Countdown To The Mini-Odyssey!

Only 3 weeks away from the start of my vacation I'm dubbing 'The Mini-Odyssey' but before I get into that I have some other news to first:

If you don't already know, I now have a Twitter and Instagram account, look up @pandasodyssey and follow me there! Up until now I had been avoiding adding any more social media accounts, being perfectly happy with Facebook. Since I've added these accounts making friends in the jiu-jitsu communities has been so easy! Now if only I could get more people to read my blog..haha.

About the blog, I have had a recent problem with my map app where it decided to completely dump all my listings while updating. The whole reason for having the map app was to log all the places I've trained at while on my travels, I can't have an app that is unreliable and dumps all the entries all the time. Anyone who has any suggestions for a better map app (up until now I've been using POWr) please send them this way. Also, I've noticed my blog is lacking pictures, I just recently uploaded a few pictures of my journey training in BJJ on the social media sites, I'll be adding them here once I settle on, or figure out, a way to present them that I like, open to suggestions.

Finally, the Mini-Odyssey. So in 3 weeks I'll be on a 3 week vacation and will be traveling to visit and train with some friends. First week will be with our brothers at Tidal BJJ in the Sunshine Coast of Gibson's BC, then off to Seattle, or Kent rather, Washington to train with one of the biggest black belts, James "300" Foster for a week. Finally I'll have a week in Meridian, Idaho with our head instructor, black belt Keith Owen. All of the guys are amazing people I look forward to seeing and training together. If you're around the area and want to train together, by all means let me know and let's set something up! you can message me for dates and details.

The Tidal guys are family and it's always great times whenever we get to visit one another. I've yet to have the pleasure to be on their mats and train with them for a whole week so this is really going to be a treat. I view them like your favourite cousins you always like visiting and partying with, we'll laugh and cry and get into shenanigans with resulting pictures that will most likely have our Coach (the parent figure) shaking his head. Or we'll just have fun rolling together and training and trading techniques, either way it'll be a lot of fun. As well, the master of Black Magic lives there, Kyoshi Michael Seamark. His Kokodo jujutsu is amazing. People turn to Judo to strengthen their throws and takedowns, or Mauy Thai to strengthen their striking, if you want to master spinal manipulation and wrist locks, you turn to Kokodo. As a big fan of all forms of self defense I find this art as a great addition to practical defence, I look forward to attending some classes, although my wrists will probably hate me for it.

Prof. James Foster is a good friend of our club who has made a bunch of visits, he's always been a stand up person and with the past, and current, projects he has going on he's shown time and time again that his heart is even more giant sized than he is. He is also a top notch instructor and I look forward to learning from him over the week I'll have visiting there. I also haven't met any of his students or has the pleasure of training at his club so there's that to look forward to as well. I like going to new clubs and meeting new people, there's always the nervousness of going to a new place with people to you don't know, just like a competition but without the adrenaline and stress of preforming (after all we're all just there to learn and get better, right?).

Prof. Keith Owen is always a great person to talk to, about anything, (especially Sasquatches and the zombie apocalypse) I always feel like I've learned something big every time he's visited. Sometimes is a tweak to a technique, sometimes it's a tidbit of theory that changes how you view something and it becomes more clear. He's like a sage, an advisor, a wizard. Merlin to your King Arthur, and I don't mean that teen drama TV show, I mean the 1981 Excalibur, chrome metal skull cap, red eyed, fire shooting from his staff and spewing the dragon's breath badass Merlin. I look forward to training at his place and meeting other members of The Crash.

All and all, this is going to be one hell of a trip. I have already booked all flights, buses and hotels, researched all transit routes and prices of ferries, taxis and local transit and have managed to keep well under my budget. While on this trip I see it as a great opportunity to practice my packing skills and see how well I can get everything into one bag. Being in the military, living out of a bag isn't new to me so I don't foresee any problems, and with some tricks and tips I've found online it should be really easy. I'll document what I brought and how and the results. The biggest problem I see is not having ultra-light weight gi's, so space may be tighter than I'd like for clothing.

On the topic of testing things out for the Odyssey, I've heard of GPS or mapping apps for phones that work without using data, which would be very valuable. I'll be looking into it and trying them out on this trip. I'll post my results with what I find, until then I got some work to do.