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.

Hargobind Wrestling club

My fight blog attended the Hargobind International Wrestling Championships 2010, featuring Olympic freestyle wrestling tournament with world class competitors vying for medals and prize monies. This annual event attracts champion wrestlers from the US and Canada and around the world.

Link Full photo pool on Flickr.com.

The event is hosted in Surrey BC by the Hargobind Wrestling club. Hargobind is known for putting out world class Olympic freestyle wrestlers. Among the most well known wrestlers is Daniel Igali, with his Olympic Gold medal win for Canada at Sydney Australia in 2000 in the men’s 69kg freestyle division, his Commonwealth games wins, and his 116 consecutive wins while in university.

Link Full photo pool on Flickr.com.

Surrey BC is well known as a community where many Sikhs live, and the Hargobind Wrestling championships are held at the time of Diwali, where wrestling events are held traditionally to mark the festival. Guru Hargobind, I have learnt is the sixth of the ten gurus of the Sikh faith and had a love for wrestling. Hence the club is named in his honour. The championships also featured a traditional Punjabi performance.

Link Full photo pool on Flickr.com.

The Hargobind Championships are worth seeing because of it being a world class event, and also because its part of a cultural experience. My own interest is in training in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, freestyle wrestling includes techniques like takedowns, that are at the boundaries of our sport. When we spar in BJJ, we start primarily from our knees, even though tournament Gi BJJ starts from standing. But I have learnt since that sports like Judo and Freestyle wrestling are the better sports to learn takedown techniques. For sure, wrestlers at the calibre at Hargobind Championships know their takedowns. They are all quick, snappy takedown artists, quick at shifting levels, upturning their opponent, and scoring points in the process. The wrestlers in the lower weight divisions are the fastest, but the bigger wrestlers are only a little bit less so. Wrestlers at Hargobind were also there to compete for $35,000 in cash prizes. The tournament culminated with challenge matches set to bhangra drumming, where lighter divisions would challenge the heavier ones, setting greater agility against greater strength, for $1000, $2000, and $5000 for a win.

Link Full photo pool on Flickr.com.

A new martial arts gym opened the doors to the public on Saturday September 25, Raw Academy Vancouver. Naturally I had to take up the invitation to see what kind of gym it is going to be. I was impressed to see that Raw Academy already had its high school wrestling program in place for 3 months, and the large mat space is lined with a wide variety of heavy bags and two boxing rings along the North side.

I originally heard about RAW Academy through ‘Tricky’ Nick Marinos, local MMA fighter. I then noticed that wrestler and grappler Frank Mensah was an instructor, awesome and super high energy Muay Thai Instructors A. Kru Williams and Tony Strong would also be offering courses at Raw Academy. Earlier in the year, I took a couple classes with them at the Stand Up Muay Thai Gym in Coquitlam and loved the classes.  As well Local fight promoter Gerry Gionco and my good friends at MMASucka.com have office space down there.

…was RAW Academy just a gym for MMA fighters? Paul assured me no, that was not the case at all.

Saturday’s guests were treated to a demo of high school wrestling program and cake and a nutrition seminar by Charles Holmes. I had a chat about RAW Academy with Boxing trainer Mike Wiese and Paul, another of the wrestling coaches. Both trainers have over 15 years of experience training, and they are there because they love what they do. With people like Gerry Gionco, MMA Sucka, and Nick Marinos at the gym, was RAW Academy just a gym for MMA fighters? Paul assured me no, that was not the case at all. He is working to establish wrestling programs in all of the high schools in Vancouver, having already established wrestling in many of the schools. “We arent into the hype of MMA just because there are a couple of fighters at the gym… that’s no way to run a business at all. We are about establishing sport programs throughout the community. With out core sport programs in Vancouver like high school wrestling, there would be no MMA fighters in the city”.

Three months open and RAW Academy, by all appearances, has been busy planting its roots into the community with its great youth wrestling program, and already announcing other fitness programs from Yoga, to Hip Hop, Senior Fitness, and more. Visit their site for a the full program schedule.

My fight blog couldn’t pass up an opportunity to meet up with Dan Severn and the Pro Wrestling Maniacs at All Star Wrestling in New Westminster on September 10th at the Carpenter’s Hall. Many know Dan Severn for his victories in the beginning UFC series. But besides a long record of Greco Roman Wrestling and tournament championships, also has a career as a professional wrestler. Severn made a special appearance in the Vancouver area and is offering a wrestling seminar. Fighters take note: he is a master of the art and is one of the toughest guys on the planet. You could learn something from Dan Severn.

Shooting pro wrestlers was a blast. They show so much drama, passion and character. They shout, and maul, play dirty tricks, mess with the fans, do everything three times, and go flying through the air. And they give great camera.

For more pro wrestling mania be sure to check out the next event at www.aswcanada.com
Link to full flickr photo set

For more pro wrestling mania be sure to check out the next event at www.aswcanada.com
Link to full flickr photo set

For more pro wrestling mania be sure to check out the next event at http://www.aswcanada.com/

Link to full flickr photo set

All Star Wrestling

All Star Wrestling Night featuring Dan Severn

Friday, September 10 2010, · 8:00pm – 10:30pm.

Carpenters Hall
726 12th. St.
New Westminster, BC

All Star Wrestling is proud to announce that UFC Hall Of Famer, Dan “THE BEAST” Severn is coming to ASW. He will be taking on “Bomber” Nelson Creed in the main event on September 10th. Creed won the spot against Severn after two intense matches with “Loose Cannon” Kenny Lush. The first match was a 20 minute draw in New Westminster July 24th. The rematch August 13th in North Vancouver. Since an opponent needed to be appointed Special Commissioner Scotty Van Driver decided to have a coin flip. Lush called the toss but Nelson Creed was the victor.

On the fight card

• Dan “THE BEAST” Severn vs “Bomber” Nelson Creed
• ASW TRANS CANADA TITLE 2/3 Falls – Disco Fury(Champion) vs Gorgeous Michelle Starr(Challenger)
• GRUDGE MATCH -  “Mr. Beefy Goodness” Vance Nevada vs Massive Damage
• KENDO STICK MATCH – Seth Knight vs The Great Kasaki
• RETURN OF THE ROCKET -  “Rocket” Randy Tyler vs Dropkick Murphy
• GIRLS GONE WRESTLING – Raven Lake vs Aurora
• The Volcano & Mr. India vs Lak Siddartha & Adam Fedyk
• Plus the return of the Toga Boy!

Tickets are $20 Ringside & $15 General Admission. Available in Advance at:

• Central City Comix-10221 King George Highway Surrey (604) 584-2664
• Talking Illustrations- 932 12th. St.,New Westminster (604) 521-9143

Visit www.aswcanada.com
Info-604-710-0872

Dan 'The Beast' Severn

Train With The Beast

All Star Wrestling presents a MMA Seminar with Dan “The Beast” Severn.

Sunday September 12th 2:30 PM

This is an exceptional opportunity for anyone who is training in Mixed Martial Arts or Wrestling to spend some time on the mat with UFC Hall of Famer and former WWE Superstar Dan Severn. You don’t even have to be a fighter currently in training to attend, just have a passion for the sport and an open attitude and learn techniques from one of the masters of the Octagon and Squared Circle.

You will have the opportunity to learn the same lessons that you could learn at “The Danger Zone”, Dan Severn’s training center in Michigan. Mr. Severn’s techniques have also been taught to several Security Firms, United States Police & Sheriff’s department’s, The United States Marine Corps, United States Army as well and skills learned can be an asset to anyone in the security and law enforcement field as well.

Some of Mr. Severn’s Acheivements include:

• Professional MMA Record of 93-16-7
• World Record Holder of 15 Title Belts
• UFC Hall of Fame Inductee
• Former WWE Super Star
• 2 time NWA Heavyweight Champion
• 3 time UFC Champion
• Freestyle National Wrestling Champion
• Multiple Time Shoot Fighting Champion
• Greco-Roman Wrestler for 30 years
• Black Belt in Judo, Jui Jitsu & Combat Sambo
• Holder of over 95 State, National & International Titles + Records

Cost is $65. To book your spot call 604-710-0872.

Link to Facebook Page.

Welcome back to my fight blog. Most of us in Vancouver missed the MMA fights on for UFC 110 due to the Olympics going on here. But thanks to another post from a friend, on Google Buzz, I think, I have for you today perhaps the geekiest thing so far to appear on MartialAtsNomad.com martial arts blog.

Verbatim, the makers of USB storage devices, is celebrating their dominance in the market place in a unique way. They are offering a web experience where you can create monsters out of select USB storage products, and then you can set them up to fight one another and see who ranks the highest.

Go to: http://www.verbatim.jp/senshuken/

Make your ‘media monster’ robot using the selection service, and set them against another monster and watch them brawl it out.

make media storage monsters and make them fight

Earlier this year I found a little two hour, once a week class offered by Martial Arts instructor Jordan Lawrie. I don’t recall the name for his class, and maybe there wasn’t a name for it, come to think. But to describe it, I would call it ‘Creative Self Defence’. We did lots of things I was familiar with, and Jordan added lots of creativity to the mixture. I wasn’t able to continue the class, but looking back, it was a great class and I learned lots.

I shot a little bit of video, although just with available light. Settings have been tweaked to bring out the action just a little better. I caught up later with Jordan over coffee and pannini and asked him to tell me a bit more about his background, his personal philosophy on martial arts, and his training drill featured in the video, which he calls the ‘Seven – Eleven’.

The class:

Jordan’s 2 hour class was a grab bag of techniques, but we focused a great deal on the clinch.

“The clinch. The clinch is sort of the lost range – there are a few ranges in fighting, out of range, kicking range, punching range, knees and elbow range, and then you have your ground – grappling range. The clinch is the range before you hit the floor, when I can grab on to you. The clinch is very important in order for you to be able to defend yourself, and to have tricks, like getting behind your opponent because you are safe there… feeling that dynamic of the opponents body weight is important, having a good firm base and knowing how to manipulate your opponent’s base… You don’t have that in kickboxing, where as you are a free individual out here working in space, dealing with gravity and your opponents kinetic energy. Getting in close is a way to deprive your opponent of weapons.”

The Seven Eleven Drill

“I got the name from one of my old instructors, he was a really well trained guy, going to some or another corner store, late at night, got swarmed by some teenagers. He told them he wasn’t looking for trouble but suddenly, a kick to the groin turned on his adrenaline and he ran right through the first guy he saw and kept running… a really well trained guy, trains all his life, gets swarmed, doesn’t see it coming. Violence happens now. You don’t see it coming at all… I like to do a lot of multiple attacker scenarios, realistic, in that a couple more individuals really changes your game plan. Attacks occur often by weak people, with backup. Attacks among men have back up and weapons.”

“Kickboxing is good to learn the mechanics of punching and kicking, to develop your power, but if you want to train for the real world I really think you have to be training more intensely with these kinds of drills – multiple attackers, multiple weapons, I’ve got several variations on this one, the defender has boxing gloves on, and he’s being attacked by a boxer, essentially, and a wrestler who’s got a (rubber) knife in his belt. The wrestler can pull his knife out once he gets the clinch, and then he can start stabbing.”

“So it teaches him to use the clinch to prevent that guy’s arms from going into his belt to find a weapon. I’ve done it also where the boxer in the middle didn’t know that these guys had weapons. And then once he gets stabbed, its 20 or 30 seconds added to his drill… The drill also teaches line theory, which says put something between you and your attackers. In this case he is using one of the attackers, he’s forming a line. If there was something in the room, even better. So many variations on this one. This drill was mostly appropriated from different martial arts, putting different theories together, and developing my own take on it.”

About Jordan Lawrie

Jordan describes himself as a Jeet Kune Do practitioner. He has come by this title by the path of training in martial arts that he has taken over the years, starting with Aiki Jujutsu and moving on later Chinese Kempo, with its hard and soft styles for about 5 years. Later Bruce Lee’s writings had a strong influence on the idea that he could train in whatever he wanted. He got in with an MMA practitioner friend and got to learn a lot more about the clinch, the standup clinch, Jiu-Jitsu, kickboxing and boxing, tried lots of classes around town; Wolfe’s Defendoo for a year.

“Once you have enough experience in Martial Arts you can learn… a lot in a short period of time… so, I dont have a lot in the way of belt credentials, but I really carry with me the Jeet Kune Do, Miyamoto Musashi philosophy of learning what you can- a little bit of everything and just challenging yourself to make yourself a little bit better… if someone were to ask me what I train in, although I have never formally trained in it (except for a few classes at Ed Wong’s school), I would say it is Jeet Kune Do.”

Jordan now teaches at http://www.elementsacademy.com/ , a modern styled Hapkido school, with a strong fitness component in the curriculum. He is able to teach kickboxing, self defense, MMA – a little bit of everything, true to his traditions of being creative.

“Being creative. I think one of the things that Martial Arts is really lacking is creativity, its an art form, its like a dance, its like an interpretive dance, but a combative form. Because, I don’t think you can be held in a dogmatic believe that once a system is set its a fixed system. A system is always shifting, right down to a cellular level… its always in flux, its never completely in balance. To continue to be an art form it needs to be adding and subtracting from multiple sources.”

Web links in this post:

http://www.uss-canada.ca/index2.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeet_kune_do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi

http://www.elementsacademy.com/

Saturday at the 2009 Western Canadian Martial Arts Championships featured Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and Submission Wrestling. The event was as well attended as the night before at the big gymnasium at BCIT. Even MMA fighter Kalib Starnes came by to cheer on his friends. There were also a couple of entries from the gym where I train, Versus21.

Full Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157622532152799/

Full Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/superwebdeveloper/sets/72157622532152799/

Here are my select shots from Tiger Balm 2009.