My stay in Vancouver is over and I'm now about to be on my way to Calgary Alberta Canada next. Looking forward to the really long bus ride through the mountains over night...no, not really...but Calgary is looking to be a lot of fun!
Sadohana Dojo
Last I left off I had just visited True north Jiu-Jitsu and done an interview with Prof. Giacomo Zanini. Fun times! The very next night I was going to Kyoshi's Seamark's HQ dojo, the Sadohana Dojo Vancouver. The dojo has been being Kokodo Jujutsu and Shaitsu from the beginning but within the last two years started adding Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to their classes. I had never been to this dojo before and only seen pictures, it was exciting to finally be in the space and a part of the classes. Right from the first step inside you can tell a lot of work has gone into the place to make it not just be but also feel like a proper place of martial arts. One student told me that someone described it as "not just a club but a shrine to martial arts" I think that suits it perfectly. There is a front lobby with tapestries and statues that greet you when you walk in. Once you walk into the tatami area and see the rice paper walls separating the change rooms from the main training area and the mounted pictures, curriculum posters and, of course, a rack of weapons, you get the feeling it is a lot more than just a matted area for training some moves. There exists a lot of pride and and honour in the lineage in this dojo.
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| View from the entrance to the tatami room. Not in the picture is the rice paper wall on the right. |
First up was the BJJ class, which as expected was a smaller class but still a good class of drilling a set of sweeps that chained together. I knew most the sweeps but some of the details were different from the way the instructor was executing them, which I always like to see. To me it's not about learning new moves all the time, it's about seeing how everyone else executes the same, or similar, moves so that I can get all these different details down to make the technique even stronger. For instance, having different grips and learning how to use them in a way to execute the same move helps hone in on that fact that the same technique is there and you don't always need to go for the same collar or sleeve grip. This is what I look forward to while traveling, not finding some end all be all sweep or submission, finding all the little details about the tools I already have.
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| A good friend, Tim, who bounces between Gibsons and Vancouver, finally managed a picture with him, even if it is poor quality. |
After BJJ was the Kokodo class, and most stayed for both, with some new arrivals for Kokodo. The class was fun, starting with a good warm up stretch and some break falling before getting to the self defense aspect of Kokodo, parrying a punch, moving and applying controlling techniques, to give a general idea. I'm a big fan of self defense and love classes like this. It was also an aspect of Kokodo I don't often see in my limited history of training in the art, being used to more stationary wrist controls from grabs rather than attacks. One thing I like about Kokodo is that it's very calming and at the same time such a powerful art. Kyoshi Seamark has given the definition of 'white lightning' no pain or stress until the moment of applying the technique when it feels like all the nerves are screaming, and then when you let go it's right back to a calmness again. You don't get that with BJJ, even in the most relaxed class you're are still working the whole body in a slow cardio and yoga-like circuit and feel the workout to some degree in the end of a BJJ class. With a Kokodo class you usually end up with sore wrists from the technique applied over and over but I find the mind is more tired than the body. What ever the case some great details were picked up and a great night was had. After class I thanked everyone for their hospitality and took some pictures with a few before leaving. Unfortunately this was the one class I could make to the dojo on this trip. I will have to come back one day.
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| Shihan Tyler, a friend I've always seen at the seminars, and who instructed the Kokodo class. It was a pleasure to be in his class. He's also a really good purple belt in BJJ! |
Champions Martial Arts Academy
Champions was not part of my plan, but as I'm noticing plans tend to change. It was my last night in Gibsons when I was told about Champions and Sean Lindsay, a purple belt of Prof. Giacomo and one of the teachers at True North Jiu-jitsu, also taught at Champions and that they were a great bunch of guys to go meet. Having a lot of faith of the opinions of the Gibsons crew I looked up Sean and the club as soon as I got into Vancouver, and in short re-arranging of things I was set to hit up a third club while in town and make a second interview. Champions is mostly a kickboxing place, with two mats that are constantly full of people training on the main floor. The BJJ mat is tucked away downstairs but is surprisingly big for a school that doesn't mainly focus on Jiu-Jitsu, and as I found out later has a strong list of regulars that there.
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| The BJJ mats, there's also bench behind me. |
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| Love this proverb! |
I hadn't met anyone from Champions beforehand and other than Sean I hadn't spoke to anyone either, so for lack of a better description I was going in 'dark', just hoping to make friends on the way. As it happens Prof. Giacomo had belt promotions the night before, Champions and affiliated with True North, and mentioned me being on my travels, so the club had a brief introduction to me before I ever showed up! The first night I made it to Champions was a Friday, which is only open mat. There were 5 of us in total, and we had a blast. They were very welcoming and no one was out for blood to crush the new guy, which is always nice to see. After the rolls we were chatting and I told them all about my journey I'm on and some of my stories from past journeys like when I was in Tokyo. I had them pretty amazed with my tales and at that point I realized I've done some pretty awesome things already.
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| Rolling hour Friday night. |
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| The Friday night crew, I look so small in this pic. |
The next day, Saturday, I went back for the noon time class, it was set to be a special one as it was Sean's 30th birthday and everyone was getting ready to throw him in the shark tank. Each person would have a short match with Sean to celebrate his birthday while everyone else would be rolling normal matches during the time. This made for a lot of co-ordination and switching in and out. Mike Morris, another purple belt and teacher at Champions who I met the night before, had it all down without any problem. He managed to keep two timers going, set up who was next for Sean and still get matches in for himself all at the same time. On top of this he was a really caring guy welcoming me into the club and showering me with praise for my trip, another great guy I've had the pleasure of meeting and making friends. Job well done Mike and thanks for all the support!
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| Rolling during Sean's birthday shark tank. He's in the front. |
After a good session of rolling and putting Sean through the birthday shark tank class was over, with a few people still getting in some rolls while I talked to everyone, answering their many questions about my journey. Eventually Sean and I were able to sit down and have an interview. I was very honoured for him to take the time out of his birthday celebrations and speak with me. Going in I really only had two questions: 'How did you start BJJ?' and 'What does BJJ mean to you?' And from the start I could see that was all I needed to get Sean to share with us how passionate he is about the art, teaching, training, all of it. We spoke a bit about teaching kids and advice to parents and even about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Through all of it I could see Sean is very passionate about the art and all his answers come straight from the heart. Check out the interview below!
If the video doesn't work here's the link to the Panda's Odyssey Youtube Channel (Subscribe to it and follow along!)
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| I totally forgot to take a picture with the class and with Sean, but I did get a good shot of him surviving the shark tank while everyone else rolls on in the background. |
After the interview Sean, myself and a few others from the club jumped on the sea-train (a small ferry that connects North Vancouver, where we were, across the bay to downtown) and headed downtown where Sean took us to a nice coffee shop and we talked about Jiu-Jitsu some more. To be honest, we were talking to whole way to the shop and if Sean didn't already have plans, birthday and all, we probably could have talked for another hour or more. I love meeting people like that, the art of conversation among friends is so under appreciated these days. Thank you Sean for an awesome interview and great conversation, I'm glad we finally got to meet!
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| Sean gave me a Champions patch as a gift, awesome, thanks! I'm going to have a nice collection of patches to sew up by the time I get to my parents place for the holidays! |
Vancouver
Here are some pictures I took while walking around the area I was staying in. In my travels I almost forgot how beautiful Vancouver and the West Coast is, after being here for so long you start to take it for granted. I could easily spend a day running around taking pictures of this place and still not be able get it all. Anyways, so I'm walking back to the house one day and notice the mountains are all snow capped. Being a chilly day the mountains must've all been frosted over. The image was pretty neat to see, but also a reminder that over those mountains waits colder weather that my thin hoodie won't protect me from. Good thing I brought a heavier hoodie and my leather jacket for just such an occasion.
I also thought it was worth mentioning that the whole time I was staying next to an amusement park, which given the time of year was closed for the session. Although I couldn't get any pictures of it, at night it would look eerie with silhouettes of the rides in the dark night time glow. Too many horror movies have that back drop, if a neighbors dog ran in there I'd tell them just to wait til tomorrow, because it's just not worth taking that chance.
That's it for my Vancouver adventures, now off to Calgary where, if everything works out, I'll be hitting as many as five different clubs!
Until next time, see you on the mats!
OSSS!
You're the best
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