This mom's hands are lethal weapons

Alyssa Nicol has always liked martial arts movies with stars like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jean Claude Van Damme, just to name a few. Now she could probably trade a move or two with the best of them.

Nicol recently received her black belt in karate, a goal she had since she started in martial arts back in 2007.

Today she’s a confident and fit 39-year-old mother of two teenagers who can split a board with her foot. But it wasn’t always that way. Fifteen years ago, she was overweight and what she termed a “quitter.”

“I was a size 18 going on 20,” she said.

Nicol weighed 235 pounds and was severely depressed. Then she started to watch Tae Bo videos someone gave her a few years back. Tae Bo is kickboxing that incorporates martial arts into a workout. The first workout she did on her own went horribly, but over the course of three years she got better until one day, in 2006, she bought a plane ticket and flew to California to attend a Tae Bo certification camp taught by founder Billy Blanks.

She was petrified, but she came home as Montana’s only certified Tae Bo instructor at that time. Next she started taking karate after signing her daughter Hannah up for classes at the American Karate Academy on Highway 40 in Columbia Falls.

There were some bumps along the way. Nicol quit karate entirely for a year at one point, focusing on other pursuits in her life, but returned to finish what she started.

“I wanted to have my black belt by the time I was 40,” she said.

Today, Nicol is an instructor at the academy and a happy stay-at-home mom. Her husband Shane works at Frontier Builders and their younger daughter Kayla also practices karate.

While Nicol hopes she never has to use the moves she learned, it gives her a sense of confidence.

“We’re 100 percent against fighting,” she said. “But there’s always going to be evil in the world, and now I know how to defend myself.”

She advised every woman to consider taking karate lessons.

“I just want to let women know age is not a deterrent,” she said.

She’s also lost more than 35 pounds and is now a size 10. And that, too, is something to smile about.

Alyssa Nicol has always liked martial arts movies with stars like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jean Claude Van Damme, just to name a few. Now she could probably trade a move or two with the best of them.

Nicol recently received her black belt in karate, a goal she had since she started in martial arts back in 2007.

Today she’s a confident and fit 39-year-old mother of two teenagers who can split a board with her foot. But it wasn’t always that way. Fifteen years ago, she was overweight and what she termed a “quitter.”

“I was a size 18 going on 20,” she said.

Nicol weighed 235 pounds and was severely depressed. Then she started to watch Tae Bo videos someone gave her a few years back. Tae Bo is kickboxing that incorporates martial arts into a workout. The first workout she did on her own went horribly, but over the course of three years she got better until one day, in 2006, she bought a plane ticket and flew to California to attend a Tae Bo certification camp taught by founder Billy Blanks.

She was petrified, but she came home as Montana’s only certified Tae Bo instructor at that time. Next she started taking karate after signing her daughter Hannah up for classes at the American Karate Academy on Highway 40 in Columbia Falls.

There were some bumps along the way. Nicol quit karate entirely for a year at one point, focusing on other pursuits in her life, but returned to finish what she started.

“I wanted to have my black belt by the time I was 40,” she said.

Today, Nicol is an instructor at the academy and a happy stay-at-home mom. Her husband Shane works at Frontier Builders and their younger daughter Kayla also practices karate.

While Nicol hopes she never has to use the moves she learned, it gives her a sense of confidence.

“We’re 100 percent against fighting,” she said. “But there’s always going to be evil in the world, and now I know how to defend myself.”

She advised every woman to consider taking karate lessons.

“I just want to let women know age is not a deterrent,” she said.

She’s also lost more than 35 pounds and is now a size 10. And that, too, is something to smile about.