King of the Rock is an amateur MMA and Kickboxing fight night to be held in Campbell River BC on February 12 2011.

Special events in conjunction with the event include card girl charity fund-raising, weigh-in and banquet, and two days for training with Neil Melanson, Randy Couture’s trainer. More info: http://kingoftherock.com.

It is time for my fight blog to reflect back on the year it has been, now as 2010 comes to a close.  This year will be remembered as being the best year to date for the Vancouver fight scene. UFC graced our city and had its fastest event sell out ever. The ongoing local fight promotions matured, and new fight series emerged in and around Vancouver. Top quality amateur MMA fighters stepped up to try their hand in the octagon. There has been an explosion of a veritable local fight scene.  2011 is set to be an even better year with so much more that we know now, about fighters and fans who love MMA. In 2010 my martial arts blog has been to mma fights, martial arts tournaments, dojos, schools and seminars and reported back on the many different facets of a thriving scene. Now at the end of the year, I have culled through my flickr photo pool, now over 10,000 photos, to come up with the best photos when I attended events with a media spot by the cage, ring, or mat.

In sorting through my photos, I did my best to include ones that showed incredible intense moments, in people’s gestures and faces, that were compositionally great, or that were boldly visceral. This year I was fortunate to meet a few famous people in the biz, including George Chiuvalo, Royce Gracie, and others.

The folks at Stand Up Muay Thai put up a nice video of one of their fighters at WCMAC 2010, Paul ‘The Fury’ Kim, who is in his first tournament after only 3 months of training. Way to go Paul, Kru, and Tony with your new fighter.

Here is the submission grappling novice finals:

And Apex Martial Arts provided this video, JP’s gold medal match:

Meanwhile on Saturday, you might have been wondering what the other people were doing, you know, those folks who arent really interested in martial arts. I managed to find a video documenting what people got up to on the fine October day:

This proves my point, if you arent into martial arts, you are some kind of zombie.

Martial Arts Nomad was back at the 2010 Western Canadian Martial Arts Championships on day 2 to cover Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Submission Grappling action on the mats.  There are some damn good wrestlers out there, even in the 1 year and under divisions. I have been doing BJJ for about 4 months now myself and when I watch these guys, I wonder how I am ever going to get as good as any of these guys… But Sensei Ali told me not to worry, its all about mat time, just keep going to class.

While my blog does focus a bit more on wrestling and kickboxing, I also took a few shots of the kung fu, karate, and kata at the tournament. When so many diverse disciplines come together at a tournament, I begin to see martial arts as a social movement, where people of all ages and walks of life come together to challenge themselves and each other.

Flickr Link.

Victor Wang from Posners and Trevor Dueck of MMAsucka.com.

Rear naked choke

Division winners Kiarash Moghaddam and Victor Wang

Karate high kick

WCMAC 2010 Tournament

Flickr Link.

Versus Training Centre is offering a promotion through Groupon.com:  http://www.groupon.com/r/uu1282091 . Get a month of unlimited classes for just $29 dollars. This is a wayyyy fabulous deal. Come out and try this awesome new facility. Try kickboxing, brazilian Jiu-jitsu class, or the Fighterbody conditioning program.

The Martialartsnomad blog was back for day two of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu seminar at Dragon Martial Arts Academy in Port Alberni. Gi day with the master was started with a variety of self defense moves such as escape from front and rear neck choke, and takedowns with gi collar. We looked at a variety of moves including escapes and finishing moves from the top. Early on in the warm up, Royce Gracie called a time out and told us to apply a little more struggle and force in our choking and strangling so that the defender can know what it feels like while practising the escape. He said we were being too gentle, and he wished he always had nice students like us to practice with! Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, after all, was developed and refined by the Gracie family in Brazil to deal with practical combat situations, both on the mats and in the street.

After a number of drills, Royce Gracie started asking for questions from the group about what we wanted help with. We needed escapes from side control, mount, from locks and other situations. Gracie demonstrated the moves with a student a couple times, and sent us on our way to practice some more. Then students with more than a years experience were then paired up to roll, and then stripes and belt promotions were handed out.

We ended our session with a few more group photos and autographs. I got Mr. Gracie signed my white belt.

Royce Gracie goes around the world now, giving seminars for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As a Gracie, he still works to promote the art that bears his family name, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. The masters of the art are also there to ensure homogeneity in grading, and to bring the community together.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is still young and that makes it a good time to practise it. Its a great benefit as a new student to benefit from a seminar conducted by a master of the art. When the master is in the room, you listen closely and try hard. You need not be very experienced in bjj to come to a seminar hosted by one of the masters. You can attend even without having achieved any particular level in the sport. Of course, it would be better to have had some class experience in bjj or something similar. Be prepared with Gi and grappling clothes, mouthguard, and kneepads, and a good attitude. After only having two months of classes prior to the seminar, I can say it has changed the way I think about how I work on the mat. I know after my first roll back at the dojo, I am being a bigger nuisance to my competitor than ever before.

Link to photo set on Flickr.com: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157624676621669/

MartialArtsNomad.com was at the Royce Gracie seminar for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu at Dragon Martial Arts in Port Alberni, BC. We just had an awesome day learning some core techniques for grapping and submission from one of the greatest fighters of all time, known for his domination of early UFC events.

Royce is also an instructor with a great spirit and gives personal attention and instruction to all his students.

On the first day we worked on the principles of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu self defence. We started with escape from a front neck choke to throw. That was our warm up.

Then Gracie got us working over the next 3 hours building up a sequence of moves that would go from standing to ground submission of the opponent.
the moves started with a kick block and pass guard to bear hug or from the clinch, taking the opponent to the ground, or by leg hook; from then we went through the options of arm bars, choking the opponent out by wrapping his arm around his neck, and assuming that the opponent resist and blocks, we move to behind and eventually finish with an arm bar.

We worked on the pieces of the puzzle and then at the end, Gracie tells us to put it all together…. and it came together like a dance! We finally got to see what we were learning in the day.

Looking forward to day two. We will be putting on our Gis and doing more with the master. Definitely looking forward to day 2.

Link to full set of photos from this day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157624771738374/

Presenting the West Coast Can-Am Championships, at BCIT in Burnaby, BC, May 29th and 30th. Ill be in the modified Muay Thai Division on May 30. See you there!

Premiered in 1979 as the First Annual West Coast Can-Am Championships, this tournament has developed into one of the most prestigious and longest-running annual tournaments in Canada, as it enters the 31^st year in 2010.

The goal of this event remained the same throughout the 31 years, to provide a safe, fair and fun competition event for Martial Artists of all styles. The Can-Am is known for its quality 5 ft and 6 ft trophy awards for both forms and fighting competitions, as well as handsome awards for judging officials.

Over the years, many world-famous Martial Artists from all styles such as Karate, Kung Fu, Wushu, Taekwondo, Hapkido, Tang Soo Do, Tai Chi, Jiu-Jitsu, Kenpo, have competed and performed in the Can-Am.  The Can-Am has indeed become a showcase of Martial Arts.

There are over 700 divisions to compete in, such as hand forms (Kata/Pattern), weapons forms, Karate Style point-fighting, Continuous Fighting, Sanshou fighting, Pankration, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Each category is further divided by gender, age, and ranking.

In this year’s 31^st Annual, we are again anticipating top competitors coming from China, the United States, and other parts of the world, and of course, our own excellent Martial Artists of Canada. To more accurately reflect the international level of competition, this tournament will soon be renamed “The International Can-Am Championships”. This historic name change will be announced in the 31^st Annual Awards Banquet, to mark the official entry of this quality event into the international arena.

I have lots of new photos to share with you on my martial arts blog. This weekend I was at Tiger Balm 2010. Below are some of the photos from day one of the tournament. The Tiger Balm tournament is a big two day event with competitors from martial arts schools from across Western Canada, Washington State, and perhaps elsewhere.

The day for me started early. I woke up at 7AM and weighed myself to discover that my weight had finally dropped that last pound to 200.2, as a result of a big effort dieting and fasting on the last day, munching on ice cubes overnight. Hungry and parched I made it to the weigh-in at 8:00 at the tournament location at Capilano University, already stirring with people when I arrived. With the official weight ticket in hand, some paperwork completed, I started re-hydrating and putting a few calories back into my system for my Sunday fight.

I came back a little later for photography and to cheer on the competitors from Versus21 where I train. Day one of Tiger Balm was a full day of Kung Fu demonstration forms, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Sanshou, Submission Grappling, and Pankration matches. The stands were packed with fans, coaches, and competitors. Its like a school of fish that meet and come together to form a giant swarm. In the gym, the intensity is palpable and action runs all day long on all the mats. I have posted 321 photos to the flickr photo pool for day one. Here are a few I like more than the others from the pool.

Want to see more? Link to 321 photos in this set on flickr.com:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623600791109/

Tiger Balm 2010 view from the stands

Flying Kung Fu Girl

Drunken Swordsman

Power and Grace

Warming Up to Fight

submission grappling

The View from the floor

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

submission grappling

submission grappling

Want to see more? Link to 321 photos set on flickr.com:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157623600791109/