Meet John Latu
I am a highly accomplished martial artist and former professional MMA fighter with over 37 years of experience in self-protection, martial arts, and public safety.
My journey to becoming a personal trainer isn’t something that happened overnight. To truly understand how I went from a professional wrestler and MMA fighter to training others in fitness, you’d have to go all the way back—to a small island in the South Pacific called Tonga.
I was abandoned at a very young age. Another family took me in, but life with them was far from kind. I was treated like a slave, subjected to years of abuse and hardship. I wasn’t allowed to go to school. In the early years I wasn’t taught to read or write. But I survived—and one day, I escaped the abuse.
My real education came from an unlikely source. A man sailing around the world docked at the island with his 17-foot yacht. He noticed me, took a liking to me, and started teaching me. He taught me how to read and write, and even how to understand the weather. We sat right there on his boat, with all the books open to the World.
My further inspiration came from someone else entirely—Bruce Lee. When one of his movies was shown at the island’s small theater, I couldn’t afford a ticket. So I sold fruit from nearby trees just to buy a ticket to watch the movie. That single film lit a fire in me. I studied every movement he saw on screen. I filled a flour bag with island sand, hung it from a tree, and turned it into my makeshift punching bag. I wrapped my hands in old t-shirts and trained every day—punches, kicks, over and over again.
Eventually, I reunited with my father. He put me back in school. Life started to change.
Then one day, something unexpected happened. The school chancellor came looking for me—there was a phone call, all the way from America. It was my brother. He told me he always knew I existed, but wasn’t sure if I knew about him. He offered to send me a plane ticket to come to the U.S.
With only $100 in my pocket, I made the journey—but I didn’t go straight to him. I wandered, drawn in by the bright lights and possibilities of the United States could bring. I traveled across the U.S., learning, exploring, living.
Eventually, I reconnected with my brother, who, as it turns out, was a professional wrestler The Barbarian. He brought me into the world of wrestling, and I found myself in the ring with some of the wrestling greats. That experience paved the way for my entry into the world of MMA—and ultimately the UFC.
After retiring from fighting, I found himself being approached by local venue owners. They asked if I could provide security myself to the venue. I did that and also developed my own security staffing company. I trained teams, developed systems, and kept people safe.
I also trained Mauy Thai to area policemen. From there, it was a natural shift into personal training and self defense. I took everything I had learned—through pain, discipline, travel, fighting, and survival—and began using it to help others transform their lives, their bodies, and their minds.
That is how I got here and it is why I do what I do.
