The BJJ Globetrotters camps that no-one will ever know about

Every year around this time, I’m working on 40-50 potential camp locations for the upcoming season. Some of them fall through very early in the process, some are worked on for months and reach 95% of planning before I decide it won’t work, then never tell anyone about them. It’s important to me not to announce anything that I’m not fully committed to make happen. But sometimes I’m sooooo close and I just wanna tell everyone about it. Like today, after literally months of sweating by my little basement desk over details, budgets and logistics for one specific place of many I have had in mind for 2018.

I know it’s coming close now though. I always sense that when I get a slight adrenaline release over the course of an entire day. When I can’t really focus on the task at hand. It happens especially when it’s something entirely new; something I’ve never done before. Unchartered territory. It would be easy to play safe and do the camp locations I already know will work. But I don’t wanna get too comfortable, too confident. It’s very much like competing in Jiu Jitsu. The real magic happens outside of your comfort zone and your favorite Jiu Jitsu Travel Agent is committed to working exactly there. If you ever catch me just repeating last year’s success camps, it’s time to pull off those Globetrotters patches from your gi.

I wish I could tell you where that road on the photo lead to. I want to. But I still have some details to wrap up before it’ll be safe. Or maybe no one will ever know. One thing is certain; if I decide to push the button, there is no turning back for me. At that point, everything will have been paid up front, non-refundable. Everything is on the line. 

As it should be.

Yellowstone …….. Well sort of :(

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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Hamburg, Germany

Greetings From Hamburg Germany! (25 June – 1 July, and 3-5 July)

Actually, I’m in Australia, on a train from Melbourne on my way to Sydney as I write this. It’s been a busy past month, my last article I managed to write during my layovers flying to Perth Australia from San Diego USA. It seems during these long travel days is the only time I’m finding I’m able to write this blog now. It’s getting hard to find time to sit and write when you spend all day meeting cool people, training at new clubs and seeing amazing cities. Of course that just means I have more adventures to tell you all about, once I’m able to write them. 

So I last left off in Dusseldorf Germany, walking to the train station as a Bavarian marching band played a few songs for the hostel, for reasons beyond me. I found my train and got on, only to realize that my ticket had no seat number on it. As the train left I found an empty seat, only to be told I’m in another passenger’s seat when they boarded the next stop. I moved to another seat only to have to move again, and again and again. Finally I gave up, this was a busy route and I was on standby for a seat, so in the interest of convenience and not having to move over and over I did the rational thing, I sat in the hallway between train cars by the door.

 

Once I got in to Hamburg main station I switched to use the local trains and make my way to Nexus Fighter Academy, where I’d be staying during this visit. I had been speaking to Ana Yagues, the head black belt and owner of the club, on Facebook, we met through the BJJ Globetrotter community and she had invited me over. It was an easy trip to the academy but I had three different people ask if I required help, basically every time I looked at the the map on my phone there happened to be a local around noticing and willing to help. I partly suspected they were just as happy to show a visitor they knew English as much as they were happy to help someone new get around their city. In any case I’ve yet to be offered so much help in any of the cities I’ve been to so far. It was a great first impression for Hamburg and actually made me feel bad for not actually being lost so they could help me more than just confirm I was indeed on the right track.

During my time in Hamburg I took off for the weekend, flying back to London England for 2 days for the Kieth Owen seminar and my friend Ellie’s birthday party. I’ve written about that crazy 48 hr adventure before on the ‘Seminars and Camps’ post, if you want to read about it again. One thing I didn’t cover during that piece was the heightened security all over the down town core and especially the Hamburg airport. There were teams of 3 patrolling all over the place, I got asked for my passport twice while walking to check into to my flight and something like 4 times before ever leaving the airport when I returned from London. I was wondering why so much security and then when I got onto Facebook it all became clear. The G20 meeting was happening in Hamburg that week. The G20 meetings are infamous for the amount of protests and riots they bring to the city. I could see now why they kept checking me, an up-to-no-good looking, black hoodie wearing tourist. Luckily I wasn’t confused for someone else and detained for an absurd amount of time, although that would have made a good story.

Sights of The City

While staying with Ana and her club I did manage to get out a bit and see some of Hamburg, although it was rainy half the time so I didn’t go out exploring too much. I would have liked to get out during the night time and really experience the entertainment district of Reeperbahn but I couldn’t draw myself to make the effort and go out to the night clubs on my own. Given that it’s also the red light district it’s perhaps better I didn’t venture into the streets lined with bars and strip clubs on my own after all. I did however make my way down to the center of town to see the Rathaus and other old buildings around the area.

I don't know what this building what before, but it's a Starbucks now. A really nice one.

The Rathaus.

A Beatles memorial at Reeperbahn.

Reeperbahn, die sündigste Meile. Doesn't look like much during the day.

If you like checking out my photos head off to my Flicker account and give some love to your favourite shots, thanks!

Nexus Fighter Academy

Nexus Fighter Academy is just around the corner from the train station, on the top floor of a industrial building that had different businesses on each floor, the club has a lot of mat space with a big main space and a smaller room for the kids classes. When I first got to the club I meet Lilo, a black belt who and trains with Ana and teaches at the club, she showed a quick tour of the club, told me of the schedule and of the stores around the area and showed me the couch in the back room I’d be sleeping on during my visit. Being Globetrotters themselves they’ve hosted a few travelers so this was nothing new. There was a class about to start that Lilo was running, and she ran the morning classes during the week as well, but I was quite sore and instead just watched and stretched out, using my foam roller on my aching and knotted back.

Always be prepared, my rope and knot tying skills come in handy from time to time.

I wasn’t able to stretch or foam roll in Dusseldorf as there was no room for it at the hostel and now that I was able to use it I realized how badly in need of stretching out I was. That’s actually one of the many cool things I noticed with Nexus Fighter is they are very good at stretching both before and after class, doing group warm ups and cool downs. I’ve picked up a few usual stretches from them, particularly a set of stretches they do after class using their belt to really open the hips and groin so they don’t become tight afterwards. As the week went on I noticed Lilo’s moves are so graceful and slick, there’s a few times she was teaching where I got lost on how fluid and seamless she made it look, not just techniques but her cool functional movement warm ups as well. This was something I told my friends in Heidelberg during the BJJ Globetrotter Fall Camp just before her class she taught there, they were blown and away watching her as well and even have since had her back for a seminar. And Lilo isn’t the only one there, the whole team of instructors at Nexus Fighter were great at showing some new chain or body movement that blew me away. 

The class doing their cool down stretches.

I finally met Ana the day after arriving and handed her the chocolate I had bought for her in Switzerland, which I had somehow been able to avoid eating all this time. It was a key component to staying at the club, my rent so to speak. Ana is very nice and friendly, she was happy to have me come and not just visit but be a part of the club. It’s easy to see Ana doesn’t just run a club, she makes feel like a Jiu-Jitsu home. Any time she was at the club we would find time to chat about traveling and visiting different people or all the thing she had going on running everything. She had a genuine interest in my visiting and also having others a part of helping out the club.

Ana teaching the kids class.

There is a camaraderie with Nexus Fighter that made me feel at home training and staying with them. Prime of example of this was one night after class there was a going away birthday party for their wrestling coach, a fellow Canadian from Montreal, David Mendelsohn. I jumped in a car with a bunch from the club after class as we all met up at a restaurant for his party, once everyone had shown up they all finally took off their jackets or sweaters they were still wearing, which I found was weird in the first place, to show they had all got special shirts made up for the occasion. It was a great night full of conversation and laughs, I believe we were one of the last groups out of the restaurant, only to continue conversing on the streets until it started to rain.

It was a great night out, we took up almost half the restaurant.

David's wrestling class.

During my time training with everyone I made a few new friends, learned a few new techniques and even ran into a fellow Globetrotter I had met in London, my first stop outside of Canada, but most importantly I got to train with a great club. I highly recommend visiting Ana and Nexus Fighter Academy if you travel to Hamburg Germany!

Ana Yagues

One day after class Ana and I did an interview together. Being a mother of 2, by the way I should warn you that if you visit you might end up being kidnapped by them and made to play games, as well as a gym owner, instructor and a top level competitor. Ana’s ability to juggle it all is very impressive and inspires everyone around her. I had to get her story to share for you all and show what is possible when you just set your mind to it. Head over to the Panda’s Odyssey YouTube Channel to check this incredible interview. While you’re there show the channel some love, like, comment, share and subscribe please!

Ana and I after the interview, so happy to have met her. Thanks for everything Ana!

Hamburg was amazing experience and my time there came to an end all too soon. I was sad to leave but also looked forward to seeing the next city on my stop, the last stop in Germany: Berlin!

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 a shirt at Panda’s Jiu-Jitsu Store.

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.

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100th club and One Full Year of Traveling!!

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!!

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 a shirt at Panda’s Jiu-Jitsu Store.

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

Colorado….. Training at 9000 ft!

So, the whole reason for visiting Colorado wasn’t so much for the jiu Jitsu but more to let Lilly and Kobe experience snow, living in the Pilbara of Western Australia it’s something they have never seen before. They were so excited they had been asking about it every day since we told them that we were heading that way.

Playing in the snow for the first time

As we travelled west from Kansas into Colorado the elevation slowly increased until we were a little over 5000 ft when we arrived in Denver. We had decided to stay up in the Mountains, so we still had a further hour drive up to the Ski town of Keystone. On the drive up it proceeded to snow, we stopped at a Walmart on the way to get the essentials that we would need, Lilly and Kobe were so excited to be out in the snow even if it was just a short walk from the carpark. There were some strange looks from the locals as these two weird kids were jumping around trying to catch the snow in their mouths outside of the centre.

Checking out the snow

We continued our way up the mountains and arrived at Keystone which sits at 9,280ft. We could definitely feel the elevation, even though we had been drinking a lot of water in preparation to assist with Altitude sickness. We ended up staying in a ski resort which was basically empty as the start of the official ski season was still a few weeks off. The first two days we decided to take the kids snow skiing, we hired some gear and headed off to the slopes. Unfortunately, nether of the two open areas had any lessons or real beginner areas open, so Dee and the kids got a bit of a crash course on what I could remember from over 20 years ago when I last skied.

Hanging out skiing

Skiing

We found a little training area and proceeded for 2 days to go up and down the little slope. We all had a great time playing around, Lilly couldn’t be stopped and had the best time, while Kobe enjoyed himself skiing he was also just as happy digging holes and playing in the snow. Dee enjoyed herself but every time I looked over I could tell she would much rather be on the beach or somewhere warmer (Dee can’t stand the cold).

warming up after a day in the snow

About 20 minutes for Keystone was Frisco another small town at 9,075 ft, we headed into Frisco to visit Summit County Jiu-Jitsu. We were a little apprehensive due to the elevation as over the last couple of days we had noticed just how out of breath we seemed to be. When we arrived, we were met by Douglas Cuomo and Jason Baker the owners of the Academy. We jumped into class and quickly realized we were in for a tough night. The elevation would leave you gasping for air after about 30 seconds, I was able to control it fairly well but really had to focus where I expelled my energy. I was by no means a comfortable experience, but I did enjoy every second of it. Dee on the other had looked like she had just ran a marathon, feeling dizzy and unable to catch her breath she took a few rounds off here and there. After training is when you really feel the effect, my heart rate stayed high for hours after and I found it very hard to wind down.

Summit Jiu-Jitsu

Summit County Kids class

The following day we headed back, and Lilly and Kobe took part in the kids class. Both Dee and I had a good giggle when after about 5 laps of running around the mat to warm up both Lilly and Kobe had to stop and rest. The look on their faces was priceless! They didn’t seem to know what was going on as all the other kids were fine. I was super proud that they both sucked it up for the rest of the class and power through. We again took part in class and It was fun sharing some techniques back and forth with Doug as we both played a very similar half guard game. Everyone there was super nice and we had a great time training with them and a cool experience training at elevation.

Rolling

We had planned to return and take the lunch time class on Halloween, but a little traffic incident on the way down from our accommodation changed that. We were heading off for the day when a car cut a blind corner as we braked it put us into a slide which saw us contacting the side of the vehicle. Luckily everyone was fine, and we were traveling slowly so there wasn’t a lot of damage, this would eat up a lot of time as we would have to drive down to Denver to swap vehicles out. This unfortunately meant we missed the lunchtime class.

Poor hire car

We thought we would salvage the rest of the day and head out for Halloween (something we don’t really do in Australia), after a stop at a store for a couple of costumes we ended up with a Pink Ninja and a Baby Groot. We headed into Frisco town centre as the street gets shut down and all the businesses and community groups celebrate Halloween. It was a great time, everyone really gets into it. Lilly and Kobe had a blast and ended up with a heap of candy and treats, Dee and I also had fun following them around checking out everyone’s costumes.

Ready to trick or treat

Halloween

A good haul

-Woody

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How BJJ affiliations work

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.

[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 hiarchy

[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

[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

[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).

[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.

A delayed intro

Hi all in the BJJ globetrotters universe! My names Alex and I’ve been training for a couple years now. I’ve always been a bit of a jiu jitsu mutt, in that from early on I trained in a myriad of gyms. And I think we can all agree, for the most part, you meet some of the best people out there by doing so! I started out my BJJ training all over the South West of England. Places like KJ2 in Bridgwater and North Shore Jiu Jitsu in Newquay as well as Gracie Barra in Taunton.

Recently I was back in my homeland that is Somerset for my oldest Brothers wedding. This gave me the opportunity to get some rolls in with one of my closest mates and to re-visit the first place I ever trained in.

The Mill.

This gym has a great atmosphere with an enthusiastic head coach who has ample ambitions to continue to develop his setup into a martial arts/fitness epicentre for Somerset.

Matt Follain made me feel welcome the first time I set foot in his gym, and this last time, nothing had changed. Funny guy with a wealth of combat knowledge.

My friend and I got to have some great rolls with exchanges of knowledge. We all know how it goes ;D

It was the perfect wind down before heading to my brothers wedding the next day to enjoy a raucous round of drinks, merriment and memories that’ll never be forgot!

The prestigious task, one often faces at their brothers wedding can yield some weight to carry. Nerves begin to flare. Palms can get sweaty. An unyielding feeling of anxiety due to responsibilities on such a glorious weekend. The speeches came easy, but the bar had to be run with precision and care! If the flow of drinks ceased, so did the vibes! Not on our watch…

A success all round.

Next on the agenda is to get our van across for roadtrips and adventures around Ireland! :D

Asado and New School BJJ in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, Argentina is the first city on my four-month South American itinerary; but, it also marks the final leg of my year’s trip.

I embraced laid-back culture permeating through the people in the hectic city, the beautiful weather and great/cheap malbecs all month long. It was also incredibly satisfying being able use my basic Spanish skills to understand almost half of what people were saying to me, especially after 8 months in Europe and Asia where I had no clue what anyone was saying.

However, beyond everything else, two things stood out the most this past month: Asado and new school Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

 

Meat, Meat and More Meat… Then Add Some Wine

Asado (an Argentinian BBQ) quickly became my favorite tradition. I never went more than week between Asados. Whether it was at a fancy restaurant, a local pub after a few drinks or someone’s terrace, it was always a blast gathering friends around to feast every cut of steak, pork and chicken imaginable, all while passing around bottles of local wine and beer.

If you ever plan to going to Argentina, make sure you’re not on a diet. I gained a few pounds and got a little sluggish on the mat (not to mention meat sweats) but it’s completely worth it for all the mouth-watering meats. If you go to BA, hit me up for recommendations.

 

Learning Technical Moves and Trying to Keep up with New School Competitors

After a month of building my strength, stamina and basic techniques in Bulgaria, I was feeling great about training in South America. It was time to up the aggression in my rolls and hopefully get a little closer to my pre-travel form.

With the help of the BJJ Globetrotter community, I found United MMA Fight Center. This gym immediately felt like home when I walked in. It was filled with MMA fighters, Muay Thai shorty shorts and BJJ guys rolling in their gis. It was a beautiful mix of all the martial arts existing and mixing together.

It was apparent that these guys leaned heavy on the new school spectrum when the first class’ technique was reverse de la riva. As someone who relies heavily on the old school strategies, I was stoked and a little nervous to work on techniques that I barely use, let alone understand.

As I expected, lower belts made me look foolish all month with expertly executed berimbolos, worm guards and all kinds of other scramble-style passes. It didn’t help that it’s a competition school and a lot of the guys were in insane shape and training to become world champions. As the month progressed, I got a little faster and more aggressive. By the last few classes I was holding my own and even playing around with some fun spider guard setups.

Gyms like United MMA are the reason I was so excited to travel and train around the world for a year. There’s no way I could get these kind of roles and experience just by training at my home gym. I learned a few new tricks and walked away with a much better understanding of the concepts behind some new school techniques and strategies.

Time is over

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.

Cowboy Country…. Oklahoma and Kansas

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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Everything’s bigger in….. Dallas, Texas

After our trip up along a section of the Mississippi we arrived in Dallas, Texas. Straight away the amount of pick-up trucks and cowboy hats on the highways had doubled. We stopped in at the Dallas Galleria a huge shopping mall with an Ice skating rink in the middle. Both Lilly and Kobe were pretty keen to give it a go, but after watching everyone falling over they changed their minds for the time being.

We headed to our Airbnb for our stay here and were very surprised to find that Dave Bravo was our host, a purple belt that trains out of Cobra BJJ. Dave gave us a lot of info about training and things to do in Dallas which was a great.

Best AirBnb host yet…. Dave Bravo

Our first full day in Dallas we headed to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, this place is huge. We wandered around for a few hours admiring all the different garden displays, it was so relaxing. We loved the massive Wizard of Oz themed Halloween pumpkin display, it was so well done!

Checking out the pumpkin display

Pumpkins everywhere!!

That afternoon we headed to RCJ Machado, Carlos Machado’s Academy. It was such a well setup school that even had a dedicated kid’s area with desks where the children can complete their homework. They offer an after-school program including pickup for over 20 schools in the area which we thought was an amazing idea. Both Kobe and Lilly had a fun time in class with Coach Brad, they have a very good kids Jiu-Jitsu program there. Dee and I took part in the advanced class where Coach Brad covered back positioning and attacks where I learnt some great little tweaks for my game.

Lilly and Kobe in class at RCJ

The next day we headed to Cobra BJJ to train, this is the place that Dave had suggested we come and check out. We were excited to get some NoGi in, as we hadn’t had much of a chance in the last couple of weeks. Lilly and Kobe get really excited about NoGi now, this is something we defiantly must do more of when we return home. We had a great class ran by Sebastian Black and Eddie Ricardo, there was a nice focus on takedowns and passing combinations. We had some great rolls during sparring as Cobra BJJ like most competitive clubs they are starting to already gear up for the NoGi worlds.

Pumped to get their NoGi on

Great sessions at Cobra BJJ!!

Myself and Sebastian Black from Cobra BJJ

We decided to head to the Texas state Fair, one of the largest state fairs in America. They had somewhere in the vicinity of 2.2 million people attend this year’s fair which lets you know just how big it is. We spent the day walking around checking out all the stalls and events, there was so much to see and do. We went and checked out the pig racing where Lilly put her hand up to volunteer before she knew what it was for. She ended up being a pig cheerleader out in front of the crowd. It was so funny and definitely a trip highlight was watching her jump around to get the crowd cheering. Kobe’s face when coming down the giant slide was so funny, he was very quiet after that for a bit as it scared the crap out of him ?. We even got into the local cuisine by tackling a large turkey leg and taste testing all the food we could.

Getting in on the local cuisine

Lilly cheering on the Pigs!!

Us with Carlos Machado

Good times!

Over the rest of our time here we split our time doing Gi at RCJ and NoGi at Cobra. Both academies were super friendly and welcoming to us. Carlos Machado had returned later in the week from doing seminars and was great to spend some time on the mat with him. He is a super friendly guy and was very keen to help us out, he managed in a matter of seconds to give me a few options for a position I had been having some problems with that worked well for me. We spent the rest of our free time checking out parks and just hanging out in Dallas.

-Woody

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New Orleans and up the Mississippi

The drive from Orlando to New Orleans would take us through 4 states in 9 hrs – Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Our stay in New Orleans was brief, 2 nights in fact, so we unpacked our bags to the Airbnb and headed to the French Quarter for dinner and some sightseeing.

Trip Advisor had great reviews for a restaurant called Gumbo Pot but upon our arrival we discovered it was closed. So, we decided to go for a stroll to see if there was somewhere else close by.

As we walked up Saint Peters St pass Jackson Square where we passed many buskers, some of whom were doing magic shows and others whom were reading palms and telling fortunes

Thankfully we came across the Gumbo Shop- a beautiful quaint restaurant, that was very busy – which we took as a good sign.

Post meal destruction

We took one look at the menu and were happy to see the “Complete Creole Dinner” option, allowing us to try a variety for meals without having to spend big dollars on multiple “entrée’s”. Much to our surprise Lilly and Kobe loved the Gumbo and Jambalaya as much as Adam and I did, so much that I will attempt to cook a Gumbo once we are home again.

New Orleans is more commonly known as a city to visit if you want to party, but all of this is really contained in one Street – Bourbon Street.  This makes sightseeing easy, knowing where not to go if you’re not up to partying.

As we walked around the French quarter the next day I loved admiring the buildings with their gorgeous shutters and balconies and the kids enjoyed looking at all the Halloween decorations in the doorways. We loved walking through the streets looking through the art stores and gorgeous boutique stores listening to the Jazz bands that were playing in the streets.

Walking around New Orleans

New Orleans is also famous for Beignet,  a doughnut covered in powdered sugar, but rather than wait in a rather long que at the very famous Café du Monde, our Lonely Planet Guide book had informed us the Beignet Café just around the corner and it would have no line at all and plenty of seating. We were delighted to try out this delicious treat with a nice coffee in a quiet café with fast service.

mmmmm…. Doughnuts

As we walked around we found ourselves at the dock of the Paddle steamers Natchez & Queen Creole and decided to take a lunchtime cruise on the Queen Creole along the Mississippi River. The cruise was very informative of the origins of New Orleans and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 which a stop off at the site of the battle. Much to our delight lunch would be more Gumbo.

Paddle steamer

I would love to come back to New Orleans again – there is so much history and character that I think you could spend days just discovering it.

After our stay at in New Orleans we were headed to Dallas Texas, but rather than the interstate we drove along the Mississippi River till Baton Rogue on our way to Natchez. To break up the hours of sitting in the car we are always looking for things to see and do along the way. We found a hike to a waterfall in the Clark Creek Natural Area in Woodville. This was a beautiful hike with lots of steep climbs and stairs. We hiked for 2.25km and we came across a little creek, Kobe declared his despair of “walking this far, for this!”

big canon!

We made it to Natchez in time to watch a gorgeous sunset at our Hotel which is alongside the Mississippi River. After a nice southern breakfast of biscuits and gravy at the hotel we were headed to Shreveport via Alexandria, as we had discovered that in Alexandria was a petting zoo that we knew Lilly & Kobe would love.

Sunset over the Mississippi

We had told Lilly and Kobe that we would be stopping soon, but with the hike still very fresh in Kobe’s mind he was very concerned that we had found another hiking trail and was not excited, that was until he seen the sign for “Gone Wild Safari”.

Well trained

feeding the animals

Once in the park, we brought some feed for the animals and stepped aboard the repurposed school bus to head out on our tour. A guide drives you around the park and tells you about the animals they have there. And stops frequently for you to feed the animals from the bus. On the first stop a very friendly camel stuck its head in the bus window scaring Kobe, Lilly lost her feeding cup to a very zealous antelope wanting more than she was offering. Kobe loved that the long-horned bulls would come up the window open their mouths and put their tongue to the side, so you could just poor the feed into their mouths. As we drove around we got to see Bison, Kangaroos, a Zorse (a mix between a Zebra and a Horse), Ostrich, Llamas, pigs, Deer and Giraffe and many more. Kobe and Lilly loved seeing the Prairie Dogs and may have even tried to sneak up on them to try and catch one, but those two aren’t very stealthily a trait they must get from Adam?.  I think Kobe was definitely happy with this stop, we continued up to Shreveport where we would rest before heading to Dallas the next day for some Jiu Jitsu.

-Dee

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Dusseldorf Germany

Hello From Dusseldorf Germany! (20-25 June 2017)

I last left you with me having an amazing time in Heidelberg with the Jiu-Jitsu groups there, that I would visit again during the BJJ Globetrotters Fall Camp, while staying at a not so amazing motel. After a quick train ride up to Dusseldorf I was ready for a change in pace. The ride was uneventful but I did pass through Cologne and got to see a small piece of the beauty of that town. I would like to visit Cologne some day and see more of the sights there, it really was quite the tease to only pass through it on a train.   

My First (Only) Hostel in Germany

The Globetrotter I would be visiting was unfortunately busy with work so I ended up staying at a hostel, the only hostel in town as it happens, it was right in the middle of town and about a 15 minute walk from the city’s main train station. At first during the week the hostel was quite quiet and I met a few people from all over, a young Australian waiting for papers to meet her family vacationing in London, an older Asian who kept to himself but was there on business and apparently had done quite a bit of traveling himself (he had a very detailed journal/scrapbook I saw him show some other guests), and a street performer, Ruben The One Man Band from Sweden who always had his GoPro filming his adventures. Then the weekend came..

On my way to the hostel I passed this intersection, it made me think of Mario Kart, I was on the look out for turtle shells whizzing by, luckily there were none.

Friday brought a completely different group of people, one group of very condescending Americans who kept referring me to being from ‘Canada: Our northern state’ and not one, not two, but three groups of bachelor parties, one in particular who figured the entire block should be listening to them blaring a song they would be yelling and singing over and over the entire time. To say the least my stay at this hostel went from pleasant to WTF very quickly on Friday. I left Sunday morning for the train off to my next destination and saw the most puzzling thing. A concert band marched up to the front of the hostel, complete with tubas and accordions, and with the band leader announcing something in German about the hostel (I made out the name of the hostel being called but that’s it) they played some Bavarian sounding tunes for a few minutes then after another announcement then marched away to their next destination. I have no clue what that was about but I did have a good laugh at the thought of the hungover bachelor parties waking to someone else’s music, having a taste of their own medicine, as I left the hostel.

Hostel humour. I may get one for my place once I’m done traveling and actually get a place, whenever that will be.

The Sights of Dusseldorf Old Town

I had quite a bit of time to myself during this visit so I decided to go out and explore and see some of the Old Town area that both Daniel and the hostel staff had told me about. I loved seeing the old buildings in that area of town, you really got the feeling of the town being around a lot longer than the impression that the rest of the city’s modern concrete skyscrapers gave. For my Canadian friends or those who have been to Quebec City and Montreal and walked around the Old Towns there this is same feeling, like walking back in time when you see some of the streets. Unfortunately my photos don’t do it justice.

I don’t know what this building is, or where I ran into it but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Some of the statues around the Old Town area.

An art installation outside the art museum, it’s a wall made of protest signs.

Training with JF73D

Daniel trains at a few clubs but mostly is at Judo Freunde 73 Düsseldorf, or JF73D which has both BJJ and Judo. For BJJ they’re under Prof. Youness of Team Youness Bjj Düsseldorf who I did not get a chance to meet, I believe he was away when I visited. The club rents a big mat space in a school, if I’m correct it’s actually the school’s Judo club room, in any case it was a nice big space with change rooms and showers but it was all inside a school with no signs so without Daniel bringing me out to the gym I would have never found it on my own.

The club itself was small, only 5 or 6 people made it out for the class I trained at, with the instructor a purple belt. Everyone seemed a bit shy, maybe because of language barriers, but still welcoming enough to a new face passing through. We went through a thorough warm up and some great techniques, the instructor’s own experience in both Judo and traditional Jiu-Jitsu was evident in the warm up routines and the details he focused on while demonstrating the techniques. It was a good class working on sweeps and I was looking forward to rolling with everyone there but I ended up having to sit out after while with a pulled muscle, the hardships of always traveling taking their toll on me at the least opportune time.

The club, thanks for a good training guys!

A few of us went out for food after class and I had a blast listening to their stories of how they got into Jiu-Jitsu and their adventures in training so far, if it were in better conditions, and if I had my camera with me, this would have been an awesome interview to have, just random conversation about our Jiu-Jitsu experiences while eating at a local restaurant. Video or not it was a great way to end the night after some good training. 

Daniel Meertz

Daniel was my contact for Dusseldorf, a fellow Globetrotter who has done some traveling himself and even been to some of the spots that I have visited with other Globetrotters hosting me. Whenever he wasn’t working Daniel took me out to see the city, like to a water park to enjoy a refreshing a dip in a pool in the summer heat. He also brought me out to eat the local cuisine in Old Town, where I tried a ‘pork knuckle’ which wasn’t much my thing but I’m happy to have tried it and know many who love them. Even when Daniel was busy at work as a firefighter he was more than happy to respond to any of my texts and tell me of places to go eat at or sights to see.

The pork knuckle, or Pig’s knuckle, literally just a cooked knuckle, or hoof.

Thanks for everything Daniel!

Finally one day we set up my camera at his place and did an interview on his experiences as a traveled blue belt who’s passion for Jiu-Jitsu is so strong even an injury sidelining him for a year wasn’t enough to make him quit. Thank you Daniel for all that you helped me out with for this visit, I hope we meet again someday!

To watch the video, or if you want to watch my previous interviews and travel videos, head over to Panda’s Odyssey YouTube Channel. While you’re there show some love, like, comment, share, maybe even subscribe if you haven’t already. Thanks!

After a short stay in Dusseldorf it was time to venture off to Hamburg, where I would meet Ana and her club Nexus Fighter, then be kidnapped by her daughters, but you’ll have to wait for that adventure.

Off to Hamburg, with no place to sit on the train.

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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Orlando – Great training and People

Leaving Miami, we headed up the centre of Florida to Orlando, we opted to take the smaller back roads up around Lake Okeechobee to see more of the Florida countryside. We had only planned to visit Orlando for about 4 days to visit some friends and get a little bit of training in.

Upon arriving in the afternoon, we dropped our gear of at our Airbnb and headed to Disney Springs to meet up with the Elam family. They had just moved back to the USA from living in Australia for a number of years most recently in Newman where their children had trained Jiu-Jitsu with us. It was great to see familiar faces and the kids were so happy to see each other, telling stories and running around the different shops.

Checking out Disney Springs

Sitting on Captain America

The next day we headed to Gatorland, a park filled with Alligators and other wildlife. We ended up spending a full day here as it was so much fun, you can get a bag full of hotdogs that you can feed to the Alligators. We all tried our hands at Alligator wrestling which was a lot easier that some of the rolls I’ve had on this trip, they pretty much just lay there and let you sit on them.

Kobe Gator Wrestling

Lilly Gator Wrestling

The following day we decided to get some training in, we headed to Orlando Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is where 9x World champion Bruno Malfacine trains and teaches. We all took classes and had an absolute blast, both Dee and I felt though we had learnt so much in just one class. Bruno has a very simple strategic way of teaching complex concepts. We were also both lucky enough to roll with Bruno, that in itself was an experience, we rolled for 10min and I think I only saw him twice. The rest of the time I just saw flashes of his Gi as he moved around me. That night we went home and decided we needed to extend our time here and we also wanted to catch up more with the Elam Family.

Rolling with Bruno

We spent the rest of the week training with the Alliance team at Orlando Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Both Lilly and Kobe loved it there, they were always playing around with Bruno and the guys. It was also great to see someone of Bruno’s calibre spending time teaching the kids classes. Jonathan Satava was also visiting from Marcelo’s in New York. Bruno had Jonathan teach one of the NoGi classes and he taught some north south choke gold! Some great details that I will be defiantly taking away from his class and adding into my game.

Lilly and Kobe with Bruno

Awesome class

Me and Jonathan Satava

Saturday had come around and after training we were contemplating what to do on Sunday. At around midnight we made the decision that we would go to Universal world. We had already done Disney and as we only had a day Universal seemed the better option. The kids were already asleep so we set the alarms to wake us up in 5 hours. Now waking them in the morning felt like Christmas they had no idea beforehand that we were going to go, they were absolutely ecstatic.

Jaws!

We ended up spending 12hrs there between the two parks, we all had a great time walking around and riding all the rides. We managed to avoid all the big roller coasters as Lilly and Kobe were not that excited about them, pretty sure they were still having flashbacks from the Guardians of the Galaxy ride in Disney California. Overall we were very impressed with the parks. Kobe absolutely loved Jurassic park and Lilly the Harry Potter rides and areas. At about 4pm the Florida weather kicked in and the rain started bucketing down, this unfortunately closed a few of the rides but we continued to walk around and ride what we could. At the end of the day we were very wet and exhausted! we had walked a little over 20km, seen and done so much. It was a great day and the kids won’t stop talking about it.

Jurassic Park

Transformers

As Monday rolled in we headed back to training, Lilly had also been doing the kids striking classes while we were there. Lilly can’t seem to get enough of training, I swear she would roll all day if we would let her. Kobe is also super keen to train all the time but when his class is over he is happy just to kick back and play on the side of the mat. The team at Orlando BJJ was great we had some of the best training there so far on the trip and were welcomed where we felt part of the team. After our last session at Orlando BJJ we headed off to Wekiwa Springs a natural spring one of the guys at the club had recommended. It was so good after training as the water was freezing as it bubbled out of the large crack in the spring.

Cool Kids class

Us with Bruno

From the spring we headed over to the Elam’s for dinner, the kids had a great time fishing in the pond that was straight out their backdoor. After a great dinner they introduced us to the messy art of pumpkin carving. Kobe lost interest in the first 5 minutes so I  ended up finishing it for him, Lilly had a great time doing it.  We worked out Dee was the best person and scraping out the insides of the pumpkin……It was probably more the fact that no one else wanted to do it so we just kept praising her so we didn’t have to hahaha.

Messy Pumpkin carving

End result!

Orlando was super cool, one of the perks of having an open itinerary for this trip is that we could extend our stay there and not miss these opportunities.

-Woody

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Rolling and railing west

I thought the team in Moscow was big. Turns out Serbia is the real home of Europe’s largest grapplers.

In mid-September I began a rail journey across Eastern and Central Europe, starting in Greece, then heading to Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Czech Republic.

Kimura Jiu Jitsu Academy in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, was my first stop. The club is located in the bottom floor of a gym with a weights room above and crossfit below. It’s a super well-equiped and maintained site with murals and plenty of staff.

Guillaume the coach is brilliant, he was very welcoming and even did the lesson in english for my benefit. The class was very thorough with detailed warm ups, followed by takedowns, drills, techniques and rolling.

The team has a lot of big guys, I was arm-rest height for most of them, but they were super technical and did not need to rely on their pressure or weight. There’s only one thing scarier than a big guy on the mat – that’s a big guy who rolls like a small one. 

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Next was Jungle BJJ in Split.

These guys are a pretty new club, very warm and welcoming. It was a team of mostly white belts but super motivated and hungry to learn. Their gym offers a number of combat sports and wrestling was happening when I arrived.

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My final stop was Hungary’s Carlson Gracie Team in Budapest.

It’s a large city, so I expected a strong team, but they surpassed my expectations. They are super professional but also really good mates.

Everyone who came through the door greeted each other with a handshake, kiss or hug. Not a small undertaking, when there are 40 or 50 people on the mats. There was a lot of smiling and joking but total focus when training began.

The gym is a large hall, white and very clean, located in the corner of a sports park. It has a vast floor covered in mats marked out for wrestling. There was a strong team of women who traded partners, guided and translated for me. The techniques we worked on where closed guard passing, very clever, slow and heavy, which is what I appreciate. 

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If you’re a travelling women wanting to roll I would highly recommend this club. I couldn’t get over the kindness they showed each other and myself, one of the girls even dropped me home afterwards.

This Tuesday I land in London for my biggest test yet – picking a team not for a casual roll – but the one to become the next full-time home for me and my pink gi. 

Miami… In the Aftermath

We have been up to so much and having heaps of fun, I’m a little behind on the blog so there will a far bit coming soon! here is our time in Miami.

We began the journey south to Florida after leaving Charlotte. We spent most of the day driving down the east coast through North and South Carolina and stopping for the night in the small coastal city of Brunswick in Georgia. We stayed in a small Airbnb cabin for the night to break up the trip, this is where the world’s greatest game of family UNO took place. I won every game, but don’t ask Dee and the kids because I’m sure they will lie and say something different.

In the morning we continued south to Miami, upon driving through the city you could still see some of the devastation that hurricane Irma had left just 2 weeks before we arrived. Down trees, power lines and missing roofs were common sights along still flooded streets.

The next day we headed to Miami Fight Sports, this is Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu’s academy. On the way there we were introduced to Miami’s terrible traffic…. 50 min to travel 15 miles, thankfully we always leave very early to get to training. Lilly and Kobe took part in the kids NoGi class which was a little quiet with only 3 other children in the class, this didn’t stop them having a great time. Dee and I took part in the Adults class which was absolutely packed. Unfortunately, Cyborg was still in Finland following ADCC so the class was run by Denis “Deninho” Mitchel. It was a very cool class filled with half guard passing strategies.

Lilly and Kobe warming up for class

Packed Adult class

Kangaroo jumping

The following day we hit Miami Beach and ended up walking around where we found a nice little juice bar and got the best Acai bowls. It was very hot in Miami and with all the water still around the humidity was very high. We found that a lot of the attractions and parks where closed as they were still cleaning up after the hurricane, so there wasn’t a heap to do while where there. We took Lilly and Kobe to the Miami Children’s Museum, they had the best time! We all enjoyed the interactive exhibits and I’m sure both the kids learnt a lot there.

During our stay in Las Vegas we had trained with David Avellan, he had told us about his school in Miami that his brother Marcos is now running. We decided to go and check it out and headed to the Freestyle Fighting Academy, we were quite surprised to find out that it is a 24hr MMA and fitness gym that even had grappling classes at 11pm. We immediately clicked with everyone there and as David recommended we train there we warmly welcomed. We ended up spending the majority of our training time in Miami here. The kids had a great time training in the packed classes with coach Che Moreno.

With coach Che

We ended up doing a lot of NoGi which Dee and I were quite happy about seeing as Miami was so hot. Jason Soares ran all our classes while there which was fantastic as he was able to take over where I had been with David in Vegas on the Kimura trap. I got so much out of training with Jason and the guys at FFA and was very glad we followed David’s advice, as to be honest we would have never really headed there otherwise. If you are looking for some solid NoGi grappling in Miami look no further than FFA.

Dee and I with Jason

Learning the finer points

On the weekend we decided to head to the Everglades National Park, we couldn’t enter from the side that we wanted as due to Hurricane Irma the water level in the park had risen to where the water was now over the park entrance road. We opted out of driving another hour to get around the other side of the park and decided to check out the Everglades Safari Park that was still operating. Upon arrival we boarded one of the tours and got to enjoy the park tearing around on a Airboat. When the tour ended we got a quick alligator show where Kobe got one of his wishes, which was to hold real Alligator, Lilly was pretty stoked as well!

Airboat Selfie

Dee and Lilly

Holding an Alligator!!!!

We thought about cancelling the Miami trip but we’re very glad we decided to head there as we had a great time!!

-Woody

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Back to Basics in Bulgaria

Travelling across Asia and Europe for the past seven months and constantly switching gyms has been amazing. It’s allowed me to experience tons of variations of high-level techniques, spar with amazing training partners and even pick up a few secret moves. But, it’s also destroyed my fundamentals.

I practiced acrobatic De La Riva to X-guard sweeps in Bangkok for a week, switched to drilling single leg variations in Belgrade, and then tested my rubber guard at an MMA gym in Prague. I’ve added tons of new tricks to my bag. But over the past few months, I started to notice I was having more trouble than normal in sparring. I was screwing up basic combo setups, pulling off a simple hip heist and even escaping white belts’ loose side control. All my cool new techniques are useless If I can’t get in position to use them or even keep myself from being tapped every 30 seconds.

 

Working with White Belts at Twisted Jiu Jitsu

I needed to settle down, find a good gym with dedicated training partners and work the essentials. Luckily, I found Twisted Jiu Jitsu in Sofia, Bulgaria. Their fundamentals noon class fit perfectly with my work schedule and I came in 2-3 times a week for all of September. Back home, I’d consider that slacking but it was much more regimented than my past few months of catching flights, partying and getting over injuries.

I was usually surrounded by white belts and occasionally a blue or two would show up. It was exactly what I needed.

I was also able to meet up with a fellow BJJ Globetrotter Robert Barker at Twisted Jiu Jitsu

Working with new BJJ athletes let me focus on the things like hip control, creating the space I need to move and refresh my simple sweeps and submissions. Also, as every higher belt knows, training with and teaching a less-experienced partner really helps you focus on the small things that make simple techniques effective even against experienced grapplers.

Easy taps during sparring was a confidence booster for sure, but even more helpful was identifying the mistakes they were making and realizing I was doing the same thing. These rolls really helped me tighten up my game to were it used to be before all this travel.

At the end of the month, I felt much more secure in my abilities and felt safe reverting to more basic techniques when they were needed. Sometimes you just need to stop trying to learn Youtube worthy moves and just get back to the foundation those techniques are built on top of.

 

Heidelberg & Mannheim Germany

Greetings from Heidelberg & Mannheim Germany! (15-20 June 2017)

The train rode up to Heidelberg from Friedrichshafen was an enjoyable one, watching all the fields of hops and apples and pears pass by as we whizzed through the beautiful country side. Once I got to Heidelberg I had to take another train, only about 10-15 minutes long, to the next town over as I couldn’t find a place to stay in Heidelberg itself that was within my price range. In between Heidelberg and Mannheim there is a small town of mostly industrial areas called Friedrichsfeld, this is where i stayed in a cheap badly run motel. I had originally planned to stay in Heidelberg and had found the perfect Airbnb in town but a problem arose when I tried booking it. Apparently my account had been suspended.

I think this whole problem might have gone back to when my credit card had fraudulent charges on it when I was in Spain. Charges were made to Airbnb and Expedia and although those charges were ultimately reversed I think maybe Airbnb traced that card back to my account, even though it was other account the charges were made from, and suspended my account to be safe. This is all just my own personal theory as it took a week for Airbnb to get back to me and the only thing they said that it was suspended in error and I should now be able to use my account as normal. Of course by this time the perfect listing was gone and nothing showing was within my price range for the visit. This led to me looking at Mannheim for available places and given that there were other summer events going on during my visit there wasn’t much out there. That’s how I ended up in this small industrial town in a motel whose staff were only around for 4 hours a day and was full of loud party people who sat and drank and smoke directly outside my window until late every night.

To Airbnb’s credit I sent them an e-mail explaining that because of their actions, and failure to notify me of suspending my account so that this error could have been caught and fixed sooner, I now had to spend a lot more money on my visit. To which they replied with a coupon to make up for the extra spending, a small coupon at first but when I told them how much it was costing me in the end they actually went the extra mile and gave me a coupon that covers the full difference. That is far and beyond anything I would expect from any hotel or online booking company so I will gladly stay as a customer for them, thank you Airbnb for going this for me. I’ve held on the coupon and look to use it when I get to Australia or New Zealand, where the exchange rate for me is not so good and I could really use a free place to stay.  

Wandering Around the Cities

Because I was staying outside of town, stuck in middle of either, I didn’t get out and wander too much but I did manage to take a few photos of both Mannheim and Heidelberg while I was out either using the free wifi at Starbucks in Mannheim or doing laundry at the one laundromat in Heidelberg.

The Wasserturm in Mannheim. An old tower from the last 1800’s.

The park behind it.

The Neckar river that runs through Heidelberg.

A pretty cool water fountain I found In Heidelberg.

The Neckar with the Heidelberg Castle in the background.

A night time shot of the castle, I actually took this during the Globetrotters camp.

As usual I have more photos of my visit that can see on my Flickr Account.

Training in Mannheim – SDS Academy

The first gym I was able to visit was in Mannheim at the Spiros Defense System or SDS Academy which has Kickboxing and Kung Fu and other martial arts styles as well as BJJ. Spiro himself is a tall lanky guy who is really fit and runs a tough class. He was happy to have me visit and welcomed me in and showed me around the place. The building has 2 floors and a basement, I only went up to the second floor to use the toilet and don’t remember what else is up there but the main floor was all mats and bags for kickboxing and other classes. The basement was also all mats and where the Jiu-Jitsu classes were held. The other classmates were pretty quiet and I didn’t talk too much with them until end of class when one of the guys passed me on the street and gave me a ride back to where I was staying and even showed me where was good to grab some food, but in class there wasn’t too much talking, we were too busy training.

Spiros had a very active warm up and drilling class sections for class. I can’t remember when the last time I did so many crunches and sit ups in one class, I would have to go back to basic training in the military. I got through it though and my De La Riva and X-Guard sweeps are better for it. I did over work my groin and hamstrings though and I could only roll once before I had to stop and just watch. Thanks for the hard class and tight techniques Spiros, until we meet again!

Training in Heidelberg – Team Choco

One person I talked to a lot about planning my visit to Heidelberg was fellow Globetrotter Ruadhán, an Irishman living in Germany who trains everyday at both clubs in Heidelberg. To say this guy is in shape in an understatement. The main club Ruadhán trains at is Team Choco BJJ Heidelberg which is primarily a no gi club. The club trains in a downstairs room inside a community center, or I think it was a community center, maybe it was a college building. I met Ruadhán at the main station and he brought me to the club, and given traffic we were in a rush so I just followed him downstairs to the class and honestly forget where exactly I was.

The guys were all welcoming of a new visitor, and although they were all young athletic students none of them went too hard running circles around me. We trained some chain movements and worked some take downs that night. I find take downs are covered a lot more in no gi than gi and for a lot of lower belts getting into gi competition that’s where they suffer because of the lack of training in them. I myself use a lot more no gi style take downs for my game simply because I have more experience training them. During rolling some worked from standing and tried the take downs we drilled in class live. I also went a round or two with Ruadhán purely just working grips and controlling techniques which fun to do and also a lot of work, Ruadhán is a fast mover and it was all I could to do to try and keep up. There was another class starting up after we were done, I believe it was a wrestling class, but I was too tired to keep up and participate in that so I called it a day. It was great meeting the club and finally getting to train with Ruadhán, thanks for the great training guys, and thanks for all the help Ruadhán!

BJJ Heidelberg

Another club that I trained with, and actually hung out with the most, was BJJ Heidelberg. The head coach is Ben, a blue belt who’s far over due for his purple, through Ruadhán I met him as well as Mina and Jan and the rest of the club. Before ever making it out to training I spoke with Mina about meeting up in town and showing me around. As it happens, one of the many events seemingly going on at the exact time I was visiting was the big summer party at a fortress called the ‘Handschuhsheimer Kerwe’ involving food, mainly sausage, fries, salads, and lots of strawberries.There were all sorts of strawberry drinks, some alcoholic some not, and as we entered the place we were given free drinks of it and could pick up more at the night went on. I don’t what the party was in celebration of, it was mid summer so I don’t think it was for a good harvest, but no matter the reason it was a lot of fun to be a part of. There was a dance floor and music being played, once people got enough drinks into them it filled up and it was very amusing watching some people really get into the songs. I especially found the one shirtless air guitar guy who was oblivious to the girls wanting to dance with him as tried giving the most realistic air guitar performance he could a captivating show. After the first night out of meeting everyone at the party I now had new friends to look forward to training with.

At the Handschuhsheimer Kerwe with the club.

Mina and Jan also hosted a BBQ over the weekend that I went to and met more of the club like Quentin, a huge American living in Germany who may be a white belt but his knowledge and experience in sports and as a sports trainer (check out Coach Q’s page!) give him the ability to soak up and process the techniques being taught and dissect them faster than anyone else I’ve trained with. Training with the group was fun, the club held classes in a community center that had a huge wrestling  room so they had all the space they could want to train in. They were killers and I was kept on my toes playing defense with them all. The techniques we train were a fun chain, Ben was great at coaching and with Quentin as my training partner we were able to make everything work for us big, not so flexible Jiu-Jitsueros. There was a great energy with this club, both on and off the mats, that just fueled them to keep going, talking all night at the party, rolling all night at class. I had to stop at class during the rolling because I just couldn’t keep up with them. It was great training with them but they were machines and I was wore out. Maybe that was their plan all along, bring me out to a festival and over to their house and feed me full of wonderful German meats so I’m slow and unable to defend against them. That sounds like a good explanation and I’m sticking with it! Seriously thanks so much for everything guys, it’s always a pleasure training with you and I hope we see each other again soon! And thanks again for the tasty burgers Mina and Jan!

After having such a great time that while staying in a motel I really didn’t enjoy I still left wishing I could stay another week and hangout with everyone it was time to move on. At least I had the BJJ Globetrotters Fall Camp to look forward to as it was held in Heidelberg and I was able to see everyone again, but you’ve already read about how awesome an experience that was (read it again here). I packed my bag, jumped on the train and headed for Dusseldorf to meet up with a fellow Globetrotter, Daniel, to train with his club, but that’s another story.

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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excited to hit the mats again. Lucas is a multiple time world champion and one Read more

The Great Smoky Mountains

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