About Us

My name is Noelle Shaw, and Dominic Kampf is my son. I will never stop fighting to protect my children, which means that I will never stop fighting for justice for Dominic.

 

 

Dominic was an exceptionally gentle and kindhearted soul, who lived his life with the intention to make this world a better place by helping others at every opportunity. He was particularly concerned about the needs of young men growing up lost without a healthy, strong male role model to learn from, and he did make a difference in the lives of many.

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"In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity." 

Albert Einstein​​​​

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This picture was taken in Fall 2022, after Dominic’s very last Brazilian Jujitsu match, and is one of my favorites because of the story behind why he competed in that tournament. It’s a story about Dominic’s unbreakable fighting spirit, and how hard he fought to overcome obstacles, and defeats he experienced in life. It’s also the story of why this picture brought me to tears the first time I saw it, and still does.​

 

Dominic valued his years in Jujitsu, however, last year decided to retire, due to the wear on his back. Unsurprisingly, the challenge Dominic found most difficult to overcome in Jujitsu, was worrying about hurting his opponent. He later said the most important thing Jujitsu taught him was to self-assign his own value equal to that of his opponent.​

 

Dominic had already left Jujitsu several months prior to when this photo was taken. Still, he entered that tournament as a direct result of the outcome of a tournament he’d entered a few weeks prior, when on the fly one day, he decided to take his girlfriend and me with him to a small local open tournament. Dominic hadn’t trained or practiced in months and upon arrival learned his coach was running tickets so he was also the only fighter without a coach that day. Dominic was unprepared, out of shape, without a coach, and in the end placed last.​

 

Directly after the tournament, Dominic took us to dinner. While waiting to be served, the emotional fallout from losing every match in front of both his girlfriend and mother was starting to hit him hard, and I could see he was absolutely devastated. Fighting back tears, he agreed he went in disadvantaged but said that was not an acceptable excuse. He said he knew better than to compete unprepared, and was questioning himself the most on his decision to enter the tournament.​

 

Within minutes, however, right before my eyes, Dominic absolutely impressed the heck out of me when he suddenly shifted his entire perspective and redefined the situation from a failure into a valuable learning experience. He determined what he’d just learned and began working out the decisions he would make next in order to apply what he’d learned in his life.​

 

Ultimately, he set his sites on competing in a much bigger and more competitive upcoming tournament, confirmed his coach would be available for him that day, and then began practicing and training regularly to prepare. Dominic arrived at his last tournament fully prepared to compete, fought some of his best matches ever, and at the end of the day walked away with his 1st place ribbon.​

 

This picture does represent a victorious moment Dominic experienced in martial arts that day. However, in the far greater scheme of things, this picture easily says over a thousand words about how Dominic lived his life and who he was as a person. It represents how committed and successful Dominic became at overcoming adversity in life, how hard he worked to always do his very best, and how he took full responsibility for himself and lived his life every day with intention. Dominic valued knowledge far more than your average bear and was always learning. Over his lifetime he read hundreds of books, regularly sought advice from people he respected, and was wise enough from the start to learn lessons from the lives of others.​

 

That is the story behind this picture and why it brings tears to my eyes. It will forever take me back to that summer day when we were sitting in a restaurant and I watched in real time Dominic perfectly deploy a concept that from the time he was a little boy he was so determined to live by he worked hard to always remember it, and that is, failures are nothing to fear, rather they’re our very stepping stones to success.