Kingston Ontario Canada: Finally Hanging Out With My Cousin!

Greetings From Kingston Ontario!

Originally I was going to stay in St. Catherine's so my bus ticket for Kingston was from there and not Niagara Falls, but a simple extra $8 and I had my ticket extended and left Niagara for Kingston without any problems. I even got in and met up with my cousin Jamie at the station at the proper time, which is awesome but I guess doesn't leave me much to write about, hahah.

The Long Overdue Family Reunion

Meeting Cousin Jamie, and the rest of the family, has been long over due. We were trying to think of exactly when we last saw each other and the best we could think of is an old Christmas gathering at the Grandparents, which would be about 20 years ago, maybe even 21 or 22 years, anyways, a long long time ago. While in high school we both decided to start Jiu-Jitsu, almost at the same time too, but never knew of the other training until recent years when I started planning out The Odyssey. As it happens Jamie and have so much in common and can talk forever about martial arts philosophy! It was just like the TV shows or family movies where the star finds out they have a cool family member they never knew about and you always think 'no one ever has a cool secret family member, this movie is dumb!' only this was real. It was a great time catching with Cousin Jamie and the rest of the family! One night we all went over to Aunt Doris', who I also haven't seen in many years, for supper and I got to fill her in on my journey as well.
I guess if you look at my past 10 years it's been pretty crazy and even I wouldn't have guessed half the things would have happened. I was out of college and running my own business and doing well, and then lost it all and ended up on my friend's couch, then once I started to get back on my feet decided I'd join the military, which I once said I'd never do, and now I'm backpacking around the world as some sort of blogging, globetrotting martial artist Youtuber. Come to think of it I guess there's been a lot of catch up on for all my family members I've finally been able to see while on this journey. Man I got to keep in touch with my extended family more often, condensing it all into a paragraph like that makes me sounds like a mess!
Anyways, I was nice seeing that part of the family again, I'll make sure not to make it another 20 years before hanging out again.

Cousin Jamie, Aunt Doris and myself.

Training with Cousin Jamie

My time in Kingston was short, and with my ears bugging me, an infection had made it's made into both of them since Niagara Falls, and Jamie also feeling under the weather, and an ice storm hitting Kingston, there was only really one night for us to train together. We had originally planned for Jamie to bring me to a Kenjutsu class and get my first experience at sword play as well as I was going to make it out to a BJJ class at Unik Skills but the only class we were able to make was the one at Jamie's club, Koketsu Kai Tiger's Den Jiu-Jitsu. Jamie is a 4th degree in this style of Jiu-Jitsu. This style is similar to other traditional Jiu-Jitsu styles, with strikes and take down and controlling techniques, but also has a grappling element to it that a lot of other styles do not. Training with them was similar to the Ninja Ryu Jiu-Jitsu style I did in high school and was a lot of fun to play around with again.

The club patch, to add to my collection. 

As part of the warm up Jamie had us do some positional grappling, getting out of being mounted or in side control etc. and I got a great compliment from one of his black belts. One of us was in mount with the other trying to escape, with us switching the rolls after a couple of minutes. At one point he says to me, 'it's hard to deal with your legs, you're using your feet like hands!" As a grappler I took that as a great compliment.
For the class we went over different techniques fro the various belt curriculum so Jamie and his club could show me what they study. It was great, there are a lot of similarities and parallels with the styles I've trained before with different details or variations to make it new again. I love classes like that, it's not about more techniques, its about more details. I look at it like this: each technique is a tool, and each new detail sharpens it. I've heard the saying 'It's not about having the most the tools, it's about having the sharpest tools for the job' and like House of Pain I like my tools to be 'the sharpest in the shed!'
I was hoping to get to do an interview with Cousin Jamie but with both of us fighting a cold I just wasn't for it and I don't think he would have been either. So this is another article without an interview but I hope the pictures of the old downtown buildings and penitentiary below help make up for it.

Cousin Jamie and I, thanks for class!

Kingston

The penitentiary.

The warden's house, which overlooks the penitentiary.

Jamie and hie wife, Laura, drove me around and showed me a lot of Kingston. I never knew much of the city and never really put much thought into it but after an afternoon with Laura telling me all about the history of Kingston I see the city has a lot more history to it than I thought. One cool thing she told me about was that there's an old abandoned mental ward everyone thinks is haunted and has been used for different TV shows or movies. I didn't get any pictures but it definitely looked creepy. Also, in the old down town area are a lot of old buildings built of lime stone that were all dug by prisoners of the old penitentiary, forced into chain gangs for their crimes. And of course, Sir John A McDonald, first Prime Minister of Canada, lived in Kingston and his house is still preserved and used as a museum to the man. I didn't get pictures of the house but it's a cool site to see if you're driving around the area.

The court house. 

City Hall.

And with that I short time in Kingston was up. Thanks again for everything cousin Jamie, it was awesome to catch up and train together! It was a pleasure to meet you Laura and the rest of the family! And of course it was great seeing you again Aunt Doris!

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And then I was off to meet friends from Victoria BC who had moved to Ottawa, also to train and see the sites of our nation's Capitol!

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