Red, White and Boom: A Two Part Series on WAKO Team USA Kickboxing in Minnesota
The following is part two of a two-part series of interviews conducted by nordeastnakmuay.com guest author, Seth Goin. Seth sat down with Antonio Dvorak of WAKO Team USA to discuss Antonio's upcoming trip to participate in The WAKO World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia in October 2015. Check out Part I of this series here.
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In less than one week, the World Association of Kickboxing Organizations (WAKO) USA Kickboxing Team will depart the familiar amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty to travel overseas and compete in the 20th WAKO World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia against some of the best amateur kickboxers in the world. Two of the athletes representing the United States, Antonio Dvorak and Nate Richardson, are based here in Minnesota and train with WAKO coaches Chris Cichon and Justin Whiley at The Cellar Gym in St. Anthony, Minnesota.
Antonio ‘Happy Feet’ Dvorak is colossal and not just because this 6’ 5”, 275 pound heavyweight towers over pretty much every person he meets. His personality radiates out from his towering frame, giving him a sense of being larger than life. You are just as likely to see him dancing or cracking jokes at the gym as you are to witness one of his seemingly impossibly high head kicks or the lightness with which he moves on his feet. In videos, you can observe even the most experienced pad holders, sparring partners and even opponents being jarred by the sheer power and speed of his strikes. When you talk with him, it’s easy to be reminded of another heavyweight kickboxer known for his affable and genial nature, friend and occasional training partner of Antonio, Pat Barry.
We met outside of the Cellar Gym, just prior to the start of a kickboxing class that Antonio would be teaching. We shook hands and his thoroughly engulfed mine. We spent a few minutes before the interview chatting and Antonio proudly showed off his various bumps and knots from training injuries but does so with such nonchalance you would think the half inch calcified, cartilage bump on his wrist was a new watch he had just acquired or the picture of a fractured toe, posted on Facebook, was that of a newborn baby, being shown off by his proud father. We discussed his return to the international fight scene, what keeps him going on days when he doesn’t want to get out of bed and how the nickname ‘Happy Feet’ came about.
SG: Before you started your kickboxing career you had two MMA fights, one win and one loss, what appealed to you more about kickboxing since you haven’t returned to MMA since?
AD: I just like striking. I like standing up and banging, I don’t like having to wrestle, not a fan of it.
SG: Wasn’t your first win by submission?
AD: He actually tapped out due to strikes
SG: Since then you’ve had 14 kickboxing fights in two and half years, which averages out to a fight about every two and half months. How have you stayed motivated to keep fighting?
AD: I just love it, man. I love fighting.I love the competition. It gets more and more… The competition gets harder and harder the more you do and the farther you go. It’s kind of my thing, I played football [in high school]. I’m competitive.
SG: What position?
AD: Defensive end.
SG: It’s been almost exactly two years since your first international fight, that was in early October of 2013, what’s different now about going overseas and fighting?
AD: This time I know what I’m getting into. I kind of had an inkling of what was going on over there [my first time] but this time I know. I know what I’m gonna see, what's gonna be happening, I get it now and I know the whole tournament set up and process. I don’t feel I’ll be blindsided by much.
SG: What was it like the first time?
AD: It was terrifying (laughs). Ya know, these guys have one hundred, maybe two hundred fights and I think I had like three kickboxing fights at the time I went. And I made it past the first guy [Morocco] and then lost to Russia by decision. But being around all those athletes, they fight every weekend and I fight every two and half months (laughs). It’s a little different [over there].
SG: Has being an instructor here [at the Cellar] changed the way you approach training or your fight camps?
AD: Yeah, it's weird. The more I teach, the more I learn about myself. I’ll be teaching a certain technique and I’ll notice ‘oh, I should be doing it that way too’ cause there are certain ways I do things and I’ll teach them different because there is the ‘correct’ way to do them. I try and instill good habits, not the bad habits I have (laughs). You also learn patience, which is probably the biggest thing I’ve learned. Being patient with people and with myself. Fighting is fun, it's what I enjoy doing so I enjoy sharing it with other people and it helps me further take something else out of the sport. I can pass things along to people who are just as hungry as I was when I started 4 or 5 years ago.
SG: What drew you to fighting?
AD: I was working in nightclubs, I was getting into quite a bit of fights and my fiance at the time said ‘You should just start doing UFC or something’ and then my old boss told me the same thing. So I tried it, I went into Minnesota Fight Factory and trained under Sergio Cuhna for about 5 months and then had my first MMA fight and it went well so I was like ‘Yeah, let’s do it’. I like to compete and the physical side of it. It’s good to push yourself and see where you can go mentally.
SG: How would you describe your fighting style?
AD: My goal is to not fight like a big guy. I like to [throw] a lot more kicks and a lot more moving. For someone who’s 6’5” and 275 pounds when I start moving and the other guy is 240 [pounds], he’s like ‘Uh oh’ because that was his game plan. So if I’m moving, his movement is either gonna get cut down or go even higher over mine. I try to remain fast and be first.
SG: Is that where the nickname ‘Happy Feet’ comes from?
AD: Oh yeah. And, well I danced for 13 years.
SG: What kind of dance?
AD: Tap, ballet and jazz in Plymouth, MN. I started when I was about 3. Stopped about halfway through high school.
SG: What would you be doing if you weren’t fighting?
AD: That’s a very good question. I don’t know. I’ve invested so much time and money and effort into fighting that I don’t even know. I can’t imagine it. Any time I get injured and I’m out of the gym it’s like I’m lost to the world. At this point, I’ve been at it so long and I’ve put in countless hours in a gym, at a gym, going to a gym. I don’t know what I’d do. (Pause) Teach fighting?
SG: Whats a typical week of training look like for you?
AD: It’s about 4 hours a day, I train with Ben Locken at Fitness Solutions in Osseo, MN for my strength and conditioning which has brought my game to a whole different level. I’ll go from there and then I’ll come here [the Cellar] and I’ll do [fight] team training and then muay thai and some days I come in and work private sessions with Chris [Cichon]. As weird as it sounds I’d like to have the ability to train more.
SG: What helps you get into a place you need to be mentally before a fight?
AD: It’s funny, I’m getting up to the high teens in terms of fights I’ve had and I don’t concern myself with losing as much anymore. I concern myself with not quitting. When you lose a fight, basically you’re quitting. It’s easy to say ‘never quit!’ but when you’re getting punched in the side of the head you wanna quit. Every time you jab, you get hit and it’s ‘oh man, screw this. Hit me one more time and I’ll go down’. I pray every time, before I go out, the nerves don’t really hit me that bad anymore. Right before the curtain, the nerves are there. Step up to the curtain (he hits his hand on the table) they’re gone. Then it’s all game after that, it’s in the zone. I’m getting more and more at home. Feeling more and more familiar all the time. Doing my best is always high on my priority list.
SG: Any sponsors you want to mention?
AD: Beecher Vaillancourt at Infinite Vapor, Tony Bones at Long D.O.E. Records, Keith Hieserich at Defiant Tattoo, Adonis Huttner at Trimega Entertainment, my bosses at Pizza Luce, Ben Locken at Fitness Solutions in Osseo, Dylan at Downtown Cabaret.
SG: Any other shout outs?
AD: Chris [Cichon] and my whole fight team. Rob Zbilski, the president of WAKO USA for giving me this awesome opportunity. Salvador Ponce and Justin Sjulson for their really generous donations on the Go Fund Me page. Especially to all the people who have supported me on the Go Fund Me page, that’s been huge. Huge. All the people who have shared my training videos and supported me this whole time, it’s amazing. It’s good to have. It helps me. It helps me while I train to know that other people are behind me, rooting for me, win or lose. I lost in Russia and nobody said ‘oh you know what, you could have done this’. The support I have; that’s one of the driving forces. The days I feel sore and don’t want to go to the gym, knowing that people are looking up to me and looking at me and saying ‘oh, that dude’s an absolute killer’. Those are the things that peel me out of bed. ‘I’m a killer, guess I gotta get up and go’ (laughs).
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Like most fight sports, even at the highest levels where someone like Antonio is representing their country, the athlete must cover his/her own expenses for the trip. Visit Antonio's Go Fund Me page and consider kicking him some cash to help cover the expenses of participating in the tournament.
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