project. Since then Holly has had 4 fights (2 exhibitions and 2 wins) and has been an employee of Pan Am since the summer '08.