MMA Fighter Trains at Police Station, Not a Gym – Meet Shannon Clark
Canadian flyweight “MMA Barbie” Shannon Clark is fighting this weekend at PFL San Diego, and she’s bringing one of the most unconventional training setups in the sport. Clark doesn’t train out of an MMA gym. She trains out of the Lethbridge Police Station in Alberta, where all her training partners are police officers who come in early or take lunch breaks to work with her.
Clark, 32, a mother of two from Lethbridge, Alberta, has a 7-1 professional record and is fighting Ilara Joanne (13-10) from Brazil on Saturday, June 27, at Pechanga Arena in San Diego.
MMA Athlete Shannon Clark’s Unusual Gym: The Lethbridge Police Station
When asked about her gym, Clark said, “Yes. The Lethbridge Police Station. So all my training partners are just police officers, the boys. None of them fight. They all just train for their job, and they’re just big dudes, honestly. And they’re great. I call them my boys. I’m very, very grateful for them. They kick the [__] out of me. They make me tough.”
Her training sessions are early. “If these boys are on shift, then these ones come and then, but they work 12-hour shifts. So if they start at 7:00, we’re training at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning. Like, these guys come in early for me, and they’re truly amazing.” Some come on off days, or during lunch breaks.
Clark’s coach is also a police officer. In the offseason, they do things “other people wouldn’t do.” She said, “We’ve done jiu-jitsu, and in the middle of a round, they’ll just throw a fake knife in there and it’s like, ‘Go!’ And then they stab each other to see who does that. I don’t even know if I should be saying this… they had like a plastic gun. Like obviously not real, right? Like one of their training little things, and like I just hide it in my shorts. So in the middle of it, it’s just like… I probably shouldn’t say any of this, but anyways, it’s just stuff like that. It’s so different than an MMA gym.”
Clark works full-time and says fighting is “just like a side sport. This isn’t my job or career, which a lot of fighters it is.” She also has two kids, ages four and five, who are “still in the mommy-mommy-mommy stage.” This weekend at PFL San Diego, she faces Joanne, who trains at the Pitbull Brothers gym in Fortaleza, Brazil.
Clark says her flexibility is the reason she’s where she is: “I don’t think I’d be able to go like, ‘5:00 p.m. is jiu-jitsu, wrestling’s this day.’ And even so, I go to the boxing club once a a week as well. And Rick is amazing, and we just do one-on-one and box. And even he’s like, ‘Okay, so what time, what day?’ And we go once a week. And I make literally my entire schedule. So that’s probably the only reason why I am where I am is because I’m able to do that.”
