Lion's Den Academy

John Will Seminar

admin — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 05:18:44 +0000

Last weekend we had the privilege and joy of having John Will visit again for another seminar. John did an amazing seminar on headarm chokes and everyone in the class from beginners to advanced was able to grasp it all. On behalf of everyone at the gym we would like to thank John for his time and look forward to the next one.

New BJJ Black Belts

admin — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:11:35 +0000

John Will held a BJJ seminar on Sunday and ran an excellent session on X-guard entries and sweeps. However, at the start of the session he awarded Mark Christie and Michael Belos with their BJJ Black Belts. Both students have been training under Luke Pezzutti for quite some time now all the way back to the early beginnings of BJJ at the gym. This grading is well deserved and a big congratulations to them both. With the addition of these two new black belts at the gym, the quality of training will only go up all around.

Also, John Will also awarded Luke with his first degree on his black belt. Having been awarded his black belt more than 5 years ago, this is definitely long overdue as John had mentioned. Another big congratulations to Luke.

Adam Sarkis wins at PWP 5

admin — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 06:57:11 +0000

Adam Sarkis represented the team last Friday the 14th of Sep at PWP 5. Adam was first up on the card and left a huge statement dominating his opponent with great striking and vicious knees and good top control with some damaging ground and pound. Congratulations to Adam on the win, which is a testament to his hard work in training.

Luke Shakespeare Wins his Second MMA Fight

admin — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 00:33:52 +0000

Young Luke Shakespeare had his second MMA fight as an amateur on the JNI show and won via rear naked choke in less than a minute. Luke dominated the fight after taking his opponent to the ground after the initial bell and continued to ground and pound his opponent until he finished with a rear naked choke. Congratulations to young Luke who has invested a lot of time and work into his training and this outcome is the result of all his hard work.

New Brown Belts

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:29:15 +0000

Congratulations to Adrian, Kian and Mal for receiving their brown belts. All three all well deserved of their new ranks for the countless hours they have put on the mat both learning and improving themselves as well as helping all the other students’ learning as well.

BJJ Promotions

admin — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:48:30 +0000

A big congratulations to Astein Grant who received his well deserved purple belt yesterday. All the hard work and constant hours at training has paid off for Astein who is a great role model for dedication. A special mention also to Anthony Chiu who also received his Blue belt earlier in the month.

Doing us proud at CFC 18

admin — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:37:03 +0000

Four of the guys fought last Friday night at CFC 18 in front of a packed venue. Adam Sarkis was laying some brutal ground and pound on his opponent before a small mistake caused him to get swept into a bad position where his opponent’s strikes caused the ref to stop the fight. Unfortunate result for Adam, but he’ll definitely bounce back from this. Mo Kandeel was up against a tough opponent from Roots and unfortunately lost via rear naked choke.

Up next was Kian Pham who showed a lot of maturity in his fight to convincingly beat his opponent. Striking and landing some good blows from his feet while his opponent was on his back forced his opponent to desperately shoot at Kian’s legs where he latched onto a tight arm in guillotine choke from half guard which forced his opponent to tap.

Last up for the team was Josh Payne who started off slow but came home very strong in the latter half of the first round dropping his opponent with a big straight right punch down the middle. Josh got on top of his opponent to continue with some ground and pound, however his opponent was literally saved by the bell. Josh unfortunately received an elbow above his eye which cut him and affected his vision. The doctor had a look at his eye during the round break and for safety reasons called the fight off which was very unfortunate as Josh’s opponent looked very tired and was going to be in a bit of trouble come second round.

A tough and valiant effort by all the boys on the night. It’s always challenging to step up for a fight so the boys did everyone proud regardless of the results.

Luke Shakespeare wins at War on the North Shore 16

admin — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:16:03 +0000

Luke Shakespeare made his Kickboxing fighting debut at War on the North Shore 16 today held at North Sydney League’s club. Despite this being only his second fight (his first being an amateur MMA fight), Luke showed a very dominant performance in every round to take the fight in the end via a unanimous decision. The win is definitely a result of all the hard work Luke has put into his training as he was ready to fight on short notice. Congratulations Luke and keep up the hard work!

CFC 18 – August 26th

admin — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:43:34 +0000

Four of the guys will be fighting on the next CFC show which will be in Sydney on August 26th. The matchups will be:

Kian ‘Karnage’ Pham vs. Mike Lim (u57kg)
Josh ‘Major’ Payne vs. Michael Morcombe (u70kg)
Mo Kandeel vs. Regan Wilson (u77kg)
Adam Sarkis vs. Jamie Rae (u84kg)

All the boys have been training hard and looking to bring home a win for themselves and everyone at the gym. Good luck to them all!

Circuit Training Video

admin — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:31:54 +0000

Added a new video showing one of the circuits done during the kickboxing class. Multiple stations working on different areas of strength, fitness and endurance with each person spending 1 minute at each station before moving onto the next.