Casablanca & Marrakech Morocco: Too Much Sun!

Greetings From Casablanca and Marrakesh Morocco!

I made it to the hotel easy enough, I was enjoying the sea breeze as I walked down the street from the train station. It was only a short, 2 or 3 hour train ride from Rabat to Casablanca. I got a hold of Hicham (the first Hicham, I'll explain later) and we decided to meet up the next day while I spent the evening getting settled in and finding a nearby market to buy some water and fruit and food. The hotel I was staying at was really nice and had some good wifi now, so I had some work to do and as well. I wish I could say I actually got to the work and got caught up on blogging but that would be a lie. I was still feeling down about my friend not meeting me in Morocco and probably watched more Netflix than any actual work being done.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Casablanca, Finally Some Breeze!

The first thing I noticed about Casablanca was the sea breeze, as I stepped out of the train I felt it blowing through the station. There wasn't much of a breeze, if any, in Rabat so it was quite welcome, cutting the humidity and cooling me off. I took my time walking down to the hotel, stopping to look at Google maps whenever a good breeze blew down the street. It felt good to be cooled off from the sticky Moroccan heat for once.

This is Center Ville, a big square where the streetcar, or tram, stops and all sorts of displays, vendors, rallies etc are held.

I didn't get a chance to walk around the Casablanca Medina this time but I did walk by outside of it while walking around the city, well a few blocks radius from my hotel anyways. Casa is a big city so if I wanted to get around and see a lot of it I would either need to take the streetcar, which was only one line, or grab a city taxi. I wasn't in the mood for either really and I missed the opportunity to take some photos when around some of the places I did see, or was just driving by and couldn’t take any. For that reason I don't have a lot of pictures of Casa but I will tell you about some of the things I did see.

The wall to the Medina.

One place I passed everyday and didn't get around to taking pictures of was Mohamed V Square. The square itself has a water fountain that lights up at night and also tends to have a lot of people setting up booths to vend whatever it is they're selling, making for an active area. The area across the street was cool to see as well, it was an open square with different metal figures and other statues around it. The city was working on it and had fences up around it with equipment everywhere so taking pictures wasn't much of an option, tried and they looked like crap and didn’t do the view any justice. There was also a cool market Hicham brought me to that was big area lined with all sorts of seafood where you can walk around and pick what you want and they'll take you to a grill and have it cooked and served to you right away. They also have a huge selection of other things. It seemed pretty cool to see but I wasn't in the mood for trying it out, and I'm not much of a seafood person, but I would recommend it to anyone who likes seafood and is looking for something different. Sorry I don't have a name for the market or a link to it.

Training With Equipe Elite

When I was first planning out my stay, at at the start of planning the Odyssey as my last post explained, I was referred to Hicham by several people. Hicham runs a Jiu-Jitsu gym in Casablanca and is a black belt. He's the go to guy setting up visits to Morocco and seems to know everyone and all the gyms and is very helpful. Once I got into Casablanca I contacted him and we planned out meeting up. The first meet up was at the Center Ville square, we met up and Hicham showed me around a little bit before grabbing some food. We strolled around the city, talked about training and meeting cool people and Hicham told all about Casablanca, the market and the tourism industry that Casa thrives on. I also had some of the best shawarma I've ever had.

Later that night we met up and Hicham took me to the gym to meet the rest of the club. The Jiu-Jitsu club, Equipe Elite, is inside a crossfit gym, Gym Factory. The Jiu-Jitsu club is the upstairs of the gym, in a big open mat space. It's a nice clean, newer looking place that had all sorts of different classes going on. It's a good place for the Jiu-Jitsu club. The students were all friendly, those who I talked to, some were shy as they didn't speak much English and my French is horrible and I have no knowledge of Arabic. The classes were big too, at least 20 people, much bigger than a lot of gyms I had been visiting lately. Hicham started class with a good long warm up, and I couldn't help but feel a step behind everyone, the heat was definitely getting to me, and I'm not as athletic as most of them, and whatever other excuses I can think of I’ll add in later. There were a lot of drills we did on our own, working the movements that the techniques he would be teaching us would involve. I have seen this kind of drilling a few times now and I really like it, even though I usually get destroyed and by the end, but I tend to get a higher understanding of the move and retain those details. We were doing double leg takedowns, or a chain of moves that started with one, and my legs were jello by the end after all those drills and then working techniques. But I really honed in the little details I need to work on to make my less than stellar shoot in work, and the pain of my legs the next day definitely set them to memory.

There was some rolling time after class and we also had an open mat another day. A lot of the guys were pretty athletic so I knew I had my work cut out for me when it came to rolling. I was right. The guys were all pumped to roll with a new guy and all brought their A game. Some were strong, some were fast, some were both, so I was mainly just trying to survive. Rolling with Hicham made me have to re-think my entire game plan, you know when you meet someone who just has a move that completely shuts your game down? I walked right into Hicham's go-to move and was instantly armbarred, over and over again. He gave me some tips on how to look out for his move and how to change my actions to make it not so open to his trap, something I've had playing back to me constantly since. It was a good learning experience for sure. Definitely changed the way I see my game. The whole experience of rolling with people on a higher level of ambition was a great learning opportunity. All part of learning to work my game against different situations. Thank you Equipe Elite, it was a great time together!

Hicham Hakam

I was originally going to stay with Hicham but got a hotel room since I was supposed to have a friend coming to visit (which never happened) but I was always in contact with him and Hicham was always helping me in any way he could. He showed me around the city, took me out to a few good places to eat, told me all about the culture and how to get around, at any point if I ever needed any help for anything all I had to do was text Hicham and he'd be there if he could. So in between Hicham showing me around and us training I met up with him and we did an interview. It was my last day in Casablanca and I was really burnt from being at the beach the day before and not feeling too well so I had to pass on our plans to meet up and go for food with the guys from the club, but we got through this interview and I think it's great for telling us how the Jiu-Jitsu scene is in Morocco, check it out.

If the video doesn't load and play here head over to the Panda's Odyssey YouTube Channel and watch it there. While there please show some love, like, comment, share or maybe even subscribe, thanks!

The Beach...And The Sun!

One day Hicham and I went to the beach to relax, this is where I got way too much sun and ended up with a severe sunburn. It wasn't all bad though, the beach is a great place, it was full of people suntanning and playing sports and families building sand castles and playing in the waves, it was a fun place to relax and take in the view. There were some guys walking around with horses and ponies and I believe I even saw a camel that offered people to ride them, for a price of course. I enjoyed watching the waves come in, getting bigger as the afternoon got on, crashing into all the kids and adults playing in the shallow waters.

I got out into the water to cool and down a few times, the water was really refreshing but also very salty. I didn’t go out too far as the waves were a bit intimidating for me, having no real sea swimming experience. I would walk out and stand facing the waves and let them knock me back a little, and then later when the waves come in more I would turn and sit down and float and let the wave carry me in. It was a fun way to cool down, until a big wave came crashing down on me and knocked my sunglasses off. I saw them bobbing just a few feet away, then another wave crashed and suddenly they were a few meters away, then another wave and they were gone. I had just bought them in Lisbon, after the pair I had bought in Idaho while visiting Keith Owen during my west coast trip almost 2 years ago finally broke. That pair of sunglasses and I together had been all over Canada, the west coast of the USA, even to Tokyo, not to mention every stop in the Odyssey before they broke; and I bought them used so no telling how much of the USA they had seen before becoming mine. Losing those sunglasses sucked. This replacement pair I had just bought on the other hand, I wasn’t near as torn losing them, although I did curse at the waves a few times. I hope a kid found them and have been wearing them everyday since.

A bunch of the guys from the gym showed up to hang out with us too, this is where I met ‘the other’ Hicham. This Hicham I had also been talking to online through BJJ Globetrotters and he also helped me out with telling who to contact and setting me up with places to train at. He was also a student of black belt Hicham, having been training for some time now, and him and I had a great talk about goal setting and mindset while training. In fact I had some great conversation about Jiu-Jitsu philosophy with a few of the guys that day. After the beach we went to a cafe and I had some Moroccan tea, which I had fallen in love with, and the guys were all keen to ask me questions about training and visiting clubs and tips for traveling. As the conversations went on I started to feel the sun burn coming in.

You see, as I found out later on, the Sun in Morocco is much stronger than in Canada, but with the sea breeze coming in you don’t ever feel being baked. I had a base coat of sunscreen on and re-applied to my head and arms, but not to my body as I wanted to get a little colour. Well I got a lot of colour! The burn didn’t come in until after being in the shade at the cafe, then I started to feel the heat of a good burn coming from, well, all over except my head and arms, which were saved. Once I got back the hotel I started to feel sick, fever and diarrhea were starting to hit me as me body punished me for cooking it in the Moroccan Sun all afternoon. It was a horrible night to a awesome day.

 

Good times in the sun! The rest of the guys were way back behind me chilling out, I think this is right before I lost my sunglasses.

Marrakesh, Too Hot!

The day after the beach, my birthday, I did the interview with Hicham and then went back to the hotel feeling like shit, the day after that I took the train to Marrakesh. The train ride was a easy one, I relaxed and slept some of the way. Getting ready for the train was quite the task. Packing wasn’t the issue, the problem was dealing with my sunburned body. The burn was so bad that I couldn’t shower, cold water felt like needles piercing my body and warm and hot water felt like flaming needles. In order to bathe I needed to draw a bath that was basically room temperature and slowly wash myself. After that I then needed to cover the burns in lotion. My chest and sides were stiff from the skin losing it’s elasticity, being dried out and burned. Across my chest I was starting to get blisters, even had one big one in my belly button that was very annoying. Wearing a t-shirt wasn’t possible for long times, it felt like sandpaper on my skin even with the lotion, it was just too painful to wear a top for more than a few hours. This whole thing was a long slow process and it hurt. As soon as I got into the hotel in Marrakesh I turned on the air conditioning (because Marrakesh was freaking hot!) and whipped off my shirt and just lay on my bed in my underwear. I could hover my hand over my chest and feel the heat coming off.

After about 4 or 5 days, the blisters have gone and you can really see where was burnt the most.

Now that I was in Marrakesh it was very hot, for me at least (+40C), and there was no breeze like in Casablanca. It was like being in an oven, a beautiful oven but still an oven. Because I was dealing with the severe sunburn, and the high heat and humidity, I didn’t get out to see much of Marrakesh but what I did see was great and what I saw online of the sights I missed were amazing. The center of the city, downtown if you will, is small, everything I could need was just a five minute walk away. Marrakesh in it’s entirety is much bigger with sprawling residential and industrial neighborhoods and some huge beautiful gardens through the city. I managed to see one garden while I was there but it was while I passed by, taking a taxi to the airport. It was early in the morning and still dark so I couldn’t take any pictures but it looked very well taken care of with lights along the walkways, vine covered lattice arches and stone benches for people to sit on and take in the view.

A random place I thought looked nice.

Marathon Village where it gets filled with vendors in the evening. I missed out seeing that too.  

Training With Marrakesh Fight Club

During my planning of visiting Morocco I met Rafe online and he was my helpful contact for Marrakesh and the club he trains at, Marrakesh Fight Club, which has recently been re-named to the Gentle Art Academy Marrakesh. Rafe and I had been in contact for a long time, since the start of looking up Morocco as an option, I believe he was one of the guys who referred me to Hicham in Casablanca actually. I was looking forward to meeting him and training with the club. Unfortunately he had to work when I was in town so I would miss out on training with him and the amazing training sessions he has at his place. From pictures I’ve seen online Rafe has a very nice set up for outdoor classes, complete with mats and places to sit in shade. Luckily we got to meet up for breakfast one morning, which also showed me where to go for breakfast for the remainder of my stay in Marrakesh. Rafe and I and his wife talked about living in Marrakesh and the sights and markets, and of course traveling and training.

Through Rafe I met Dex, the head coach at the gym. I had the schedule and address of the gym and let Dex know when I’d be by, just to watch at first because I was still healing. The Jiu-Jitsu club is inside a gym and it’s quite a small space, since the gym owner is a boxing champ and the gym focuses a lot on boxing there was a boxing ring that took up a lot of the space. For this reason Dex limits the people in his classes and runs more than one class a day to fit everyone in. He was really happy to see me when I finally made it out to visit and him and the rest of the class were super friendly. The first time out I just watched class, watching Dex teach some techniques and how the students interacted, I could tell they were a close club by how they got on with one another. In between teaching techniques and correcting the students Dex and I would talk, he had a bunch of questions for me, curious about my training and my travels. I also had questions for him and the techniques he was showing, being a taller guy who’s all long limbs he had a very different style from me so some of the movements were new to me.

The only picture I have of training in Marrakesh, I'm sure More were taken but this is all I have.

The next time I came back I had my gi and was ready to train, I wasn’t quite ready to roll too much as the rashguard on my chest was really irritating the burn but I was there training. I remember telling Dex this exact same thing, that I couldn’t really roll because of the burn, but then he somehow got me into rolling with him for almost half an hour. And then we did some training and more rolling with other students. Funny how that works. The rest of the students for class were young and somewhat new, or newer than me, to BJJ and so I helped them out when their techniques and gave them tips for rolling, Dex was very appreciative of the help and actually loves people coming and visiting and showing off techniques and giving out tips. The students were also appreciative, although shy to talk to me, given the language barrier, and class was pretty fun training together. Both classes, the one I watch and the one I joined in, the students seem very enthusiastic to learn and train, which a great thing to have for a club. I’m looking forward to seeing this club grow and become a club of submission assassins.

Dex has a tradition with his club, everyone who visits his club has to show off one technique to the class. It can be anything and doesn’t have to be some crazy new technique they’ve never seen, just teach one technique. Everyone has their own way of doing things and I bet if you watched 100 people do an armbar you could find a small detail to pick up from each one of them. I decided to show off my guard break that I showed the guys in Rabat, but this time it was filmed and posted online (and has over 1k views!) Showing the technique was a lot of fun, Dex was genuinely interested in it, he asked to see it a few times over and had a bunch of questions about it and then drilled it asking me if it was correct. It was a cool feeling being able to share a little knowledge with people so appreciative. There’s the link to the guard break again. I talked about it and posted this link back when I talked about first teaching it in Rabat but here it is again in case you missed it or want to see it again. Panda’s Guard Break Video!

And after a few weeks of traveling and training, and burning, in Morocco it was time to head for Italy! My first stop was in the island of Sicily, Palermo to be exact, where I would be staying with a fellow Globetrotter. But first I had the craziest flying experience to date that ended with me losing my luggage...

Left Morocco in the morning but didn't land in Italy until night.

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

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Rabat Morocco: Welcome to Morocco!

Greetings From Rabat Morocco!

Getting to the hotel was an adventure, I knew it would be so it wasn't a surprise or unwelcome, just some fun on the way. I arrived at the airport early in the morning as my flight was an early one, so I didn't get to say goodbye the roommates in Malaga instead just leaving a Panda patch on their bags as I quietly left. When checking in for my flight they demanded I show them my exit ticket, which I had completely forgotten to buy. So with my phone I found a ticket for the right day, although a bit more expensive than I'd like, and bought it on the spot. The funny thing is the flight attendant was pretty strict with me having this ticket, and was generally quite the asshole in general, siting that if I didn't have an exit ticket I'd have to buy a visa or the customs might kick me out, meanwhile all my interactions with the customs in Morocco were smooth and easy. They just simply read my front page, saw I was a Canadian citizen with a valid passport and stamped it accordingly without any questions. In fact the customs guard when entering Morocco just gave me a big stupid smile the whole time starring at my tattoos. He spent more time checking me out than the passport.
The flight into Morocco was short, I just hoped over from Malaga to Tangier rather than fly all the way to Rabat or Casablanca which would have cost several hundred dollars more for the ticket. From Tangier I took a taxi to the train station, which zig-zagged all through the city instead of just taking the main roads and had me thinking I was going to end up in a back dead-end alley being robbed any minute. I arrived at the train station in one piece but I really don't think he saved any time at all in his route, quite the opposite I'd say. I then took a train to Rabat, which took about 3 hours but I was in no rush and was armed with a full powered Nintendo 3DS and laptop with downloaded movies. In total, taxi, train and snacks, I spent well under $100 CDN after conversion when it would have cost me over $200 CDN more to fly to Rabat from Malaga. This was a way more fun way, I got to more of the country as well as save a few dollars.
Once I got to Rabat the hotel was just a short 10 minute walk up to the Medina from the train station. The Medina is the marketplace, it's a huge place full of small shops side by side and booths everywhere, the roads are tight and crammed with people. There's one in each city and although it may be off in the corner of town it's the heart of the city for shopping, bargain hunting and haggling. My hotel was a few blocks into the Medina so I was surrounded by the market, which meant cheap food right nearby.    

The view landing in Tangier. I wasn't in a good position to take pics on the train but similar view the whole way.

Staying In The Medina 

Daily I would pass shops and stands selling fruit, meat, nuts, other foods and all kinds of things. I would usually start the day off by walking down the street to the grocery store and picking up a 7L jug of water and some cheese. Passing back through the Medina I would stop off and get some fruit, which usually more fresh and either the same price or cheaper than the grocery store, some nuts, walnuts were everywhere and cheap, and some loafs of this fresh bread that was sold all through the Medina. It was a circle and kinda flat but not a pita, I don't what it's called but it was tasty with cheese. I didn't trust the butchers or vendors enough to try any of the meat being cooked and sold there, fearing it might upset my stomach or I could get food poison, but it smelled very favourful when passing them. Sometimes there would be a vendor selling boiled corn and I'd pick some up as well. This was my diet for my time in Rabat, fruits, nuts, bread and cheese and copious amounts of water. All this was very cheap, I think at most I spent $15 CDN a day in food.

Rabat city square, or a busy city square anyways, I believe this building was a museum of some sort.

The entrance, or one of, to the Medina.

while walking about this daily trek, I didn't get out to any of the sights because of some negative head space, I took some pictures of the city. There's not a lot of photos compared to some places I've visited but I wasn't in a picture taking mood. A close friend was supposed to meet me in Morocco and at the last minute everything went to hell and they didn't make it, making me feel down. I wasn't really feeling like going sight seeing and on adventures that were supposed to be had together. Then again maybe I was just better off relaxing anyways.

Inside the Medina. 

Art of Submission Morocco

I've been planning out Morocco since the start of planning the Odyssey. It was a complicated list of planning, I wanted to go to Russia but I needed to do visa paperwork and could only apply within six months of visiting. When I planned on going to Russia depended on when my time allowed in the European Schegan Zone, as I'm only allowed 90 days within 180 (3 months in, 3 months out) was up. When that time came up depended on if I would be going to Morocco. So basically the starting outline for the Odyssey outside of Canada was London and the UK in March, Morocco in May, and Russia for July and then I started in filling in spots and connect the dots after that.

Life sized Hulk statue!

During all that planning and talking to countless people I made a few contacts for Morocco, most were in Casablanca and Marrakech, which will be my next article, but I also met Simo through the BJJ Globetrotters matsurfing connection. Simo actually isn't in Morocco anymore, he's moved to Amsterdam but still has many contacts in Morocco and helped me out a lot. One of the people Simo connected me with was Mouhcine. Mouhcine trains in a club in Temura, which is a town right next to Rabat. I got in contact with Mouhcine and sorted out the schedule and when would be good to train and set out to meet him and the club. The original plan was to meet Mouhcine at the train station and get a drive to the club, the problem was my SIM card data plan didn't work in Morocco and there wasn't any wifi at the train station, so I had no way of being able to contact him once I arrived at the train station. Luckily I had the gym saved to Google Maps and that the map's GPS works offline. The gym was just up a few blocks from the train station so I was easy enough to make it to and I made it just in time for class. The Jiu-Jitsu club, Art of Submission Morocco which is under Prof. Mehdi Khalil, is located downstairs in the gym Monster Gym which has some cool art around the place, like paintings of Arnold and other body builders, or pictures of old boxers.

Rolling time!

It was a smaller class, there were 4 or 5 of us, and a few of them were very new to Jiu-Jitsu so we went over a lot of the fundamentals for class. everyone was happy to have me visit, I even did an interview with Mouhcine for his YouTube Channel after class (you can watch the video HERE), I don't think they get too many visitors in Morocco so when a traveler like myself shows up they're very happy to have you join them. During the class the new guys were open to me helping, I believe we were working guard passing, and everyone was eager to take their turn with me when it came to rolling, in fact I'm pretty sure I rolled with one or two of them more than once. It was a fun time, hardly even noticed the language barrier, although the fence wall with guys working out on the other side watching us roll was a new feeling.

Mouhcine, in the middle, with the AOS class.

After class Mouhcine took me out for some food at a nice Italian place he was friends with. The pizza I had was really good and I think the only meat I had while in Rabat haha. The guy who ran the restaurant was friendly and funny guy and Mouhcine was filming the whole time, making me real welcome and almost like a celebrity. Later I learned it's part of the culture in Morocco to accept you in and make you feel very at home and taken care of. I definitely felt like that I whole time in Morocco and Mouhcine and his club were a great first stop!  

De La Riva Rabat

Another club I was looking to visit was De La Riva Rabat, or I think it's a De La Riva club, apparently the clubs have changed affiliations and instructors a few times so names have changed. On Google Maps this place comes up at De La Riva Rabat, but their website link sends them to Mehdi Khalil's AOS Morocco Facebook page, which leads me to believe Prof. Khalil runs both clubs. Whatever the name they were a very friendly group in that held classes inside a gym, with their own matted room, I think it was originally a judo or wrestling room. The head instructor was away for a seminar so there were only a few students for class and they were all lower ranks, I think all white belts, maybe one blue belt, so they asked me to teach them a technique or two since I was the highest ranking student there. This was an odd feeling. I feel weird when I show up and I'm the highest ranked student next to the teacher, but to suddenly be the guy in charge at a club I'm visiting is something to me, in my limited teaching experience, is very new. So I went back to the basics and showed them a simple guard break I've been working on and using with good success.
It's a really simple seated guard break that I've put together from little tips I've picked up from traveling around. I actually found a video with a guard break that is very similar but I have a few added things that I think make it better. There's no standing or doing anything flashy but it works very well, I was going to post the video I found but as it happens I was recorded teaching the technique again at another club so I'll just post that instead. Here's the Video from Marrakech Fight Club, which I will post again for that article too.
During rolling time I had my hands full, these guys were full of energy, but I used my time to just keep to working on the very technique I just showed them. What's funny is they seemed to want to use more energy to get a triangle or maybe a sweep as I used the technique on them, like they were trying to shut down what I taught them, which actually just helped the technique more. It's not perfect but I'm having fun with it. To top it off I had some of the guys say they used it while rolling and it was working great for them, that's the best compliment you can get!

My young eager class in Rabat, these guys are going to be killers!

I was supposed to visit a third club, Hicham from Casablanca (there are two Hicham's in Casablanca this is the 'other Hicham' as the Hicham who's a black belt and runs Equipe Elite says) was going to set me up with a friend that trains there but I ended up having a headache and taking a nap and totally missed it. So after good start to my visit to Morocco I was off to Casablanca to meet the two Hichams and train and get some (too much) sun for my birthday! But that's another story..  


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

WAYS TO SUPPORT PANDA'S ODYSSEY!

Sign up to the Panda's Odyssey Patreon Account.
Buy Panda's Odyssey Patches at The Gi Hive.
Buy the Panda's Odyssey T-shirt.
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Malaga Spain: Costa Del Sol

Greetings From Malaga Spain!

I had a quick flight into to Malaga Spain from Lisbon Portugal and found the hostel easy enough. I had arrived pretty early so I took off to walk around the city and get some photos of the sights. Malaga is one beautiful place, to all my friends who love going to Mexico to sit on the beach and drink all day, switch it up and go to the Costa Del Sol for a vacation!

Not a bad view to land down to.

The Costa Del Sol!

While staying in Malaga I walked around to see the place a few times but the most sight seeing I got in was when I first arrived. I saw a big castle on a mountain and headed towards it. It's actually two places I saw, there's the Alcazaba, which a sprawling estate, at the base of the hill in with the city and the Castillo Gibralfaro higher up on top the of the hill that overlooks the city. I spent quite the time walking around them.

The strip, it's basically a garden down the middle of the main road.

Alcazaba.

Yard full of orange trees, you could smell the citrus in the air.

Castillo Gibralfaro, or the road to it. It's pretty big once up top. I Facebook live video'd it so no photos of it, sorry.

In the middle is the Plaza De Toros De La Malagueta, where they hold bull fights. At first I thought it was a soccer stadium.

View from top of Alcazaba.

I also walked around the beach, Playa La Malagueta, and relaxed in the hot sand and cool sea breeze. In Spain it's perfectly OK for women to go topless at the beach, and many of them were more than happy to sun tan without worrying about getting tanlines, so I didn't get too many shots of the beach for fear of being thought some pervert so something. I did get some panoramic views from the point though.

man am I ever white..

Of course if you'd like to see the rest of my photos from Malaga head over to Flickr and view them there, thanks!

The Friends You Make In Hostels

When I got in to the hostel they still had to make my bed so all I could do was drop off my bags, charge my phone and take off to wonder the city. When I got back someone had taken my bed, I guess when the staff made the bed my stuff was moved away from the bed I had claimed so when the next person came in it looked open. It was no problem and everything was sorted easy enough but there was a couple hours of waiting for the the guy to come back that I was fearing I'd have the unfortunate luck of having an asshole in the room with me who would want to argue over it. Instead of that happening he ended up being pretty cool, a young kid named Oliver who had decided to move to Malaga from Denmark. He and I and another guy in our room who was an Australian who lives in Germany all went out looking for some food.
As it happens it was Sunday, and Monday was a holiday, so not much was open and the only thing we could find was a restaurant that was a bit more expensive than I'd like. That night we talked about all sorts of things, our different experiences traveling, our own stories of doing stupid shit or whatever. As it ends up even though we were three different people, an Australian chiropractor from Germany, a Danish kid (Oliver is 21 but I called him a kid hahah) who was moving to Spain for a charity telemarketing business, and myself, we all had great stories we could relate to and became pretty good friends. Oliver stayed the whole time I was in Malaga, as he was looking for a place to move into, but the Australian, who's name I forget, left the next day to head back to Germany. In his place Jasse came in and joined our room.      

Meeting Jasse Junkkari

Jasse is another friend I was connected with through Nathan Hatton while on this journey. He's from Finland and known Nathan for some time now, talking a lot online about their shared passion of martial arts history. Jasse is a Demian Maia black belt as well as a practitioner of other styles so it was a lot of fun to talk martial arts philosophy with him. He and I were in contact for a week or two before I made it to Malaga and we worked it out to both get a bed at the same hostel and even in the same room. Most the time there it was actually just Oliver Jasse and myself in the room so it was a pretty cool stay. One day after hanging out and training together we finally decided to sit down and do an interview at the hostel. We talked about all sorts of Jiu-Jitsu and martial arts topics, I hope you enjoy!

If the video doesn't load you can head over to the Panda's Odyssey YouTube Channel and watch it there, and show some love, comment, like, share or even subscribe, thanks!

SurUnion

With it being a weekend and the holiday on training was limited so I didn't get to visit some of the clubs I wanted to but I go out to a club I knew nothing about. SurUnion is a club that I totally missed in my search but Jasse is good friends with and since I wanted to train with him I decided to join him in visiting this club for a class. The gym is out outside the Malaga city center, closer to the airport. We took a train out and walk a bit to get there, it's down a side in an industrial area so without having the address saved to your phone you will be hard pressed to come upon the place by chance. Once inside it was a big open area with big mat space of old, well used tatami. I met Luis Quiñones, black belt co-founder of SurUnion and the current head instructor there. He was a really nice guy happy to have me there as a guest while he saw his old friend Jasse. SurUnion is a Yan Cabral affiliate so I mentioned I had been by Templum BCN during my travels and Luis told me of the seminars they have with Yan all the time, it sounded like a really good seminar, making me wish I could've caught Yan's class back when I visited Barcelona.  
It wasn't a big class, but that was OK, we still had fun training together, going over different sweeps and from a guard pull. Of course it was a hot day and I was dying, drinking water in between each technique instruction and after each roll. I had fun training with everyone, we were a bit relaxed with time to work out the techniques and adjust them to make it work for you, or try a different pass from the sweep etc. but when it came to rolling they were all business and I was on the defense. It was still fun though, just a different kind of fun. I managed to survive alright but I was dead tired by the end. I needed water, lots of water!
Jasse Luis and myself went out for food after training, to a restaurant not far from the gym, a popular hangout with the guys after class. There we talked more about training and mart arts philosophy and of course traveling to different clubs. It was cool post class hangout and Jasse told me of some times the restaurant would be half full of just people from the club, like it was there own clubhouse. That's pretty cool. It's something I've brought up quite a few times in my travels, the importance of extra curricular activities, getting the club to hang out together after training to grab some food or drinks, or on the weekend to watch fights, hit the beach, do whatever really. It grows the bond of the clubs and gets them more involved in helping each other train harder. I think group activities outside normal class times are essential in building a strong club.

Jasse, Luis and a handsome looking Panda.

And with only a little training done but a lot of friend making on this visit, it was time to head on down to Africa. Morocco. Rabat, Casablanca and Marrakech to be more precise. Lots of adventures, and friends to be made, awaited me while plans I had went out the window.

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

WAYS TO SUPPORT PANDA'S ODYSSEY!

Sign up to the Panda's Odyssey Patreon Account.
Buy Panda's Odyssey Patches at The Gi Hive.
Buy the Panda's Odyssey T-shirt.
Follow me and other traveling Jiu-Jitsueros at the BJJ Globetrotters blog section.
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel.
Check out my full photo albums for each article at my Flickr account.
Add me and follow along on most social media @pandasodyssey

Porto & Lisbon Portugal: Not enough time!

Greetings From Porto & Lisbon Portugal!

I left Madrid in a bad mood, I was getting better from the bad cold that knocked me down but I was still dealing with the credit card fraud at the time. Luckily it only took a day or so while in Porto before resolving the issues, letting me get back to focusing on my travels and training. I took a bus to Porto and found my hostel no problem. I guess the hostel owner had text messaged me to tell me to let him know when I'll be showing up, but I had switched numbers since I reserved the bed so I didn't get the message. Because of this when I got to the hostel the host wasn't there and I had to wait a while before I could check in. Once I was checked in and shown a map of all the sights to see of the city, and told of the holiday coming up, I was ready to see Porto!

Showing up in Porto.

Traveling to Lisbon was even easier. I had booked an Air BnB and we were in contact the entire bus ride, with the host tell me the exact route to get to his place. I was staying really close to one of the clubs I was wanting to visit, there were some other clubs in Lisbon as well but ended up passing on them for resting and catching up on some online work. Just gives me an excuse to come back another time!

Things you see on the bus. A giant cross on a hill in the middle of nowhere.

Some cool looking place we passed, I can't remember if this was on the way to Porto or from Porto to Lisbon, but cool either way. 

The Sights!

I will say that both the cities are beautiful, as are pretty much all my destinations on this odyssey, but if I was bringing a significant other with me and could only pick one, it would be Porto. It's a smaller, more intimate and romantic town than Lisbon, but both are must see destinations as you will see from the photos.

Since there was a holiday going on I spent a day walking around Porto and saw a lot of the sights but didn't go into any of the places or go on any tours. The Dom Luís I Bridge was my favourite and it's up there in my list of favourite sights. I walked across the top looking down on the bottom bridge, watching cars and buses drive by, and boats float by below them. It was an amazing view of the ports below and of the city with their red roofed buildings lining the Douro River. There's also the Porto Cathedral and Clérigos Tower are also worth seeing. Of course If I were to drink I would be definitely trying out all sorts of wines and ports here, since Porto is the home of the fortified wine port after all.

Blue and white ceramic tiled churches.

Dom Louis I Bridge.

Lisbon has some great sights too, the waterfront was pretty cool to walk along and sit on the ledge and watch the wind surfers cross the water in groups. There's also the Commerce Square along the waterfront and markets selling all kinds of things and all kinds of sights further down and across the water that I didn't see to see, so lots to see along the Rio Tejo.    

There was a castle up on a hill beside the city too, I didn't know how to get up there though. 

Commerce Square

A war museum.

Cool things on at the waterfront.

Of course I have many more photos I have taken from these visits and if you're interested on seeing them head on over to my Flickr account and check them out! 

FOCUS Jiu-Jitsu 

During my search I found Pedro and he told about about his club he trains at, FOCUS Jiu-Jitsu, unfortunately we weren't able to meet up or train together but I did make it out to the gym. FOCUS is in a gym, Academia Workout. The mat space is huge, all white and bright. It's upstairs and overlooks the free weights area so you can watch all the crazy weight lifters and crossfitters throwing things around, with the lights and all white motive it felt like you were training on clouds, not that the mats were that soft though. I showed up for one day and trained both the noon no gi class and evening gi class but soon into the gi class my left knee felt a little weird so I didn't roll and was limited with some of my drilling. It ended up being nothing, just a bruise or a maybe a strain either way it was just annoying.

The guys at the clubs were all nice people happy to have a visitor. I enjoyed training and rolling with everyone, they have some real killers on the mats but everyone was fun to roll with, even when I was just being schooled by the top guys. During the evening there was a brown belt who was training for a big tournament, drilling all kind of crazy way, like with a harness holding him back while doing open guard passes. FOCUS was a good club to visit, it's too bad I couldn't meet up with my original contact for the place, but there's always next time!

Prof. Manoel Neto who runs FOCUS Jiu-Jitsu.

Brasa Demian Maia Jiu-Jitsu Portugal 

For Lisbon I had help with the BJJ Globetrotters community again and was connected to Vitalino, a Demian Maia brown belt who runs Brasa Demian Maia Jiu-Jitsu Portugal. Vitalino and I spoke on Facebook and set up to come out one night. The club is in a gym named Get Fit (I couldn't find a link for it) they set up in a room by putting down tatami mats they have usually stacked I the corner, I think the room is usually used for yoga or something. I showed up the Friday night class, I was feeling a little off during the week and needed to catch up on things online so this was my only time out to train in Lisbon, it's too bad it was a slow night and I only got to meet a few members of the club. As it was a small class Vitalino decided to make it a relaxed evening and just roll. We started rolling together and probably went on for 10 minutes before switching out to rolling with other people. There was no timer, we just rolled until we were done, so I only rolled with 3 different people but I'm pretty sure I rolled more in an hour with them then I would have with a dozen people doing 5 minute rounds. I always need to take breaks after a couple rounds, people go harder when there's a timer. No time just lets you flow and work out defending and attacking. And we didn't just go light and easy, there were some great battles. We ended the night lying on the mats totally exhausted chatting about Jiu-Jitsu and MMA while stretching out and realized we had had gone past the usual time and the gym was waiting to kick us out to close so we had to hurry and leave. Because of that I didn't get a photo with Vitalino or his club, can't get them all I guess. It was a fun night with some great rolls, and when Vitalino and I were talking he even knew of my travels plans and where I'd been which was cool to be training at club where the instructor follows me and even knew of and watched videos by my instructor and his black belt. Good times!

The only picture I got of the club, with coach Vitalino beating on one of his students, hahah. 

After not near enough training at cool gyms in Portugal It was time to move on. I had one more stop back in Spain before heading to Morocco and meeting some friends I had been talking to for some time. Little did I know of the meet ups and friends I would make coming up. Next up Malaga, the Costa Del Sol!


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

WAYS TO SUPPORT PANDA'S ODYSSEY!

Sign up to the Panda's Odyssey Patreon Account.
Buy Panda's Odyssey Patches at The Gi Hive.
Buy the Panda's Odyssey T-shirt.
Follow me and other traveling Jiu-Jitsueros at the BJJ Globetrotters blog section.
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel.
Check out my full photo albums for each article at my Flickr account.
Add me and follow along on most social media @pandasodyssey