The Blue Cat Boxing Club was founded in 1999. Starting with limited funds, and a small, confined space with no air flow and uneven cement floors, new members just kept showing up. It became evident the club served a community need, and demand progressed unabated.
In January 2008 we expanded to our current location on Beaubien, where we have remained to this day. The club has endured, with thanks to the pivotal contributions from our members throughout, founded with the following guiding principles:
Boxing is an amazing and challenging sport. The primary goal of the club is to provide an environment that makes boxing accessible to you, no matter your background, gender, profession or other qualities.
Boxing can be a safe sport, when it is practised conscientiously and under strict attention. We provide a safe environment for you to learn the sport, allowing the positive qualities of boxing to emerge and flourish.
Boxing is hard. In the club, the workouts are designed to push you to your personal physical limits. It requires hard work and consistency to survive, and we reinforce those principles throughout.
In the ring, eventually you will confront your mental, emotional and physical boundaries. We facilitate the journey to your limits and subsequently to traverse your personal barriers.
Due to the pandemic there will be no indoor group classes. With safety as our priority, we estimate the risk to train inside, with poor ventilation as compared to outdoors, is too high. As a consequence, the indoor group classes are cancelled until the pandemic settles, in the coming months or years.
Currently, our focus is on providing general training plans that can also include enhanced personalization through detailed evaluations. The training plans run on 4-week cycles and can be implemented from the safety of your home or training environment. Virtual private lessons are also available.
In addition, when weather permits outdoor physical conditioning sessions will be made available for free online for personal use. When government regulations allow, self-organized groups may also follow the training together (while maintaining physical distancing of at least 2m at all times).
NOTE: All group classes are currently cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We offer progressive technical instruction in group classes for all levels from Beginner to Advanced. In addition, the general Basic Skills class and Saturday Conditioning class complement the technical instruction classes. Competitive boxers receive comprehensive personalized guidance to develop from regional to high-level competition, in accord with their goals and skill level. See our price list.
In the beginner technical class we focus on stance and positioning, movement and balance. We will introduce you to basic punching and defensive techniques. The class includes light, controlled contact.
In the intermediate class we continue to reinforce basic techniques while introducing you to advanced skills for competition. You will be working in pairs, with some contact, but no sparring.
In the advanced class you will transition to regular sparring. We focus on technical sparring for you to master your skills in context, and then open sparring. There is contact in every class.
The basic skills class is essential for all members. We reinforce fundamental sport-specific conditioning and the technical attributes essential for you as a boxer.
The Saturday general conditioning class prepares you for the physical demands of the sport. The Saturday course does not use boxing equipment.
As a boxer at the competitive level, you will develop your skills while participating in local galas, and as appropriate progress to provincial and national competitions.
In order to facilitate exercise at home or other safe environments, we offer training plans tailored to your specific objectives. Available options comprise general training plans, enhanced plans through personalized assessments, as well as virtual private sessions. Training plans can be purchased independently, or in conjunction with the other options. See our PRICE LIST.
General Training Plans:
The training plan follows a 4-week cycle. The plan is adapted to your fitness and activity level, your availability and your training environment (e.g. equipment, space limitations), along with any physical restrictions/injuries. These are all aligned to correspond with your general fitness goals. See our Fall/Winter special.
Personalized Assessment:
To enhance your general training plan, we also offer personalized assessments. The evaluation comprises a video consultation and analysis of your sleep, nutrition and fitness, along with your sport and boxing specific expertise. The personalized training plan combines all of these factors with your specific short-, medium-, and long-term goals into your training regimen, to optimize your health and performance objectives.
Following the initial assessment, all subsequent training plans will incorporate this information. Follow-up assessments, to evaluate improvements and variations over time, are optional. See our PRICE LIST.
Virtual Private Sessions:
Through virtual private sessions we analyze your technical development, discuss and answer specific questions, supervise workouts, as well as advance and perfect your training regimen and techniques. See our PRICE LIST.
Personalized Training Plans
Private Lessons
Group Classes
Boxing is an art and a science. The barriers a performance athlete confronts are both intrinsic and environmental. To challenge their limits, the athlete depends on practise, preparation, teamwork and coaching. The sport of boxing presents additional demands in the face of violence, physical harm and loss of agency. Our role is to facilitate and guide you as an athlete, to traverse your boundaries and master self.
Photo: JF Galipeau
A key component of boxing is understanding space and distance, and creating boundaries through physical means.
Photo: Maxime Normand
A boxer must decide whether to engage, move or defend. Effective choices are often counterintuitive. They result from years of practise, while learning to temper preconceptions and intrinsic reactions to fear and conflict.
Photo: JF Galipeau
Although the boxer's journey may focus on one individual, others implicate themselves for their betterment.
Photo: Maxime Normand
Asserting oneself in boxing involves the challenge of defending against attacks, and the genuine danger of physical injury.
Photo: Maxime Normand
There are two athletes in the ring, but their experience is lived by their coaches, team members and everyone else that is present.
Photo: Benoit Marineau
The coach facilitates the athlete in traversing the intractable barriers they confront on their journey.
Photo: Maxime Normand
Within the context of struggle there are moments, even with adversaries, to rest and breathe.
Photo: JF Galipeau
Each journey brings a new depth of knowledge and experience to the athlete. Ultimately, the fighter learns there is never finality.
Photo: Maxime Normand
Pushing their boundaries in the ring is a shared experience. No matter the outcome each person is touched; opening their raw selves to confront their vulnerabilities, strengths and limitations together as adversaries.
Phil Dickinson founded the Blue Cat Boxing Club in 1999, and is the head coach and owner. He is a high-performance boxing coach (Level 4 NCCP) and competed as an amateur boxer in the 80s and 90s. He also has a PhD in Neuroscience and Masters degree in Psychiatry. These combined and diverse interests provide the basis for the defining principles of the club.
435 rue Beaubien Ouest, 4e
Outremont, QC
H2V 1C9, Canada