Katrina “The Storm” Nahe works out with Dennis Guila, preparing for a historic kickboxing match next month in Sacramento.
Photo by Dave Roberts

Antioch girl getting her kicks

by Dave Roberts

Jan 11, 2010 | 151 views | 0  | 2  |  | 

Katrina Nahe is a supergirl. By day she’s a soft-spoken,

Katrina “The Storm” Nahe works out with Dennis Guila, preparing for a historic kickboxing match next month in Sacramento.
Photo by Dave Roberts

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        Katrina Nahe is a supergirl. By day she’s a soft-spoken, mild-

 mannered 12-year-old at Black Diamond Middle School in Antioch who aspires to one day design her own clothing line. But in the kickboxing ring she becomes “The Storm” – a whirlwind of jabs, front kicks, crosses, side kicks, hooks, roundhouse kicks, uppercuts, stick kicks, backfists, flying punches and bolo punches mixed with bobbing, weaving, parrying, blocking and guarding.

Dubbed the “12-year-old Fighting Sensation,” over the past three years, from Florida to Las Vegas to Hawaii, Nahe hasn’t lost once in more than 40 bouts and is a two-time International Kickboxing Federation (IKF) World Classic Champion.

A month from now in the Doubletree Hotel in Sacramento, the 5-foot-1-inch little hurricane will be fighting in a historic contest: California’s first official junior full-contact kickboxing fight. She’ll be taking on a top contender, 14-year-old Aneka Otte, who is 3-1 in IKF competition and trains at a premiere mixed martial arts school in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Nahe, who admits to being nervous about the bout, attributes her success in the ring to the hard work she puts in practicing, working out every day for several hours at Guila’s Hawaiian Kajukenbo Kickboxing School in Antioch. Winning the IKF World Classic is the highlight of her career so far, she said, adding that it’s a fun sport and fun to travel. Her friends are excited for her success. In addition to wanting to be a clothing designer, she also has designs on winning more championship belts.

Nahe has been training for half of her young life with Dennis Guila, an eighth-degree black belt and winner of the World Kickboxing Association heavyweight title in 1983. She started out in sport karate sparring, which she wasn’t very good at, before switching to kickboxing.

“Sure enough, when I got her into kickboxing she took off like a wildfire,” said Guila. “She’s fast with her feet and hands. She’s learned to be able to adapt to throwing. She has phenomenal dexterity, mind-hand, mind-feet coordination, where she’s able to combine her strikes effectively, therefore scoring a lot and perhaps knocking out her opponents.”

Full-contact kickboxing, in which knockouts are allowed, was banned for fighters under 17 in California until recently, forcing the younger kickboxers to participate in the semi-contact version, in which the emphasis is on scoring points. The restriction, which has now been lifted, was unnecessary, in Guila’s opinion. “The thing that the athletic commission has never considered is that kickboxing is not much different from boxing,” he said. “And they have allowed boxing for all these years to be legal, even for youths, including knockouts.”

Like Nahe, Guila also came into his own as a martial artist when he switched to kickboxing. “It opened the doors for me to be able to use my hands and feet and not worry about knocking someone out. Kickboxing truly is more of the sport of martial arts, in my opinion.” It’s closer to Thai boxing, which “is known as fighting with eight limbs: hands, feet, elbows and knees.”

Guila, who is now in his 41st year of using and teaching martial arts, provides a variety of styles in his school in a shopping center on Wild Horse Drive off of Hillcrest Avenue. “My specialty is standup kickboxing, muy Thai international rules and American style kickboxing,” he said. His more than 200 students range from kids to seniors, and a variety of classes are available. For more information, call 925-755-3434 or go online to www.guilakarate.com.

KATRINA “THE STORM” NAHE OF GUILA’S TEAM G-FORCE TRAINING CAMP ACCEPTS TO TAKE ON CHALLENGER ANEKA OTTE OF KEN SHAMROCK’S LIONS DEN GYM IN SCOTTSDALE, AZ.  TRAINED BY BOB KARMEL DURING THIS FIRST TIME EVER HISTORICAL EVENT RECENTLY APPROVED BY THE CALIFORNIA ATHLETIC COMMISSION FOR FULL CONTACT KICKBOXING ON FRIDAY, FEB. 12, 2010, @ THE DOUBLE TREE HOTEL IN SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

By Carl Steward
Oakland Tribune columnist

Posted: 10/20/2009 08:06:51 PM PDT

Updated: 10/21/2009 06:46:59 AM PDT

FULL CONTACT kickboxing may seem like a strange choice of sports for a child with self-confidence issues, especially a painfully reticent little girl.

But for Antioch’s Katrina Nahe, kickboxing not only changed her life in a positive social way, it served to unlock rare athletic skill and determination her parents had no idea existed.

“When she was 6, she was so timid,” her mother, Rosie Flores. said. “She was scared of everything, even her own shadow.”

But today, at 12, Katrina is 90 pounds of fast, focused fury who has garnered the nickname “The Storm” for her nonstop ring relentlessness. She has become an international kickboxing champion so proficient that Nahe competed at the International Kickboxing World Championships in Orlando, Fla., in July, where she captured the junior welterweight title by defeating defending champion Tori LaRose of Pacific, Mo., in a three-round, six-minute performance that was decidedly Pacquiao-like for its nonstop action.

“It was a toe-to-toe war all the way,” Katrina’s father, Gabriel Nahe, said. “It was so exciting that when she finally won, I couldn’t even swallow.”

Indeed, the title bout has to be seen to believed, and fortunately, it’s posted on YouTube under Katrina’s name. Her mother put the video to music in order to drown out her father’s yelling in the background.

Gabriel and Rosie weren’t sure what they were getting into six years ago when they enrolled their daughter in Guila’s Hawaiian Kickboxing and Mixed Martial Arts Fitness Center at the suggestion of a relative. But they were willing to try anything that might diminish their daughter’s timidity.

During her first three years, Katrina competed in kumite, a point-based sparring form of karate. As she admitted herself, “I sucked.” But late in 2006, her trainer, Dennis Guila, decided she might be better suited to kickboxing, and she hasn’t looked back since.

For one, she’s never lost in 40 sanctioned bouts, despite the fact that in several local and regional competitions, a shortage of female competitors necessitated that she had to fight against boys.

“And she beats them,” Rosie said. “I remember one boy she fought who gave her a look like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding with this girl.’ She put a whipping on that kid.”

“They might get one or two punches in, but then I take care of them,” Katrina added.

While Katrina has risen in rapid fashion to the rank of world-class junior champion, her personality has also come out of the corner. Her parents steadfastly believe kickboxing and the self-confidence she derives from her success facilitated a dramatic change in her overall makeup.

“At first, we thought, ‘OK, maybe this will help her,’” her mother said. “But, oh, what a change. She’s still a little shy, but this is the best thing we could have ever done for her. It opened her up a lot and really brought out what was inside of her.”

Guila said this is not an uncommon transformation for children who take up martial arts at his Antioch facility. But he is often reluctant to push younger kids into kickboxing unless they demonstrate both the skill and the will to become very good at it.

“It’s a much tougher sport to be involved with,” Guila said. “In many instances, it will break the hearts of students, and therefore you lose them. But when I saw that Katrina had the spirit, dedication and willingness to try something new, I decided it was time. Needless to say, we found her niche in kickboxing, and she has taken it to great heights.”

Guila, an eighth-degree black belt, is a former world champion himself, winning the World Kickboxing Association heavyweight title in 1983 before giving it up to teach in 1995. He currently has a number of MMA champions in his academy, among them Nick Chinchilla and Hugo Rivera of Oakley and John Duenas and Logan Kauth of Antioch in addition to Katrina.

“He’s a great teacher because has so many different techniques,” Gabriel Nahe said. “If you fight the same way all the time, sooner or later you’re going to lose. But Dennis teaches you how to adapt to different fighters and their styles.”

Guila said there are eight fundamental styles in kickboxing and Katrina already can recognize all of them and make adjustments quickly. It also helps that she is left-handed, which makes it difficult for opponents to defend her quick, powerful jabs and hooks.

Her kick? Katrina landed one to the midsection of her semifinal opponent in the IKF Championships, doubling her over and ending the fight in 38 seconds. That set up her battle with LaRose, whom she admitted was her toughest opponent ever.

“That was probably my most exciting fight ever, but I pretty much knew I’d won,” Katrina said.

She maintained she’s into kickboxing for the long haul and hopes one day to open her own academy, as well as become a clothes designer. That latter ambition may help explain why a 12-year-old girl loves kickboxing so much.

“I love winning the big fat belts,” she said.

 Right Click Pages Below  To Print For Both Entry & Consent Forms;

This Action Packed Event will have competitors from all over the world and will include Sport Kickboxing in (3) Fighting Style Rules - MUAY THAI, INTERNATIONAL RULES, & AMERICAN KICKBOXING-ABOVE THE WAIST, Grappling with and without Gi, Forms-Kata, Kumite-Sport Karate Sparring, Self Defense, and Much More Exciting Events.  (click purple links below photos for more information on Events, Entry Forms and Seminars).

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