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Arriving back in San Diego was almost like coming home, as we had been here almost 5 months ago. I was very excited to be back as the last time we were here I was nursing a serious rib injury that prevented me from really training the way I wanted to here. The whole focus this time was definitely the Jiu-Jitsu, we had already done all the tourist stuff the last time.

back again with this crew

We wasted no time in heading back to Gracie South Bay, this is Leticia Ribeiro’s Academy and was where Dee and the kids has spent most of their time training on our first visit. We were warmly welcomed back with hugs and questions on what has been happening while we have been travelling. We jumped straight back into training and Lilly and Kobe couldn’t have been happier! It was their favourite place so far on the trip. The kids program that Letica runs there is one of the best if not the best we have encountered on our journey. The next generation is something they put a lot of time into there and it shows with their results and the attitudes of the students.

Lilly and Kobe with Leticia

They have such a strong female presence there that Dee also loved the place and took part in the boot camps and ladies classes. I was just happy to be able to finally get on the mats and have some great rolls there. We really felt at home and could of just spent all of our time there but we wanted to check out some of the other academies that San Diego has to offer.

Kobe’s class

Lilly and her class

We headed to the University of Jiu-Jitsu, Saulo and Xande Ribeiro’s Academy. Unfortunate they were both away with Xande in Brazil and Saulo recovering from Knee surgery. We took the NoGi lunch class with Casey Hellenberg which was great as we focused a lot on the stand-up positional wrestling and transitions which both Dee and I got a lot out of. We returned later that day where the kids took part in classes and we again trained another NoGi session that night with Victor Barreto. We really enjoyed getting on the mats there and did some great training with them. It was no surprise that intensity of the NoGi was increasing with the IBJJF NoGi world only a month away. It was good to get some hard rounds in with these guys!

Us with Casey

Evening class at UOJJ

The Weekends in San Diego are packed with training options as a lot of the academies run open mats. Saturday, we headed to Gracie South Bay for their open mat and got some fun rolls in and shared some techniques back and forth. Sunday, we headed to Barum Jiu-Jitsu for open mat, we had been told by a few people and multiple places that this is the place to be on a Sunday. The mat was full of people from different academies all over San Diego, we even ran into a few of the guys from University of Jiu-Jitsu that we had trained with earlier in the week. It was a very relaxed atmosphere and we has some cool, fun rolls with everyone.

Barum – Jiu JItsu

Monday, we headed to THE ARENA, we wanted to see if we could get a class in with Baret Yoshida at lunch time. We headed over there and barely made it on the mats in time for class. Baret taught a cool arm/collar drag setup from seated guard that has some awesome little tweaks in it. Rolling with Baret was very cool experience, he is such a nice guy but moves like a monster, I found myself trapped at every turn…. In a good way of course.

Dee and I with Baret after class

We decided to make head up to Atos for the kids and Adults classes in the evening. To be honest I was a little intimidated heading in there, it’s known for being a high-level academy with a strong focus on competition. Walking in there we were greeted well and got the kids sorted for class, something to note if visiting is they have a strict dress code of white Gi’s with no affiliation patches and an all-black rash guard underneath. We managed to meet the code with the kids gear but Dee and I had to “Hire” rash guards. We didn’t really mind as we were well aware this would be the case before arriving.

Kids at Atos

Dee and I at Atos

Dee with Angelica

They had a lot of kids on the mat and the classes split into two groups with Lilly and Kobe on separate mats, Lilly’s class was run by Josh Hinger which was cool to see. Dee got a chance to have a roll with Angelica Galvao which she was pretty stoked about!

We headed back to Gracie South Bay for the next couple of days, we were able to be present of their grading which was a very cool experience seeing some of our friend’s level up in their belts! We had planned to leave on Wednesday to head to Los Angeles, but we were having such a great time in San Diego and training that we decided to stay until Saturday.

Dee with the Womens class

Taking a break between rounds

Gracie South bay Grading

Thanksgiving is something we don’t celebrate in Australia but it’s a very big and important holiday here. We spent the start of the day at an open mat at South Bay, that morning we had received a text message from Eric Bydairk inviting us around for thanksgiving. Eric is a fellow BJJ Globetrotter and was Lilly’s wrestling coach while at Letica’s at South bay. We spent the afternoon with Eric, his wife Lisa and his parents. We did a lot of eating and sharing stories, it really was an amazing experience and one of the kindest gestures from someone of our trip. He also gifted us some new flash “Takedown Nation” rash guards, which was great as all this training is starting to take its toll on our gear.

Was amazing spending thanksgiving with Eric and his family

We said our goodbyes and left San Diego for a second time headed back up to Los Angeles. San Diego is without a doubt our favourite city and we will be back again in the future for another trip. (Lilly and Kobe made us promise that we will bring them back.)

-Woody

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Greetings From Berlin Germany! (5-10 July 2017)

After a fun and eventful time in Hamburg it was time for my last stop in Germany, a city on my list of top cites I’d like to visit, Berlin! The train ride in was pretty quick and easy as was finding the gym, Hilti BJJ as Frank, who I had been talking to about visiting and training, gave me directions to find my way. I’ll speak more on my time there later but now I’d like to cover a different adventure that was going on at this time. The adventures of the care package my Mom sent me.

So back in May I was supposed to have a friend meet up with me in Morocco, those plans fell through at the very last minute, but not before already setting up having my Mom send a package to them to bring over to me. Once the package then made it’s way back to my parents place it was a while before figuring out when, or where, she could finally send it to me. Since I had my stops in Germany set up well in advance I figured I would have her send it to me when I was visiting Hilti BJJ so that there would be enough time to send the parcel from Canada. It was all planned out and set, I would be finally getting a parcel, that had some important items, I’d been waiting months to get. Of course there was problems as nothing ever works out perfectly and I wouldn’t be writing about it if it did.

As it ends up the parcel was held for an extra day or two in customs, and then there was a government holiday, so by the time it was released and dropped off to the gym I was already gone. Missed me by one day. In fact as I was flying to my next stop Frank sent me a photo of the parcel now in his possession to which I could only laugh and reply “go figure”. I would have to wait a bit longer to pick up this package now but at least it was in Europe. I would be going back to Germany in about 6 weeks for the BJJ Globetrotters Fall Camp and having just been there I now had some new friends to help me out. After some messaging back and forth I had Ruadhan’s (the Globetrotter I met and who helped me set up my visit to Heidelberg) mailing address sent to Frank so he could send the parcel along and Ruadhan would have it ready for me once I got in for the camp. This time the plan actually worked and I finally received the care package, a package that was originally sent to me in May, and that traveled through Canada and USA probably most of Europe, that I finally got at the end of August. The care package probably almost did as much traveling as I did before getting to me.

So at this point there was a lot of waiting and back and forth with my Mom to figure if and when the parcel was showing up. I started and ended everyday off with checking out the online tracking and asking the guys at the security office if any parcel had been delivered. It didn’t interfere with my visiting too much but it did weigh on my mind most the time as I traveled around the city seeing the many sights. 

Seeing The Historical Sights of Berlin

There’s lots to see in Berlin, the whole city is full of historical sights from WWII, some that are memorials and others that are old buildings now modified for modern use or kept as museum now, as well as newer buildings like the TV Tower, or Fernsehturm, or the Mall of Berlin. I took photos of as much as I could but clearly needed another week or more to really explore this city.

Parts of the Berlin Wall has been turned into an art gallery, called the East Side Gallery sections of the wall are graffiti’d and periodically they re-paint them all white and have local artist do all new murals again. 

There’s also still parts of the wall kept to see and read about the history of the Nazi era around a museum called the Topography of Terror.

Checkpoint Charlie, the (in)famous security point between West Berlin and the Soviet occupied East Berlin. It’s now a famous tourist sight complete with people dressed up as guards to take pictures with and all sorts of souvenir shops and ‘checkpoint’ theme restaurants, such as ‘Checkpoint Curry’.

I have more photos of my travels an adventures over on my Flickr account, head over there if you want to see more and maybe show some love by liking or commenting on few of them, thanks!

Hilti BJJ & Frank

When I was first looking at places to train at in Germany Hilti BJJ Berlin and Frank Burczynski’s name came up to the top, along with Ana and Nexus Fighter Academy, who I had just visited in Hamburg. I contacted him through e-mail and he responded back pretty quickly letting me know I was welcome to stay at his gym and train with the club. Frank is a well known and respected black belt in the Germany BJJ scene and I would have loved to do an interview with him but he was busy with a million things and actually was off at a tournament coaching his team and refereeing for most the time I spent at Hilti BJJ. Frank also had a seminar set up before the weekend with Nicolas Gregoriades of Jiu-Jitsu Brotherhood, which I covered in my ‘Camps & Seminars’ article.

Hilti BJJ is part of IMAG JKD Berlin, sharing a big space with two different mat areas and a big kickboxing area with pads and heavy bags and mirrors and thick crash mats off in the corner for throws. There’s also big change rooms, where I stored my bags, with showers. With the exception of a kitchen I had everything I needed, I slept on a crash mat in a dark corner of the gym and it was probably one of the most comfortable sleeps I had in Europe. More gyms should get crash mats.   

The club was full of different people and skill levels, everyone was generally friendly and I got along with everyone during my stay there. I had some great rolls and everyone was really helpful telling which clubs are good to check out on what nights or where’s good to eat around the gym. I didn’t get to train with everyone too much, I strained my groin after the seminar with Nic Gregoriades so I wasn’t able to train there or the other clubs I was looking to visit like BJJ Akademie, Ringside Gym, or Ralf Warneking Jiu-Jitsu, who I had been talking to about visiting for a while. I was bummed out for not being able to train much while at such a great city for training but it did give me  chance to get out and see much of the sights there. I will say this, from what I saw of the Berling Jiu-Jitsu scene it is amazing, friendly and definitely worth checking out. Thank you Frank for everything, I hope we cross paths again in the future and get to spend more than a few classes hanging out!

This was my last stop in Germany and with that the end of my 3 months I was allowed to stay in the European Zone. If you don’t know most non-European countries are only allowed 90 days out of 180 in the European Zone, or Schengen Area. I had come to the end of that time and I didn’t want to risk going over and being kicked out if caught while crossing a border down the line. I have yet to return to Europe as I’ve headed East toward South East Asia, I’m looking to return early next year (2018).

The first stop heading East after Germany was one of the first spots I planned out before leaving Canada, and I had been waiting excitedly for this, St. Petersburg Russia: Home of Sambo!

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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The idea of spending a whole month in Rio was both thrilling and frightening. Marcus and I were both looking forward to the amazing BJJ training opportunities and also I couldn’t wait to start practicing with one of the pioneers of Ashtanga Yoga in Brazil, Dany Sa. However, Brazilian and non-Brazilian friends alike had abundantly warned us about safety in Rio so, by the time we set foot in the cidade maravilhosa I had honestly resigned myself to the idea of being robbed (to say the least) at some point! But the truth is, if you take the usual precautions (don’t wander at night in unsafe areas, don’t flash your phone around, don’t visit a favela just for the sake of tourism) you’ll do just fine in Rio.

We rented a one bedroom flat in Copacabana on Airbnb and got a pretty good rate for a month’s stay. It was safe and central and we could easily cycle to/from the various gyms using the orange city bikes (Rio Bike) – you can register and download the app here (https://bikerio.tembici.com.br). However looking back we probably should have stayed in Ipanema/Leblon, as the neighbourhood is nicer, you get more choices for cafes and quieter beaches. We almost rented a flat high up in one of the favela’s (there are some super stylish, very cheap ones on Airbnb) but decided against it just in case. It was fortunate that we did because while we were in Rio there were some dramatic episodes involving the police and military presence in some of the favelas which would have been pretty tense.

We decided to use the first week to try out different gyms around our area. First on the list was Fightzone in Ipanema; we got there for the 10:30am class (50 reals for a day pass) and Ricardo Vieira invited us to join the open mat that day (Wednesday morning is open mat). The class started with a light warm up and then went straight into sparring, which was intense. The coach will generally pair you up for rolls so don’t worry if you are shy, and most of the students are able to speak a bit of English as they have probably travelled the world to compete.

The next day we decided to try Nova Uniao in Flamengo (first trial class is free). We were looking for a place where we could train gi and no-gi, but we found that Rio has surprisingly limited options as the vast majority of academies focus more on the gi game. Nova Uniao has one of the best MMA teams around, and came recommended from several friends of ours so we decided to give it a try. The no-gi classes are led by Ronys Torres, a professional MMA fighter and Jiu Jitsu black belt with a killer record (never been submitted in a pro fight). The team there is very welcoming even though most didn’t seem to speak much English, but they take their training very seriously as many of them are professional fighters (you’ll often be sharing the mat with UFC and Bellator fighters). Classes are generally one hour (but sometimes go for longer), and the focus is generally always sparring, with maybe one or two techniques at the start. Rolling is always intense, and the mats get super slippery at the end of the class because everyone is absolutely dripping in sweat.

Nova Uniao is located inside a gym called Upper Flamengo, conveniently right next to the Flamengo metro station – membership is affordable at 300 reals a month or 200 for a fortnight, and includes use of the pool and gym areas.

Next, we stopped by Felipe Costa‘s gym (called Brazilian Black Belt) located on a Main Street in Ipanema. Despite being 2-times world champion and one of the best rooster-weight of all times, Felipe has a reputation as being one of the nicest guys in the sport and absolutely lived up to that expectation. He speaks perfect English and his teaching is incredibly clear and detailed – and very effective for lighter fighters such as Marcus and myself. We paid 60 reals for a day pass and went to both the morning class which was relatively quiet and had a big focus on technical detail (Felipe was working on a very interesting leg drag variation that day) and returned for the evening class which was busier and had more sparring. If you are a lighter fighter in terms of weight or size, Felipe also has specific sparring sessions for lighter guys, unfortunately we weren’t able to make it to one but we loved the idea!

Finally we decided to check Murilo Bustamante’s Brazilian Top Team academy in Leblon. It was a bit out of the way for us and unfortunately, on the day we visited there weren’t many people on the mat and Murilo wasn’t teaching (he focuses more on the MMA team) but we worked on some nice drills from closed guard with the lead Jiu Jitsu instructor.

Also during that first week in Rio, Marcus dislocated his knee that evening during sparring (a recurring injury of his since he started Jiu Jitsu). Luckily it wasn’t too bad and he was back on the mats in a couple days, but he had to be very mindful and wary of his knee when rolling for the rest of the month.

There were many other gyms in Rio that we would have loved to try, but after being on the road so long, we were looking forward to regular training everyday with familiar faces rather than always visiting new gyms. So after trying out a few we decided that Fightzone would be our home gym for the rest of the month – we liked the environment and their classes fit well my yoga schedule too.

Fightzone also happens to have a great location only a couple blocks away from the beach ? and around the corner from a cafe called Apetite which has good coffee and pastries. Marcus also signed up to Nova Uniao so he could join their no-gi submission grappling sessions, as the one downside is that Fightzone did not have a regular no-gi class. I would have also loved to but I had my yoga classes and you know, an empty wallet.

Fightzone offers several classes a day (10.30am and 8pm every day, 4.30pm Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Saturday morning is open mat at 11am). Ricardo teaches most of them, and he often goes out of his way to accommodate visitors, teaching classes in Portuguese but then explaining in English afterwards as well (something we really appreciated!). There’s also ladies class on Tuesday and a Thursday evening at 9.30pm, led by Gabriela Fechter, an incredibly talented and dedicated world champion brown belt with a slick guard game (also speaks fantastic English).

For the month we were there, Ricardo focused heavily on passing half guard. His teaching style was often very conceptual, rather than only showing structured techniques, he would spend a lot of time to ensure his students fully understand the possibilities of the position and pressure. The only downside was that our limited Portuguese skills meant that we couldn’t get the most out of this as we would have liked.

Sparring at Fightzone is challenging as you’ll find a lots of higher belts and serious competitors on the mat such as Gabriela and the the Gomes brothers; as well as several black belts. However the atmosphere is very welcoming and chilled, so if you’re tired no one will judge you for skipping a round (like me!).

Rio’s lifestyle was good: we’d go train in the morning and hit the beach straight after – The cold sea was great for recovery after training. In the afternoon we’d either go back to training or we’d drag ourselves to go explore the various attractions around the city even if we were exhausted. And there are many of them: Sugarloaf mountain, Christ the Redeemer and Escadaria Selaron are totally worth an early morning or late afternoon visit.

In my opinion, Barra de Tijuca has the most beautiful beaches and clear sea though I’d recommend going during the week as it gets crowded on the weekend (like all of Rio’s beaches!). If you are heading toward Barra’s beach is probably worth going to Pedro do Telegrafo too, since it’s in that direction, although it can be a bit of a mission getting there.

Santa Teresa, a hilltop district with a charming village vibe, is a nice choice for lunch and views but can get pretty dodgy in the evening. We also had time to visit some of Rio’s museums and galleries and really liked the Museum of Tomorrow and Instituto Moreira Salles (there’s a very good coffee shop in the IMS with great croissants – definitely worth a stop).

We also spent time paddle boarding, did a free walking tour around Copacabana and watched lots of live music and went to see some of the Nova Uniao team fight at the Shooto Brasil event.

We absolutely loved our time in Rio: its natural beauty, its people, the lifestyle, and for Marcus especially, eating acai – Every. Single. Day. But we still had more of the country to explore, so with some reluctance we left to continue up north to Bahia and Ceara. Till next time, Cidade Maravilhosa – we will be back! ❤️

Alessia and Marcus

@aleyogabjj

@marcust.bjj

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.

From Texas we moved further north into Middle America, as we had plans on stopping in Oklahoma to train at Rafael Lovato Jr’s Academy. As we headed up the highway we took a little detour to the Toy and Action Figure Museum…… for the kids of course ?. This place was amazing! It had so many action figures, many from my childhood. We spend well over an hour walking around and trying to pick out all the toys we had owned and played with. Kobe seemed to know more about most of them than me, as he often plays with my old toys when visiting Nana and Pokka’s place. After that stop we continued into Oklahoma City, we were quite surprised how clean and nice of a place it seemed. Our Airbnb was located north west of the city in a nice shopping area which was great as we had to purchase some cold weather gear as the seasons were definitely changing.

First place on the list to visit was the Cowboy Museum, this place was fantastic, we were so glad we visited it. It had so many great exhibits, unfortunately you were unable to photograph and video a lot of them. The art area was probably one of our favourites with the carved leather saddles and amazing paintings. The Cowboy movie section would have definitely been a hit with my old man, walking around it I swear he would have watched every single one of those movies as he is a huge “yippie” fan. We spent a few hours there and left all in agreeance that this was probably the best museum we had been to yet, mainly because it was so different from all the others we had been to…. And we have been to a lot on this trip.

Buffalo Bill

Riding Logs?

Almost left them there!

The next day (Monday) we headed to Rafael Lovato Jr’s Academy, unfortunately the 11am class wasn’t on and Rafael JR was out of town prepping from an upcoming MMA fight, but we met Dallas one of Rafael’s brown belts. He gave us a heap of things to checkout and do while in town. So, we headed off exploring more and would return later that evening for class. We decided to head into the city and check Bricktown an old section of the town with, you guessed it, with brick buildings and roads. We also checked out the Children’s Garden where they had a pretty cool pumpkin display.

Brick town

We retuned for class which was ran by Shiloh Roberts, one of the friendliest and happiest guys we have met on this trip. He started the class with probably one of the coolest yoga warm ups that had me downward dogging like a bloody pro! He followed it up with a solid class on passing concepts that had plenty of pressure and movement that you would expect from Rafael Jr’s school, we had a fun time and some great rolls.

Shiloh’s class

Us and Shiloh…. Super nice guy!

The next day we had the best pizza yet on this trip from a small place downtown called Empire Pizza (one of Dallas’s recommendations) if you head to Oklahoma make sure you check it out. We headed to Will Rogers gardens where I saved a poor little turtle from certain doom after he fell on his back on the road and couldn’t get up, a bit like when I have Dee in side control ?. We also took a drive around Lake Hefner which was damn cold and windy. We headed back to Rafael JR’s for the kid’s classes, Kobe and Lilly enjoyed the classes. We didn’t get to see too much of their classes as the parents sit in another room out the front and watch through the window or on a TV that it connected to a camera. Its not a bad idea as it stops the kids getting distracted and coached from their parents.

Best Pizza

Our little mate

Lake Hefner

Kobe in class

Lilly and her class at Rafael Jr’s

Dee and I then took part in Dallas Niles’s NoGi class, it was a blast I learnt a sneaky little 50/50 position ankle lock that I will be using from now on! Everyone was super cool to roll with and found myself laughing when we would end up entangled in some weird 50/50, inverted, bear trap leg lock position that neither of us could submit from. Even though Rafael JR wasn’t there we had a blast with guys! And they were so welcoming…. I don’t think they would get a whole lot of visitors as Oklahoma isn’t really a huge tourist draw… We loved it though.

getting murdered by Dallas

From Oklahoma we headed further north into Kansas, we ended up staying in Wichita. As we were only staying one night we didn’t train, instead we headed out and checked out the place. We headed over to the Great Plains Nature Centre and checked out the exhibits then took a nice walk around Chisholm Creek Park. We then Headed to check out the “Keeper of the Plains” a giant steel Native American that stands in in the centre of Wichita along the Arkansas river.

Great Plains Center

The Keeper of the Plains

We had enjoyed our run up the centre of the USA, seeing all the cotton, corn and plains. It really felt as though we had finally seen the real America that we had imagined after seeing so many movies as kids. From here we were off to the mountainous terrain of Colorado.

-Woody

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