Toronto Ontario Canada Part 1: Misha Cirkunov, Xtreme Couture, Greenwood BJJ and Northern Karate

Greetings From Toronto Ontario!

Hello! I made it to Toronto finally! I say finally because although I have taken this bus route many, many times while in college and living in Toronto this is the first time I've ever had a problem. I had bought my ticket back in October and everything seemed OK, I would catch the afternoon bus on 1 January at 230 in the afternoon and end up in Toronto around 9 that evening. Great. I showed up at the bus stop and waited. And waited. Luckily I was hanging out in my mom's car with her, we just sat and chatted and figured the bus was running late again. There was another person waiting for the bus and she started to worry as soon as the bus didn't show up on time and kept asking us if we 'checked the schedule' and fearing for the worst. (I put 'checked the schedule' in quotations because there's no way to check the status of the bus or schedules on the Greyhound website, you can only make a search to buy a ticket.) The other passenger began calling people to check the schedule for her as she became more frantic about the missing the bus. Finally, after the bus was now almost an hour late, she came back to us saying the bus was cancelled because it's no longer on the site, which to my understanding they wouldn't post a ticket for a bus ride that's already gone. I mean, how can you buy a ticket for a bus that on paper left an hour ago? So I started calling around, first trying to get a hold of the nearby bus stops, then the stations where the bus started from in Sudbury and ends at in Toronto. Each time it would either go directly to an automated service that then sends you to their 1-800 costumer service number or to voice mail, saying to call the 1-800 number. Three times I ended up on the customer service number and each time after explaining in great detail what the issue was they would come back, after being on hold for a while, to say that they can't help and that I had to call a station the bus arrives at. Helpful costumer service indeed. "Please call the number you already called that sends you to me so that you can be re-routed back to here and told to call another number because even know this is costumer service we can't help you with any problems." That is what they are really saying when you break it all down.
Finally I got a hold of someone at the Sudbury station who would look into the matter, it took me giving him all my ticket info, him calling the Greyhound dispatch, a number not publicly listed, and a lot of back and forth phone calls. It ends up that bus route was cancelled a long time ago and I should never have been able to buy that ticket. They stated it must have been because I bought it so long ago, I replied that the other passenger only bought her ticket 2 weeks ago. Clearly their site is plagued with problems. In the end we were giving 2 options, since the evening bus was already sold out we could get on the next morning bus at 5am or we could take a taxi that they would reimburse the cost of to Ottawa that night and then wait til the middle of the night to catch the next available bus to Toronto. Being that I saw no reason in staying up all night I opted for the bus the next morning, although I should have taken the taxi and made them pay it as it would cost them 4 times more than the ticket they owed me. I don't know what the other passenger would have done, she was ready to give up and just try and buy a ticket for the next day before I started calling places. In the end I got to Toronto the next evening, a day less to do everything and see everyone but there in one piece all the same.      

Downtown Toronto!

Greenwood BJJ

The first club I made it out to visit was one I haven't been to before, Greenwood BJJ. Last year I e-mailed a BJJ Globetrotter who had a post about offering people to come stay with him and train at the club he trains at. He didn't get back to me until much later, after I had already visited in the summer, but gave me all the information for dropping by and training with the club without him. I looked them up, messaged Prof. Chris Greenwood, who welcomed me and gave me the directions to find the place, and made the arrangements to head out to class.

The Greenwood BJJ class That night.

The gym is a little hard to find if you don't read the directions on their site or talk to them first. It's in a strip mall like building in the basement but from outside the space is advertised as Synergy Martial Arts who they share the space with. The space, like most I've encountered, is long and rectangular, space enough for a fair sized class. There were I think 5 of us that showed up for the first class, which was no gi, and a few more showed up for the gi class afterwards. Both classes we drilled open guard passing and retaining with a variation of the Toreando Pass, starting with a flow drill of retaining guard, or attempting to, as the partner passed from side to side. It was good stuff but two full hours of it after a day on the bus really killed my hips. I like the way Prof. Greenwood teaches, he really works to minimize going to your knees, always using your feet to be focusing your weight and power on you r opponent rather than on the mats. This is does take some time and getting you legs used to it, especially if you're like me and got used to sitting down in half guard and working your way out. All and all it was a great first class to kick start my week in Toronto, I made some new friends, learned some new things and had a good time on the mats at a new club.

Prof. Greenwood, friendly guy with a lot of skills.

Northern Karate Schools

Northern Karate Schools.

Later on in the week I met up with a old teammate of mine, Montanna used to train with us out in Victoria BC but moved back to Toronto after her studies were up to enroll into another program there. Her and I trained in both BJJ and traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu together and it was always great having her on the mats because her small frame and quiet nature always hid her sharp, precise technique she would surprise you with time and time again. We hadn't trained together in well over a year so when I got to town I asked her if she would like to catch up. Montanna also has a black belt in karate and trains at Northern Karate now and was happy to bring me out for a class there, on the weekend they have a self defense based grappling class that we figured would be a good class to catch together.
When I showed up there was a karate class already underway that Montanna was helping teach, it was full of move sequences, or kata, and a lot of pad hitting. I don't think there's a moments rest during those classes, always striking sand moving. After meeting Shihan Jeff, who was running the classes, and filled the necessary paperwork it was time to get dressed and jump into class. The space is the usual karate layout, a mirrored wall, hardwood floors (we covered the floor with some roll out mats for class), and a wall covered with all kinds of weapons, staves, spears, nun-chucks, tonfas, sais even painted turtle shell shields, which I think were more decorative than anything but still looked cool.
Renshi Lorne ran the class and he had a good mix of both stand and ground knowledge. we started with some shadow boxing then moved to some movement drills on the ground with partners to warm up. We worked passing open guard, going to knee on belly and doing different arm locks, all on the principle of being wary of them striking us and using strikes to open up our opponent for submissions. It was really more MMA than anything but without all the giant beasts you'd deal with at a MMA club (which aren't a bad thing but not everyone is looking for that highly aggressive grind all the time). There were about 10 of us, ranging from a few big strong guys to a couple of smaller women, a nice mix of people for this class. It was a fun time training with Montanna again and seeing her new home for martial arts, everyone was very welcoming and loved hearing my story. I even traded my patch for a crest of their club, which is the only picture I will have as I didn't know if I could take pictures of the classes and Montanna and I never got to take a picture together.
After class I sat and watched as Motanna jumped for the adult masters class, which I'm guessing is the advanced class, as everyone there was a black belt that I saw. It was a full class with more of the same movements, strikes and pad work going on, just way more intricate. After class Montanna and I grabbed some sushi and chatted, catching up on old times and filling her in on my journey so far. She had to take off to wish her brother farewell as he caught his plane, we had been talking for so long we almost track of time, so it was a rushed farewell between us and I never got the picture of us, ah well, next time for sure!    
  

The North Karate crest I got when visiting and training with Montanna. 

Xtreme Couture 

Not a great pic of their sign out front. 

Xtreme Couture is the one club I've made it back to every time I've been in Toronto. With Prof. Wagnney Fabiano as the hard driving head instructor, all the talent on the mats and my friend Mariya training there it's pretty hard hard not to end up training there. As it ends up Mariya was sick and I wouldn't be able to meet up and hang out, which kind of sucked as I always look forward to training with her, but I run into Coach Paul McGrath, a brown belt under Wagnney who also teaches some of the classes, and it was great catching up with him.

Paul McGrath, always fun catching up with him.

I also look forward to getting on the giant mat space at Xtreme couture because I always meet new people, and this time was no different, I forget how many I introduced myself to and had conversations with, there were so many. Prof. Fabiano runs a hard class and really puts you to the test physically during his warm up, but nothing worth while is easy and his classes are definitely worth while. He's really passionate about his classes and always wants you doing your full effort during the killer warm ups as well as drilling. It's intimidating to see this at first but after a while you get to understand, if you're not here to train hard then why are you training with Wagnney Fabiano? And that passion and mentality really shines through when everyone is drilling, he makes sure everyone has the move down, I don't which is louder, him seeing you do the move wrong or seeing you correct the mistake and do it right. Either way he brings a lot of energy to his classes.

Prof. Wagnney Fabiano teaching class

We worked on some butterfly movement drills like setting up the sweep and then the sweep itself that night and my hips were still killing from Greenwood BJJ, having been the night before. We did a lot of the same drills for gi class, which was after the no gi class. There was rolling on the end of both classes and the guys don't play around, they have some real killer on the mats. I also got to get in a roll with Paul, he's really slick with his moves, even showed me a few things after, it was great to see him again. I talked with Wagnney and set up to do an interview after class one day, but I ended up not feeling the best that day and had to miss out on another class with him as well as the interview, next time I guess.      

clas shot as everyone listens to Wagnney's instruction.

Misha Cirkunov

Finally got to hang out with Misha, awesome guy!

I also was finally able to hit up the noon time class at Xtreme Couture, something I hadn't been able to do before. The noon class is run by UFC fighter Misha Cirkunov, who is an accomplished grappler, and MMA athlete and all around beast. I have been a fan of Misha's for a while now, ever since I took some no gi classes he was teaching, filling in for the usual instructor, years ago. I knew nothing about him at the time, but after I told my friend of how good he was and he told me all about Misha's impressive record. Ever since I've kept an eye out for him and always wanted to sit in another of his classes. This time around I did just that and more, I got to do an interview with him! Right now Misha has an impressive 8 match win streak and with the last 4 in the UFC and he's looking for a big name fight next. On top of talking to him about the UFC and and his MMA career I also talked to him about training various martial arts as he grew up, the switch from one sport to another, and what the gym and training means to him. It was great talking with him, the audio isn't the best as it's always packed and loud at Xtreme Couture but we made due.

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That's it for Toronto part 1, I have another list of clubs to tell you all about and finish up my visit to Toronto with part 2.

Until next time, see you all on the mats!
OSSS!!