Ahmed Zahabi

I began training in BJJ back in the early 90s with Rodney King in South Africa. At the time, there were no BJJ black belts in the country and we relied on seminars from high profile coaches such as Matt Thornton and Rigan Machado who visited the country frequently. At the time ranking and belts were a side concern. I trained with Rodney up until 1997/1998 when I moved to Asia (Hong Kong). There were no BJJ schools in Hong Kong or South Korea where I lived so my training fell back to mainly Muay Thai at that time. I moved back to South Africa in 2001 and started training with Rodney again and my training was on and off until 2004 when I moved to London. I was able to train for a few months at Roger Gracies gym there before I moved to Saudi Arabia where there were no schools so my training once again took a back seat. In 2006 I moved to Bahrain and started training at Reza Monfaradi's gym. I managed to compete in some tournaments (Asia Super Cup 2007, Jordan) and some IBJJF sanctioned tournaments in Abu Dhabi. I received my Blue Belt just after these tournaments in 2009. I got seriously injured in the tournament in Abu Dhabi in 2009 and had to take a break from BJJ as my hip injury prevented me from moving properly. In 2010 I moved to Canada and in 2012 I started training again with Marcio Nunes in Toronto. In 2014 I moved back to Bahrain however I was unable to train until 2015 when I moved back to South Africa. From 2015 to 2017 I trained with Wiekus Swart in Northcliff, Johannesburg. In 2017 I moved back to Canada and resumed training with Marcio. In 2018 I competed in the World Masters tournament at Blue Belt. In 2018 I spent 1 month in Las Vegas training at Sergio Penhas gym (best experience of my BJJ life so far) and in 2019 I was promoted to Purple Belt by Marcio Nunes. After this promotion I changed clubs and moved to Burlington BJJ under Alex Zahabi. I was promoted to Brown Belt by Alex in June 2023 and received 2 stripes on my brown belt on Dec 10 2023. I currently teach the kids program at the club. I also train in Kyokushin Karate under Shihan Steve Fogarasi in Canada. I am currently a brown belt (1st Kyu).