Training
Mark has been training full time ever since he turned 16 years old. He began in the martial arts with Karate, Boxing and Kickboxing with 23-time world champion Jean-Yves Theriault. After receiving his Black belt in Shotokan karate, Mark decided it was time to move on to bigger challenges, and began training Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai at OAMA. Mark is now a Blue belt in BJJ under his main instructor, Pat Cooligan. He has had the opportunity to train with BJJ greats like John Danaher, Igor Gracie, and Fabio Leopoldo.
Mark has also spent an extensive amount of time in New York training Muay Thai under the tutelage of Kru Phil Nurse and with National WKA Muay Thai Champion Jamie Crowder. With the support of OAMA, Mark traveled to Thailand to train under Kru Andy Thomson, owner of the world-famous Kiat Busaba Lanna Muay Thai Gym in Chiang Mai, where he got the chance to fight. On later trips to Thailand, Mark studied at the World Muay Thai Institute in Bangkok, where he earned the highest-level of certification an instructor can receive from the World Muay Thai Council. Mark is also a certified Kru under the Canadian Amateur Muay Thai Association of Ontario (CAMTAO). Despite his young age, no other Muay Thai instructor in Ottawa holds the number of certifications Mark has acquired in the sport, nor can they rival his fighting record.
The martial arts have also taken Mark on many travels – four times to Thailand, thrice to Brazil, and countless times to the United States, from Los Angeles to New York.
At OAMA, Mark is a full-time instructor in Muay Thai, MMA and Children’s Jiu Jitsu.
