Archive for month: November, 2017

So, after all the snow and rain we have been through the last couple of weeks, we were now on the way south to warmer weather and hopes of catching up with some of the friends we had made at the start of this trip. We left Seattle in the morning and planned to head along the coast as much as we could.

Maritime museum

We stopped at the Billy Frank Jr Nisqually Wildlife Refuge and went for a walk around the trails. It was nice and quiet with only a few people, there were some good displays in the visitor centre that the kids really enjoyed. After a few more hours of driving we stopped at the Columbia River Maritime Museum for a break. This place was great, learning about the legendary Columbia River Bar with the challenges it brought the shipping industry and the coast guard. Lilly and Kobe also got to make some rope using the old manual hand turning method, I use the term Lilly and Kobe loosely as it was more like Dee and I, as they got tired after the first few seconds ?. We ended up staying in Tillamook a small town we would later find out made some of the best Ice cream we have tasted on the trip.

Crazy sunset

The next morning after another hotel breakfast we headed south. We spent the day cruising the coast stopping at all the view points along the way. We watched whales from Lighthouses, checked out the Devils Punch Bowl a collapsed sea cave and admired Face Rock. The North-West Coast is really beautiful, and we loved slowly making our way down checking everything out. As it rained all day again it we couldn’t get the drone up to take some shots of this awesome coast line.

Devil’s punchbowl

Face rock

We stayed the night near the Redwoods forest in Crescent City so that we could head there first thing in the morning. We drove along the 31-mile section of the old Highway 101 called the Avenue of the Giants. It was awesome driving through the forest where the trees impeded out onto the road to where I would have to swerve to avoid knocking the mirror off the car. We stopped at the Humboldt visitor centre and walked around the museum before taking a hike through the forest. Even though it was raining we had a wonderful time, Lilly and Kobe loved running around climbing and hiding behind the trees. It’s quite amazing just how big and old these trees are.

Big tree

We decided to try and see Yosemite Park, so we headed across past Sacramento and Stockton to stay the night in Modesto, which would turn out to be fairly exciting. We arrived late so headed to the first Hotel which happened to be a Motel 6 on a bend of a fast corner. We had just jumped into bed before hearing a screech and then a loud “bang”. A young driver had tried to take the corner too fast and smashed into the large rocks out front of the motel. The police were quickly on the scene with lights flashing when another driver came around the corner and smashed in to police car!! It was quite entertaining watching the police officer yelling at the driver and him repeating that I didn’t see you even with all those lights flashing.

excitement outside our room

We headed towards Yosemite National Park, which took us through a lot of winding roads and up and down hills. This proved to be too much for Kobe’s stomach as he vomited everywhere outside the gas station door in Mariposa. We arrived at around 11am and were a little overwhelmed on just how fantastic this place is. We went on a little hike up along the Happy Isles before heading to the village for lunch, watched a documentary and then walking to the falls. Along the way Deer were just laying in the grass, not fazed by us walking by. At about 4pm we decided we should think about heading to Fresno where we had planned on staying for the night. The way out took us past the Glacier Point turn off, we decided right then we would take the 30 min drive up to the view. We arrived, and the view was amazing!!! It was over 7000 ft, so it was a bit fresh up there, so we didn’t hang around too long.

Yosemite

Tunnel view

The drive down was exciting as the sun goes down at around 5pm so we were driving down through the winding roads in complete darkness, not what we had initially planned but were glad we made the stop. We stayed the night in Fresno before making our way down to San Diego for some full-on training. In 4 days we had driven the complete West Coast, seen 2 National parks and countless views and land marks. We were a little tired and happy to back in San Diego where we could wind back and prepare our own meals. The next Week was going to be epic!!!

-Woody

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The drive through Washington State to Seattle was beautiful! We had no real idea what to expect when we arrived as to be honest we had not done much research on Seattle. The only real plan we had was to go and train with Brian Johnson at North West Jiu-Jitsu, John Will had mentioned to me in an email that if I had a chance to visit Seattle to make sure I looked him up.

Rolling between classes

When driving to our Airbnb the first thing that struck us was just how hilly and tight the roads were around the city. Thankfully we had an automatic car as I would have burnt the clutch out in a manual car in the first few miles. It was still quite cold in Seattle…. but nothing like what we had come from in Wyoming and Montana. The first day we decided to head to the Woodland Park Zoo, as we had missed seeing a lot at Yellowstone we thought that it would be good to go and have a look. There was only a small amount of people there, the freezing wintry weather would have probably had something to do with it. It was actually quite good, we walked around for a few good hours and even got to hold a tortoise and snake.

Following the Zoo, we headed to North West Jiu-Jitsu, we arrived in time for the kid’s classes ran by Coach Phil Kleffner. Both Lilly and Kobe had a wonderful time, Phil was great with the kids and made the class super fun for them. Unfortunately, the cold weather must have kept the older kids away as for the second class no one turned up, so Lilly ended up getting a private session with Phil which was awesome that he took the time to do that. We stayed and did both the beginner and Advanced classes. The instruction was great and both Dee and I picked up some great back control points that we will definitely take away to add to our games. The time we spent training with Brian Johnson and his team over the next few days was great. Everyone was so nice, and the level was quite high, we had so many great rolls and made some new friends. Brian still being an active competitor was super cool to roll with he has so many little tricks he was a pleasure to roll with. It was also great to walk around the office and read all the articles on the walls and see all the photos of John Will, David Meyer and Rigan Machado, it was a great little history lesson.

Lilly and Kobe with Coach Phil

Us with Brian Johnson

As a martial artist there is one thing that you have to do when in Seattle…. One morning we visited the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee. It was a little surreal standing in front of one of the biggest philosophers and influencers in martial arts. Prior to getting there I had explained to Lilly and Kobe who Bruce was and I was proud to see how respectful they were when we were there. After the visiting the Lee’s we headed to a park, just so the kids could go and play in the leaves. This was something that both of the kids were super excited to do, rolling in them, throwing them, they were having the time of their lives!

Visiting Bruce and Brandon

Leaves everywhere

We also headed to the into the city…. We checked out he Public Market which was very cool, also seeing the huge line up to get a coffee at the first ever Starbucks store. We had a little down time between training, so we took the kids to see the new Thor movie which by the way was outstanding! We also headed to the Mo Pop (Museum of Pop Culture) now this was awesome. We spent a few hours checking out all the exhibits, Lilly and Kobe had a great time in the Jim Henson section. Seeing all the puppets and old shows was as entertaining for Dee and me as it was for them, it definitely brought us back to our child hood seeing the Fraggle Rock and the Dark Crystal sections.

Public market Seattle

Kobe with Jason at Mo Pop

Dark Crystal at Mo Pop

We also visited and spent some time in Discovery Park, the sunset and views were awesome. We went on a bit of hike which ended with us walking in the dark back through the woods. It did make it a bit tricky as we took a bit of a short cut and I may have got us lost for a second or two, but I don’t think Dee or the kids knew.

Discovery Park

Awesome sunset

Seattle was a lovely city and we had a great time there training with the guys at North West Jiu-Jitsu. We were starting to grow a little tired of the rain and cold though, something that we had seen since leaving Kansas. We made the decision to head south back through a few national parks and get back to San Diego and warmth. I had missed a lot of training there due to my injury in the first weeks of the trip, so we were pretty excited to have time to be able to head back there.

Kobe and Brian!

Had a great time here

If you’re ever in Seattle and looking for somewhere to train, make sure you look up Northwest Jiu Jitsu!

-Woody

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We headed north from Colorado to try and see Yellowstone National Park before it closed for the season. We had around 4 days until it was scheduled to shut so we jumped in the car and headed to Jackson Hole. Unfortunately, the night before we had grabbed a pizza after trick or treating and I was feeling a little off. This made the 8hr drive a struggle as I was unable to keep down anything including water, we had to make a number of stops so I could “empty my system”. I still ended up driving the whole way, as Dee wasn’t listed as a driver and didn’t feel confident driving in the winding, windy and icy conditions through Wyoming.

White wonderland

When we finally arrived, I was so exhausted! We managed to stop and pick up some medication to stop the vomiting and some hydrolyte which I could only just sip to avoid it coming back up. Dee was also starting to feel sick, so we decided to have an early night. When we awoke the next morning, there was around 6 to 8 inches of snow everywhere, this had unfortunately caused the closure of the Yellowstone park roads. We weren’t too upset though as we weren’t yet completely over the illness from the day before. Dee and I spent most of the day laying back in the hotel room while Lilly and Kobe played just outside the room building and having snowball fights.

Kobe and Lilly’s snowman

The following day we left Jackson Hole to head around the side of the park to West Yellowstone. We thought we would have a better chance on getting into the park as the roads were still open on that side. During our drive around, it continued to snow and when we arrived the park entrance was also closed on this side as well. We had booked two days here, so we headed off to the Bear and Wolf Discovery centre as it was the only thing that was still open. We wandered around checking out the enclosures, all the time the snow continued to fall. They have some great displays there and even though it was cold we enjoyed checking out the Bears, Wolves and other animals. The next morning, we woke to even more snow which ended our hopes of getting into the park. We decided to take a drive up the edge of the park where a small section of the highway crossed into it. It was a nice drive through that section and nice and slow due to all the snow and ice one the roads. We did manage to see a coyote running across an open section of the park. We took a walk around town in a bit of a snow storm but as the park season was coming to an end a lot of the business and attractions were closed.

Quake Lake

it was cold!!

Bear and Wolf Discovery center

We had planned on visiting a few small academies that were in some of the towns further north, unfortunately the weather forecast was more severe snowstorms for the next few days. We made a last-minute decision to head towards Seattle and try to get there before the severe weather on the forecast really set in. We headed off in the morning along completely whited out landscapes and snow-covered roads. We drove the rest of the day through Montana in snow, ice and rain. There were definitely some white-knuckle moments during the drive as Dee and I were constantly amazed at how fast and the risks some drivers took, but I suppose they are familiar with these types of conditions.

Yellowstone

Driving conditions were a bit sketchy at times

We stayed the night in Spokane where it was also snowing when we arrived, thankfully the next morning the weather had warmed up a bit and melted a lot of the snow on the road. We drove through to Washington State stopping at a few of the natural attractions. We visited the Petrified Forest which wasn’t really a forest at all, but a heap of fossilised sections of trees. It was very interesting and other than the museum being closed it was a great stop to break up the trip. Washington State is quite beautiful and a very scenic drive with an always changing landscape.

Petrified forest…… basicly trees that turned into rocks

Columbia river

Snoqualmie Falls

Next stop Seattle

-Woody

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Hello all my Panda-maniacs!

Yes, if you follow me and are a fan of my blog, my videos or you just like me you are a Panda-maniac. Be proud of this nickname as I’m proud of all of you, you have all helped me along this way. Even if all you did was quickly check out my latest post, read a few lines and look at the photos and then pass on to the next thing in your life. Just seeing the view counts on my blog posts give me inspiration to keep writing. All the small comments on my social media accounts, the messages send to me saying ‘good job!’ or asking me where I am or how I’m doing, all those seemingly inconsequential interactions keep me going, pick me up on a bad day and drive me to continue the Odyssey. I have a new article ready to publish but first I figured I would fast forward to more recent days when I made some rather significant milestones. So before I pick back up about my adventures in Germany, where I last left off, I first want to tell you about hitting my 100th club and making it to one full year of traveling and training around the world.

100th Jiu-Jitsu Club!!

I originally had set for my 100th club to be in Bangkok. I was in Koh Tao, Thailand at the 10th Planet club at Monsoon Gym and they were club number 99, but then I got a bug bite. I went hiking up the island’s one mountain to get some awesome photos of the sun setting from View Point, the ultimate lookout point on top of the mountain. Then next day I felt an itch and at first figured it was a pimple on my leg from all the sweating I was doing while there, and man I was doing a lot of sweating, but soon realized it was in fact a bite that was now infected. I was off to Bangkok the next day and the first thing I did was go to a pharmacy and get some ointment and antibiotic pills to sort it out but the damage was already done. I had a staph infection. There would be no training in Bangkok, but I could take the time to get better and ready for my San Diego trip with the Free Rollers group from Australia. At this point my thought was that I was going to make my 100th gym the first class with the Free Roller guys at University of Jiu-Jitsu. I was excited for it, not just to meet the guys and train at Uni JJ but also to make our first class together some a big milestone. But then I checked my flight itinerary update.

I had a series of connections going from Bangkok to San Diego and one of them was stopping off in San Francisco. At first I was scheduled to get in at midnight and not fly out until noon the next day, then that changed to flying to San Diego on the first morning flight then changed again to make the last flight out the night I got in. I lost track of which itinerary was the newest one so I messaged the flight centre to figure it out. As it happens I was on that last flight of the night, meaning I would be getting into San Diego around 1am and would then have to wait until the guys showed up in the afternoon, giving me the full day to figure out what to do. I ended up making plans with a fellow Globetrotter I met at the Fall Camp in Germany, Trevon. The plan was I would meet up with Trevon in the morning and make the morning class at his gym, making that my 100th club now. We kept in contact and Trevon had everything planned out for me. But then there was a delay in my flight.

While I was in Manila waiting for my flight something happened that required a 90 minute delay before we could board. My layover in San Francisco was scheduled to be a short one, 90 minutes to be exact. By the time the plane landed in San Francisco the last flight to San Diego was already boarding, and by the time I got through customs, picked up my carry on that the airline made me check, and made it to the front desk to get my ticket it was too late. It was late, the last flight of the night was already boarded and I was really tired. I wasn’t upset, this was all comical, I was actually joking about this with my friend Luke, who organized the San Diego camp, before ever catching my flights. As I talked to the front desk about re-booking my flight to San Diego and looking for a room for the night I also got onto the internet and checked morning class times for a certain academy in town. The flight attendant asked “Do you want the first flight out or do you want to have a good night’s rest and leave later in the day? We have flights going there hourly.” Quickly checking Google maps to see how long it would be to get from the club to the airport after class to make sure I had more than enough time for the forming plans I then asked “How about around noon time? So I don’t have to rush in the morning” and like that it was set. I would take a short nap at a far too expensive hotel then set out for the morning class for my 100th club, a class with none other than Kurt Osiander.

I would like to mention here that by this time that I had been on antibiotics pills and ointment for 8 or 9 days and the staph infection was no longer an infection now but rather just a small wound of dead skin, a deep one that would take a while to fully heal but also no longer a contagious zombie disease that would prevent me from training.

So I get into the hotel, order some awesome pizza, pass out on a pizza coma and wake up 4 hrs later to take off into San Francisco for the morning class. I make to the Ralph Gracie Academy a bit early to find the lights out and a car parked out front with someone waiting in the car. I walked up to the gym door to look inside and I saw someone behind the desk, figuring they were just getting the club ready I waited for the club to open. The person behind the desk saw me so I waved, they in then turned on the lights to see me better. Who do I see but Kurt Osiander himself standing in his underwear brushing his teeth looking at me like ‘what the fuck do you want?’ before opening the door and letting me and the person inside.

‘Either you two are really early or I’m really slow this morning’

‘No sir, we’re early, sorry for interrupting you’

After a brief conversation of me telling him I was dropping by on my layover and us talking about the last time I saw him, which was at the Black Belts for Butterflies fundraising seminar in Seattle at Professor James Foster’s gym, he showed me the change room and let me dress and stretch out while he got ready himself. The gym is a big square space with an open mat area on one side and a gym area on the other, It’s a nice big gym that I was happy to finally visit and have as my 100th gym.

As I slowly stretched out and got ready for class more and more people showed up and we ended up had a full class of 20 or more. The other person who showed up early as I did was a seasoned blue belt and Kurt had him lead the warm up. They must do this same warm up all the time as everyone seemed to know exactly what he was going to call and were a step ahead of me for switching to each new movement. It was good thorough warm up, and with the jet-lag from being in airports for almost 2 days I was drained before class even started, but I got my wind back quick enough. We worked a sweep from open guard, working shin on shin guard to side control to a choke. Little things got changed or added as we worked it out, Kurt was great at describing exactly how to move yourself and the opponent to make everything work. Counting the seminar this is twice now I’ve trained with Kurt and although he has an entertaining rock star persona, Kurt is always dropping some great knowledge on the mats and if you get all caught up in his hair and swearing instead of listening you’ll miss it.

After class, as some were still rolling and others drilling I talked more with Kurt and told him of the Odyssey and him being the 100th club since beginning the journey. He thought the whole thing was cool and asked where I’d been, usually adding ‘I’m going there later this year’ or ‘I want to go there next year’ it seems Kurt’s always working on new seminars and traveling. As I was talking to Kurt and some of his students about traveling and training Kurt mentioned that there was another class in an hour that I could stay for. I had to look at the times for making back to the airport for my flight and as much as I’d like to stay and have another class with Kurt Osiander that would be cutting it way too close to make my flight. I will say though it was awesome making it out and meeting the great group at Ralph Gracie’s in San Francisco, thank you Kurt!

One Year of Traveling the World!

Earlier this week I hit the one year mark of traveling and training around the world. I was in Melbourne, training at a bunch of gyms that were all places I was referred to by other Globetrotters, making new friends and generally just loving life. I didn’t do anything big for that day, like jump in a shark tank or train a bunch, I was actually pretty tired from all the training lately so I had a quiet night and went to the movies. The days leading up to the milestone I was thinking of it a lot, typing out a master list of countries, cities and clubs, talking about it to the people I was staying and training with in Geelong, before Melbourne. Just letting it sit in that I’ve been traveling and training around the world for one full year.

Here are the numbers I have for traveling for one year:

22 countries

72 cities

112 clubs

and countless friends made along the way.

There are so many people I owe to the Odyssey being able to work, too many to name individually, but know that if you are reading this you are one of them. One person I must give a big shout out is Christian Graugart, the head guy how created BJJ Globetrotters after his own traveling around the world and training. Without Christian putting together the community as he traveled and using social media to bring us all together I would never have found most of the places I’ve trained at and most likely never have met any of the people who have hosted me on this journey. Thank you so much Christian for creating BJJ Globetrotters and thank you to the BJJ Globetrotter community for all the help you’ve given me and wonderful hospitality you’ve shown me.

I have plans to travel for another 6 months, if I can mange the finances to cover it, before heading back to Canada and going back to the ‘normal life’. It will be hard to re-adjust I’m sure but once I’m settled I’ll be sure to have my door open and repaying all the good karma I’ve had sent my way.

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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Most of my life, I’ve been fascinated by social mechanisms that restrict people’s freedom in a society or community. Cults, religions, traditions, the East German republic after World War 2, North Korea, the European colonisation of most of the world and so on. I’ve always strived for the opposite for myself; to design my life in a way where I can do what ever I want, go where ever I want and say what ever I want. I’m sure a therapist could dig something up in my subconsciousness that has triggered it, I don’t know.

So when I found Jiu Jitsu, it came very natural to me to dislike all the politics and cult like mechanisms you’ll find in the sport. I pretty much managed to steer clear of most it myself in my career, but throughout the years, I’ve heard and experienced my fair share of bullshit. Students who are told they are not allowed to train with whom they want. People who has gone traveling and gotten a friendly reminder from their instructor that they can only visit academies on their trip within their affiliation. Bad mouthing of former students and friends, who has chosen to change academy, sometimes even online in public. Being encouraged to keep a distance towards those not training with you. Push an “us vs. them” mindset, even to the children of which the people are role models for. The list goes on, and I am sure a lot people in the sport have run into similar experiences at some point.

[People listen when you have a black belt. And a sword.]

I believe that most—if not all— politics in Jiu Jitsu derives from one thing; the business of affiliation.

Above all, humans desire a feeling of being important to you – more than they desire your wealth or health. Most of what we say, wear and do in front of any audience, is a matter of displaying value in order to be accepted and recognised in society and to determine our place in it.

Entering the modern Jiu Jitsu community and climbing the belt hierarchy is a great way to achieve recognition within a large group of adult peers, and the typical affiliation business model is build on exactly this mechanism.

Let’s be honest for a moment. If there were no belts, there would probably be very little team and affiliation business. Just look at MMA. It’s a very similar sport, but since there is no validation of skill other than competition merits, the hierarchical rank system does not exist in the same way, thus there is no foundation for running a business based on letting people climb it. But the belt system in BJJ creates—or rather is—a hierarchy that allows affiliations to exist.

[Breaking the traditions of the belt hierarchy]

Being affiliated with someone is basically about validating yourself through others. Preferably through a name/brand that is already recognised in the community. You stick their logo on your gi and website, and instantly feel a little cooler, even though your own skills or results didn’t change. The other way around, an affiliation is also validated by it’s members, as they acquire recognition through the competition or hierarchical results created by them. Both sides are providing each other with value and recognition, but the one side who is higher in the hierarchy has a huge business upside and interest in the relationship. This could be in form of affiliation fee, recurring seminars, merchandise sale etc. You may ask yourself; would you be signing up for an affiliation with all these requirements if it did not offer belt promotions?

Back in the days, not too many years ago, in order to learn Jiu Jitsu, you pretty much had to find some guy with the “secret weapon” and get the knowledge from him. There was no way to figure it out yourself. But times have changed and Jiu Jitsu instruction is more accessible than ever. The option to lock people into a closed group in order to sell them technical knowledge is no longer anywhere near as valid as it used to be. The only primary product left to sell for an affiliation, is the public recognition through belt promotions.

[The difficulties of determining hierarchy when belts are off]

I’m not saying that belts or affiliations are neither good nor bad. Pretty much all businesses and brands are built on exploiting human anxieties in one way or another. Being part of a strongly hierarchical community in order to work your way towards recognition is not necessarily a bad thing. For many people it is just right and they thrive in it. We are programmed for this; it speaks to our primal need of being held and told everything is alright. It also allows us to ignore our immense insignificance as individuals and species in the scope of the universe and time. There is a lot of value in and good elements of having a traditional belt system. BJJ is probably the only martial arts that still upholds some integrity in it and the actual acquired skills are very real. The key here is to be honest with ourselves and each others and see this illusion of belts for what it is. First then can we have a healthy relationship with it.

[True happiness through illusion]

But belts can make grown men act very weird and the problem—in my opinion—arise when this turns into politics, telling adults what they can and can not do. Splitting friendships. Spreading bad vibes. Creating unhealthy rivalries. People not being themselves. Sucking up to or looking down on others based on their belt level. Limiting people in social interactions with potential new friends. Making people greedy. So I do believe the time is right and that there is room for an alternative approach. An affiliation based first and foremost on training and healthy, equal friendships. With a respect for the belt tradition but also a mature approach to it. With belt promotions being a natural effect of having a strong community interested in helping each other instead of an effect of having a business relationship.

[Black belt in Jiu Jitsu, black belt in life (as they say)]

There is no “us vs. them”, it’s an illusion, a stone age mechanism, hardwired into our brains to keep us safe by staying with and fighting for our own desert tribe. Anything else would’ve meant certain death 2.5 million years ago. At the end of the day, we’re all just adults, who like to grapple and no other adult should tell us, who we can and can not play with.

Tribalism is our nature. Humans seek the comfort of being part of something, and it feels so incredibly good when we are. This is no different than sports team fan clubs or religion. Or BJJ Globetrotters for that sake. But this tribalism, when let loose, can quickly lead to unhealthy things.

BJJ Globetrotters is a humble attempt at creating small a counter balance to this.

Not really. But I have to say good bye to Amerika, some new friends for life, a lot of *** whopping on the mats and awesome experiences and moments. 

I had bad times like losing in the San Jose Open in the first round, gaining weight because of all those cheesecakes and ice cream. Okay, I had to do some work as a nurse to drain my own ear but at least I got some nice ear-protector. 

But there tons of good memories with even better people, that is one of the best things about the community in BJJ, there are so many amazing people around that help each other and are just there to have a great time together. 

Training itself was for me this time only at the Caio Terra Academy, where I even got the chance to help out to teach kids class, this is an amazing experience. Kids are just so happy and smiling all the time, we as adults should be more like kids and do not take everything so serious, life now and don’t just life to make money. Be happy. 

And now as a real American with socks with the founder of America himself, I’m going to my next stop to Tokyo.