The bus from Vancouver to Calgary is longest ride I've ever been on, remarkably it went well and nothing crazy happened. I didn't get a great amount of sleep but better than I expected. I will say this though, it was a shame that the windows were dirty and it was night time most of the way, there were some great views I missed.
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| Best picture I could take of the Banff National Park ski mountains. |
The Hosts
I was lucky to find Rachelle and Steve through friends. After a change in plans my original host and good friend had to leave Calgary for work and it seemed like I would be staying in a hostel during my time in the city. I'm not apposed to hostels, I'm actually looking to forward to it, but doing so as least as possible in Canada, in order to save money for Europe and Asia, is ideal. So when a friend of one of my teammates volunteered to help me out I was relived and overjoyed! Steve and Rachelle have been so kind and helpful, even driving me across town to the clubs I'm visiting, and I am ever thankful for their hospitality. This is proof of paying it forward, Rachelle offered to help me, a person she's never met before, purely to repay Kelly, my teammate Mike's wife, for all the kindness and help she has received knowing Kelly through the years. Proof that there are good people out there, that being kind to one an other does work and make a better world. Save all the hate for your favourite TV show characters making bad decisions each week and save all the aggression for choking one another out on the mats. If nothing else, if I needed any more proof, which I don't, this has made me a firm believer that paying it forward does work. Thanks so much for your kindness Rachelle and Steve!
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| My host Rachelle, unfortunately Steve was off to work before I could get a picture with him. Thanks guys for everything! |
Can-Ryu Jiu-Jitsu
My first day in town I had class to get to, in fact I have lined up a class with a different club almost every day I'm in town and certainly I look to train every day I'm here. The first club to hit up was the Can-Ryu Jiu-Jitsu club that's held in the Deer Run Community Centre in the South East Calgary neighborhood of Deer Ridge. As I have not found a page exclusively for this club that is working and up to date I linked the Hiscoe Jiu-Jitsu page as Ed Hiscoe is the head of Can-Ryu Jiu-Jitsu. Any Questions about contacting the club in Calgary either the community or the Hiscoe Jiu-Jitsu page will be able to help you out. Can-Ryu Jiu-Jitsu is all about self defense and practicality, protect yourself and get out alive. I, having a Japanese Jiu-Jitsu background, love watching self defense techniques. Watching the small details they implement when defending from the usual popular methods of attacking (grabbing and punching, haymakers, headlocks etc.) is just as interesting as watching every club show me their little details to pulling off the classic armbar for BJJ. The class is lead my Sensei Quincy Jones, who I met this year at a summer Jiu-Jitsu seminar camp. Also, a friend who I've met before in past camps, Ian, trains there and it was to see and train with him again. I like Sensei Quincy's style of teaching and techniques, he mixes lots of the other styles he trains in, such as kickboxing, with the Jiu-jitsu. He also explains a lot about the history of the move and over time why aspects of it either don't work anymore or still hold up. Sensei Quincy is a quiet person but he drops a lot of knowledge in his classes so if you're a martial arts nerd like myself you get hooked and really pay attention to not miss anything.
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| Watching my friends Ian teaching the kids class. |
This class was special, Sensei Quincy decided to treat us all to working weapon defenses, which I love. I quickly saw how rusty I had become over years of not keeping up on some of my weapon defenses but it just made it all more fun to re-learn, like re-reading your favourite book. We worked some great techniques against sticks and knives, incorporating some grappling moves I knew, but were now different with a weapon in the mix. It's all about adapting to overcome, with a few minor adjustments the old moves work in the new setting. The night ended with me in the middle of a circle while three black belts took turns stabbing me with plastic knife, which may not sound like it but it was a lot of fun! Thanks to the Can-Ryu Calgary club and Sensei Quincy for showing me a wonderful class!
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| All the black belts at class. Sensei Quincy on my right, with Sensei Ian behind him. |
BJJ Fightclub
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| Outside BJJ Fightclub. |
I set out to finally meet Sensei Alex Roque, who holds a black belt in not only Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but also in Shotokan Karate. It's been some time I've been hearing good things from our head instructor and other teammates who have made it out to Sensei Alex's club, and finally I was able to drop by. When talking to Senesei about Panda's Odyssey and my journey through Calgary he accepted me with open arms to his club and agreed to do an interview with me too! I met Alex at the club early before any classes had started, BJJ Fightclub is in an industrial area of town, by the airport, and it is a good sized gym, with a wall of kicking bags for the kickboxing classes that are run there, with change areas and even a weights area in the back. In the interview he tells me of some pretty badass stories of starting out in Canada as the first BJJ club in Calgary and his training in Brazil during the hayday of dojo storming, check it out below.
If the video doesn't work on here, head to the Panda's Odyssey YouTube Channel, and while you're there, check out past videos, give them some love and subscribe to my channel, Thanks!
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| Sensei Alex, thanks for having me and doing the interview! |
After the interview I stayed for both classes, one a fundamentals class drilling the curriculum and the second a class more aimed at competitions. The first class was great, good warm up, easy drilling, learning cool little details to help make familiar techniques stronger. The second class, which was 2 hours long, absolutely destroyed me. Not to make any excuses, I am fully aware of my short comings with athleticism but I didn't expect the conditioning portion of class to burn me out as bad as it did and I had no energy for rolling at the end of class. The drilling was great, going over some cool back escapes and attacks, I really liked the different details to the moves Sensei Alex was showing, a lot of them were the same as I've seen before but there was always something I would catch that I was a little different, making it all new again. I had a lot to write down after class. Then came the last half hour of class, rolling where some how some of his students were still full of energy and just ran circles around, or over, me. One even did another 15-20 mins of drilling and exercise after class! His students were pretty strong and didn't let up on me, I mostly tried to defend and in a lot of cases failed. If I were to have an ego I'd be pissed that a white belt tapped me, a senior blue belt, but that's not the case. These guys were beasts, maybe if I had the same gas tank as them I would be able to hold my own, but that's my problem to deal with and they shouldn't have bring it down for me. I was talking with Alex after class and mentioned his students being tough and he explained, they have to be, there's a tournament coming up and they can't risk rolling light to prepare for it. Made sense. In the end everyone there was very welcoming, kind and respectful. I had a blast being made into a puddle by the end of the night and left tired, sore and happy.
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| Inside the club before classes started. |
That's it for this post, next time I have another 3 clubs to tell you about to end off my visit to Calgary!
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| The Calgary Tower downtown Calgary. |
Until next time, see you on the mats!
OSSS!
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