Born in Britain, Nick fell in love with Australia, with kickboxing, and eventually with his lovely wife Denuta (pictured above). This month though he talks about the early days - growing up in London, coming to Oz, and having his first fight:

Dave: I'm here with Nick Stone on Monday the 13th of March, and Nick's got no idea what I'm going to ask him about.

Well, we wanna talk a little just about being a fight champion, particularly from your angle and your expertise as a fight trainer, but I'd also like to know a little about your fight history, which I've got to admit I know almost nothing about! I mean, when did you get into the fighting game yourself?

Nick: Well, my fight history really it's quite sort of varied and went a long course cause I got a bit injured in the middle of it but, i gotta stress, I wasn't really what I'd call myself much of a fighter. I liked to fight, I enjoyed it, but I look back on some of my fights and I never would have made world champion or anything like that, but I just enjoyed the actual spirit of the combat. And I fought above the waist rules, Thai boxing rules, kickboxing with leg kicks and i fought semi-contact and Kyokashin kind of style rules, and a lot of street rules as well ... being a bouncer for 8 years.

Dave: So did you start fighting here or did you start back in Britain?

Nick: No, I had my first fight here in Australia. My first experience with Australia when I first come to Australia when I was twenty or so, you know, twenty-three years ago now. I was on a holiday with a friend and I was going through a bit of a hard time in England. I come from North London - quite a rough area of London.

I was just having a hard time. I don't want to go into that, but just life was crap at the time and I came on a six-month holiday to Australia, and I just absolutely thought it was fantastic. The country was fantastic. I really enjoyed it. I had my 21st birthday here and I just fell in love with the place.

I was training a little bit when I was twenty, but only sort of a little bit because there was nothing around in London.

I very first saw Thai boxing when I was probably about twenty and a guy called Steve Morris, who is very, very well known in karate circles, as being one of the hard men of karate and other styles of martial arts. He's a very well respected man, Steve Morris. And a friend took me up to Leicester Square to see his Thai boxing. He called it 'Thai boxing' or it might have been 'Goju-Ryu'. It might just have been 'fight school', I think, but i was totally in awe of what they were doing. They were kicking each other in the groin and knocking each other out and it was full on. It was really scary, and I thought, 'I'm not into that', and I said 'I'm not doing it!'

So I went back there once and trained, and it was pretty hard, but I was just starting out, you see. But we used to train together - a group of lads - and we used to call it 'Saturday morning club' in Borehanwood, where I came from, in London.

And we used to get together - it was like 2 boxers, a jow-ga kung-fu guy, a couple of Win Chun guys, a guy who done White crane and just a couple of street fighters, and a lot of the other guys there were just football hooligans who used to train together but weren't interested in sport and fighting. Of course, the more they got into it, the less they'd be street-fighting - that's always the way.

And I'd go there and train with them with an interest, you know. It was kind of the Bruce Lee era and all that as well about 23 years ago. And thats when I really liked the idea of it, you know. And I saw an advert in a Fighter's magazine. It was called 'Fighters'. It's an English magazine for Thai boxing (with a video or something) and I saw these ripped guys like, you know, kicking each other, and I thought, 'that's for me', cause just the body image. They looked stronger and more powerful then anything else.

So I went along to this club. Master Bunraing ran his Karna Sutra club in ... where was it ... it was in Edgeware, just a few miles away from me. So we went there and started training with Master Boon just once a week. Then I'd come back to Australia. I think it was around 85-86 maybe, and I was living in the Northern beaches and I was going to the PCYC North Sydney to do a bit of boxing, and i was kicking the bags, but they don't like you kicking the bags there.

And I read about Rick Kulu's gym and I went up to Narabeen ... not Narabeen sorry. It was in Mona Vale - that area anyway. It wasn't too far and I went up to Rick Kulu's gym, met Rick Kulu and we got along really, really well, and I started training with him and that was above-the-waist kind of style fighting in early kickboxing days in Sydney and 80's. The mid 80's was above the waist.

Dave: Still called 'Full-Contact-Karate'.

Nick: 'Full-contact Karate' yeah. We used to wear the long pants, though I had a pair of shorts. I hadn't been to Thailand then..

Dave: Black-belt round your waist ...

Nick: Yeah, that's right, but I liked Rick and we got on really, really well and I started training with him and I had my first fight on one of his shows, which looking back on it was a bit of a joke really. I fought Grant Barker who'd become world champion.

Dave: For goodness sake! You fought Grant Barker!

Nick: His first fight, my first fight. And I really liked it a lot. I lost on points and, you know, I got a black eye and a bloody nose, and I thought I'd actually won cause I kicked him more, cause that's eight kicks per round then, you know, and I thought I was ripped off, as you always do.

And then I had another fight. My girlfriend was over from England then and we travelled around a bit but I was as keen as mustard to get back and have another fight against a guy from Gosford - some advanced Tae Kwon Do chap. And I knocked him out in the first round. Then I really got the bug.

Next month: Nick travels to 'Thailand and falls in love with the Thai training routine

Nick Stone

One of Australia's foremost Kickboxing and Muay Thai instructors. Nick has been senior trainer at the Bulldog Gym in Balgowlah since 1989.