Hawaii – Maui, Oahu and Jiu-Jitsu

So, the time had come for the last stage of the trip, we had planned from the start that we were going to do a stop in Hawaii on the way back to relax…. and train?. Leaving the mainland, I was a little disappointed that we were on the last leg of the trip but also a little relieved as living and training as a family for almost 6 months out of suitcases was starting to get a bit tiring.

Sea Cave

Both Lilly and Kobe couldn’t stop asking questions about what we were going to do, can we go to the beach? can we go to a volcano? will we see a dolphin?? It was driving us nuts the whole way over on the plane. We had planned to spend a few days on Maui before heading over to Oahu, when we finally landed we took a quick tour of the car park as I had managed to get us all on the wrong bus for our car hire. Finally, on the right bus and our car picked up we headed south to Kihei where we were staying for this stop over. We dropped of our stuff and headed straight to the beach to watch the sunset, it was spectacular!

Sunset over Pipeline

Haleakala Crater

As we only had a short time on Maui our first two days we spend in full tourist mode. We headed around to the Haleakalā National Park and hiked into Waimoku falls. Just the drive around to the park was an adventure on the skinny winding roads and one lane bridges. We headed up to the top of Haleakala Crater and checked out the crazy view and clouds that built up around the summit. We also hit the beach everyday in the evening where we saw a lot of turtles swimming in the shallows.

Waimoku falls

Awesome beaches

Random waterfalls

We decided to head to Maui Jiu-Jitsu for training, we arrived a little early so headed down the road to check out the big waves at Ho‘okipa Beach Park then headed to the midday NoGi class. It was good to get back on the mats after having a couple of days off. I had some great rolls there with the guys and girls as did Dee. Straight after class we headed to the beach for a swim before the kids started at 3pm, this was the life!!! We headed back and both Lilly and Kobe jumped into the kid’s classes. They struggled a little in the warm up as it was one of the toughest they have had to completed yet and they had blown a heap of energy at the beach.

Kids training at Maui Jiu-Jitsu

Getting NoGi in on Maui

The next morning, we flew to Honolulu on Oahu, the weather forecast was looking rainy in a couple of days, so we jumped in our hire car and headed up the east coast along some of the most amazing beaches. We ended up handing out at Kailua Beach for much of the first two days. We also headed up to check out Pipeline where the Billabong pro had been delayed due to the dangerous conditions, this didn’t stop a large crowd forming to watch the massive waves.

big waves

Honolulu was definitely more touristy and packed than Maui, we for sure liked the vibe of Maui better. The next three days we planned on training everyday along with sight seeing first stop was a hike to the top of Diamond Head a extinct volcano crater near where we were staying. It was quite a good hike and the view was amazing, the place was packed though as it’s a tourist hot spot. We managed to power up and down with ease as by now we had done a shit load of hiking. A lot of people were struggling though as it can be a little deceiving just how steep it gets in some areas. After our hike we headed to Caveirinha Jiu Jitsu, we had read about this place on the globetrotter forum as a great place to train. They were right!! We had an amazing time with  Caveirinha and his team. Both Lilly and Kobe did two classes in a row and Dee and I did Advanced Gi and then straight into NoGi. The culture at that place was awesome and we highly recommend stopping in if you visit Hawaii.

Birds chasing some dude haha

Caveirinha Jiu Jitsu

The next day we headed to the Dole Plantation, and completed the maze in about 21min …. There may have been a little short cut taking but we had a super fun time. The “pineapple express” train tour was all great as it took us all around the plantation. We grabbed a pineapple soft serve ice cream which both Lilly and Kobe swear was the best Ice cream they have ever had. We then headed straight back into Honolulu to head to Gracie Technics Jiu-Jitsu. There Friday night session is basically just rounds which was great even though I was feeling a little flat. Probably because all I had for Lunch was that ice cream hahaha. Everyone there was super nice, and we had a cool time with them.

Couple of heads

Gracie Technics

For our last day we headed to Island Jiu-Jitsu who have recently become Atos Honolulu. We arrived for the kid’s class which was absolutely packed! Both Lilly and Kobe worked on their sit up sweep to triangle transition which is something that Lilly has been doing for a while on this trip, but Kobe struggled a little with the technique. They both had a blast in the rolling part of the class which they both can’t wait for every class.

Island Jiu-Jitsu / Atos Honolulu

Dee and I both did the midday class which consisted of several drills and then rounds. We both had some great rolls and felt really welcome there. This would be our last stop for training on the trip, The final total of academies across the USA we trained at was 32 we drove through 27 states during the trip. After training it was a weird feeling knowing that there wasn’t anymore training and that we would soon be back in Australia. We headed back to our Airbnb to start packing for the long trip back to Western Australia.

-Woody

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