Posted August 21, 2018 by Mostafa Sabeti
Owner & Head Instructor
Owner & Head Instructor
Earlier this month, Master Mostafa won the World Championship in the Heavyweight division at the International Kickboxing Federation World Classic in Orlando, Florida. Here are some photos and the inspirational story of his journey.
My name is Mostafa Sabeti. I immigrated to Canada from Iran in 2006. After arriving in Canada, I started teaching martial arts. Since then, I have been competing in local as well as and International tournaments.
I became a Canadian citizen in 2011 and had a chance to participate in national kickboxing competition which was held in Montreal. I did very well and got first place. I also got the fastest knockout in the history of martial arts in Canada. It was a 12 second knockout during the national team selection competition. After that I became part of Team Canada.
I participated in the World Championship that was held in Germany in 2011. I won a Silver medal for Team Canada, but before the competition, my shoulder was injured which was the main reason I couldn’t win the final!!
Because of the injury I took leave from tournaments and serious training. I was dealing with the injury over eight years and had 3 major surgeries done on my shoulders. This year I became 37, but I always wanted to go back to fighting again. It is important to me to teach my son and my students that they shouldn’t give up under any circumstances.
So I started my training from a very very low level of intensity to make sure my shoulder was OK. After a few months when I started feeling better, I increased the intensity of my training until I started to get back to “fighting shape”. At that point, I started more serious training for competition. I did a few local fights and I did very well.
I trained a lot (twice a day) along with teaching classes day and night, but I never gave up! I had a few obstacles in front of me: hours of teaching, working hard, training and injuries but I tried not to let anything deter me. I finally got prepared for my fight, and this month I participated in the IKF Kickboxing World Championship as a representative of Canada.
I got by for my first fight. Then in the second fight I went up against a very good opponent from the USA. I won with 2 knockdown points. After this victory, I advanced to the final where I fought with a very strong fighter from Puerto Rico. Fortunately I knocked him out in the first minute of the 3rd round. I became the IKF Mens Heavyweight Kickboxing World Champion for 2018.
The point of these efforts was to show my students and my family to never ever give up !!! Thank you everyone for all of your support over the years.
Congratulations Master Mostafa from all of us!
Update:
Master Mostafa’s 2018 IKF World Championship win was featured on Global News:
Surrey’s World Kickboxing Champion Mostafa Sabeti
and in the Peace Arch News:
South Surrey kickboxer overcomes injury en route to World Classic title
