Yassine Ahaggan comes from the Lyon area of France.

Aspirations towards becoming a soccer player were diverted by the realities of growing up in one of the city’s tougher neighborhoods.

“In my neighborhood things were quite tough, there was a lot of fighting and social problems. I had a lot of street fights growing up and that led to me becoming interested in the martial arts and learning how to fight properly,” he recalls.

Ahaggan also found that there was an aesthetic quality that he enjoyed in watching professional fighters.

“When I first started to watch it and see fighters in their flow, I just found it so beautiful. I wanted to learn to fight that way myself. I was really a very good soccer player but fighting just took over,” he says.

Ahaggan now combines his own training and coaching with working in sports education.