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 Fight the Powerhouse
“PowerHouse Kickboxing is a boutique style club in a private atmosphere,” says PowerHouse Kickboxing Founder Konstantin Selivanov. “When a private client is in the club there is no one else working out there, so nobody is watching you. Also, there are only 5 group classes per week. Classes are small, no more than 10 clients. The rest of the time is reserved for private clientele. We welcome anyone and we cater and adjust to our clients' need and abilities. We pride ourselves in customer satisfaction.”
PowerHouse Kickboxing Inc. 617-225-7977 A Fighting Necessity
According to Konstantin Selivanov, PowerHouse Kickboxing founder, “If you could have two choices - one, to learn how to fight, be able to defend yourself and project confidence; or be the person who will be lost if he/she faces a confrontation or danger…why not to learn how to fight? You may as well have fun and get a great work-out.” Gear of the Champ
“Beginners will need boxing gloves and hand wraps,” says PowerHouse Kickboxing owner, Konstantin Selivanov. “Intermediate and advance students also need shin guards, mouth guards and men will need a groin guard. You can buy the equipment online, at any sport store, or at the club. Brands I like: Title and Twins.” Aggressive Recommendations
“I like Blood Sport with Jean-Claude Van Damme. It shows full contact with different styles of Martial Arts and it is based on a true story,” founder of PowerHouse Kickboxing, Konstantin Selivanov tells us. “Books - I didn't write one yet, working on a screenplay though and there is a lot of fighting, so you need to wait a little." (We're assuming his book will be his favorite.) |
From Russia, with power
Keywords: Entrepreneur
It's tough to say when Konstantin Selivanov's manhood was first tested. It might have been when he was forced to swing punches at a fellow 10 year old in the schoolyard of his new elementary school in Siberia. (He beat the daylights out of him, going from loser to most popular kid in a single recess period.) It could have been years later, when he gripped a grenade in his hand everyday as he walked in and out of his Leningrad apartment just in case an assassin showed up. Or, when he fled Saint Petersburg with his new bride in the middle of a frigid night after refusing to work with the KGB to expose mobsters. There were countless times Konstantin’s strength was challenged. But he had always been a fighter. He’d made a living off of brute force for most of his young adult life. Three hundred bucks for one scrimmage, a couple of hundred for another – all of it at illegal fight houses – prompting Konstantin to open the School of Military Art, a legal martial arts club, in Saint Petersburg. He taught marksmanship and fighting to some one thousand students, including security officers, special forces and Russian Mafia members. Konstantin was a powerful man – someone both the Mafia and the KGB wanted to make sure they had on their side.
Konstantin did not take a side. He said no to both. There were threats. Hitmen were assigned to kill him off. Commuting to work became a life or death dare every day. It was time to get out. For starters, he had fallen in love with Elena, a model, and didn't feel like dying anytime soon. He also wanted to build a good, clean life. So, in the wee hours of a December night in 1991, the couple escaped out of Russia for the United States. Konstantin had dreams of Hollywood, of being the next Sylvester Stallone. But while he landed a few bit parts in some movies (he played Ivan in “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock), his stint in California would not end on the Walk of Fame but in Central Square in Cambridge, where he opened the Powerhouse Kickboxing Gym.
Now the father of two, and a cult hero to wannabe bruisers, Konstantin knee strikes, cross hooks and jabs venture capitalists and housewives alike. On the side, he’s shared his story with the Good Men Project, written half a dozen screen plays, and even has one optioned to be filmed. The genre? Action adventure. Fiction, thank you.
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