My New Project!

Hey Everyone!

So, I posted this on facebook last week, but I haven't posted it here yet.  Starting in September I will be teaching a ladies only class at Pura BJJ!!

Like it says on the poster, Wednesdays 6 to 7 pm, starting in September.  It's going to be free for the month of September as well!  After September, there will be a special membership, that includes the ladies only classes and the BJJ 101 classes.  Of course the ladies are welcome to getting a full membership but professor PJ wanted to give them some options to help with the transition and to make doing jiu jitsu easier for them.  

My friend Heather,  in the picture, is going to be at the classes to, so the ladies will have some experienced people to work with and help them along the way.  The class dynamics will be kind of weird at first, because it's going to be almost entirely new students.  They won't have the hierarchy of experienced students that most classes have.  I  ran into this when I was starting up a judo class years ago to.  I think there will be a few less egos this time around so it should be a smooth process.

I'm really excited for this opportunity.  I'm super thankful that Prof PJ is giving me the chance to teach some classes and build a army of jiu jitsu girls:)!   I'm really hoping a few catch the competition bug eventually but I'll be happy even if none of the new students ever compete to!   I just want to help them learn jiu jitsu and have fun!

We may run into some technical difficulties,  the ladies change room is quite small... There is definitely not room for more then 3 or 4 at a time in there.  We may have to commandeer the boys changroom.  That might be awkward though, because the class is gig to be right after the kids, which is a mixed class, and I think there will be a class after as well.... logistics are complicated hahah.  We might have to move some of the boot camp junk from the cubbies to, since there will be more then 1 girl needing to store stuff there at a time. 

I've been trying to come up with a little information handout type thing, with the class details, and bits of important information to give the ladies, but it's been so long since I was new to a class, I don't really know what would be to "DUH" and what is information that they really don't need for now.   Any ideas?

I've been trying to come up with idea for spreading the word about this,  it's posted on facebook, here on my blog. I'm not going near most grappling forums because they are full of assholes.  I wonder if Goodlife would let me put a poster up at the gym there... It's right by Pura, and they have business cards there already.  hmmmm  any other ideas?  Maybe I should post it on r/hamilton,  it's a pretty  quiet sub reddit, but they might like to know.

In other news...

At the time of writing this,  I still don't have the results from my MRI, my shoulder STILL hurts all the time, I can't sleep on my left side, I can't pick shit up with my left arm, and in general it's just plain shitty.  

My work is moving to hamilton in just over a week! I could bike to work, if I had a bike,  public transit is a pretty decent option, and if I was desperate, I could walk!   

Saturday is the IBJJF Toronto Open.

Then 2 weeks after that is the OJA Tournament in Sudbury, and Grappling Industries in Montreal.  Then, in September Grappling industries is back in Toronto, and the GTA classic is also back!   We will be making the trip down the 401 to the Grappling Industries event.

Can you believe it's August already?  holy crap, where on earth did summer go?  I would have thought that with my shoulder being useless time would have gone slow, but I have no idea what happened to June or July!  

There is going to be a camp at Art of Jiu Jitsu in November!   We had so much fun last summer I really hope we ca get to it.  I've got my fingers crossed that it will be over a weekend so It doesn't take to many vacation days and whatnot.

Oh!  How could I forget,  Rick Slomba from AOJ is going to be at Pura all week next week.  If my MRI shows my shoulder is toast, I'm going to train and deal with the pain.  If it shows it's not so bad, I'll probably sit on the side lines.  Either way, it should be a pretty excellent week.

That's all for now,  I'll have a report for you next week.  Maybe Monday even, but if I am anything like the MRI department at the general, it'll be 2 weeks.

Grappling Industries: Summer Havoc July 20th Recap

This past Saturday was Grappling Industries fourth foray into the GTA.  The event was held at Ryerson University in downtown Toronto and had somewhere around 300 competitors.

They've gotten the format down pat, and it's all very smooth these days.  They have weigh ins on Friday night, and Saturday morning with gi weigh ins closing 15 minutes before the start of the competition and nogi weigh ins closing 15 minutes before the start of the nogi.

Some of the things that were excellent about the day:

• Started on time ran on / ahead of schedule and was pretty much done by 4pm.  Most mats were done by 3:00pm
• The registration / weigh in process was quick and easy.  Especially compared to past events where there was huge lines for registration due to the OGA paperwork.
• They gave away 8 trips to big IBJJF tournaments. Now, these 8 trips were not worth as much as some of the ones they have given out in the past, but with 8 of them, I'm quite certain the total value was the most they've given out.
• People are starting to understand the system and are at their mats ready to go,  making the whole day smoother.
• There was a good size warm up area
• There were more masters out then at previous events, a trend I hope continues.
• The white belt ladies division was a decent size, and very competitive.
• The blue and up ladies -141 was the biggest I've ever seen.  

Some things that were less then excellent about the day:

• my shoulder really hurt by the end, I was careful with it, making the fighters switch sides to raise their hand and stuff, but it still got sore.
• I had competitors from the mat beside me come onto my mat 3 or 4 times, twice they ran into me and/or my fighters.  The mat area or safety area NEEDS to be made bigger somehow.
• Yacinta was the only one in the +141 blue and up divisions, so she didn't get too many fights.  She still got to fight the winner of the -141 for the trips though, so at least she got some fights(and prizes).
• at least 3, and I think 4 referees who were scheduled to work did not show up on very short, or no notice.  This lead to us having less breaks, and the promoters having to use backups.
• Coaches and Athletes STILL don't know the rules.  Seriously people.  RTFM.  
• I got yelled at for not giving sweep points when someone reversed side control
• I got yelled at for DQ'ing  for a heal hook.
• MANY competitors had no idea what a knee reap was and that they were doing it
• I got yelled at for allowing white belts to ankle lock. (News flash. they are LEGAL)
• The medics did an pretty good job. It's a hard job. But there were several times they had to be called multiple times to get their attention.  Perhaps they need to have more so that they don't end up attending to to many athletes and not being able to keep an eye on the floor.
• There were several times throughout the day when fighters were called a whole bunch of times, and they weren't ever at the event.  It would be good for the organizers to figure out a way to quickly/easily go through the weigh-in list and cross reference the draws and make notes of who never showed up.  This would save some headaches for the table works.
• They use IBJJF GI weight classes, but allow you to weigh in with out your gi on. I like that they use the standard weight classes, but I think it would be better if they used the nogi weight classes because they don't have a weight allowance built into them.

Pura had a pretty small team out to the event. With it being summer and all not a lot of people are around on weekends.   Here is how everyone did:

• Brayden: 4-0 in Gi, all wins by armbar  for Gold! This was his first Nogi competition and he had a great showing winning silver.
• Kyle:  His first competition and he went 3-1 in Gi and I believe 2-2 in nogi.  Great work for his first time out hopefully he is hooked now :)
• Eric: 2-1 and one default win in Gi.  This was his first time back competing in a very long time so it was good for him to work off the ring rust and now he is ready to really kick ass at the Toronto Open.
• Stephen went 3-2 looking like a beast.
• Jon went 2-2 in gi, putting 1 guy to sleep (that's 10 now).  He entered in the advanced for nogi, which was a bit silly,  and had a bit of a bad time against the killers David Mosleh, and Arther.
• Alasdair went 2-2 in gi.  winning silver.
• Greg had a rough day, going 0-2 against a younger, larger guy.  He did some great things in his matches though, and is steadily making his way down to super heavy where he is going to ruin a lot of peoples days.

The competition medal results can be found on the grappling industries website.  Pictures from the event can be found on their facebook page and videos will be up on youtube soon.

On a completely unrelated note, I should get the results from the MRI today.  I won't really know exactly what they mean, but it's progress.  I have an appointment with Dr. Levy to go over them on August 7th.  It's been pretty annoying the last few days.  One day it will feel fine, the next it will feel awful.  I imagine it's probably because it feels ok, so I move it more, and that pisses it off.

I guess that is all for now.  The IBJJF Toronto Open is in a week and a half, registration closes this Friday. So get on that.  It should be a pretty excellent event.   We are heading to Montreal for the Grappling Industries event on August 17th as well and after that is another grappling industries event in Toronto, and then the OJA GTA Classic both in September.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention this!!

There are some women's open mats coming up in the Province as well!   This is pretty awesome, and I wish I could participate in them.  You ladies should all check them out.  

Check out this facebook group for details and information on ladies jiu jitsu in ontario.

THIS SUNDAY in Toronto
Women's ONLY OPEN MAT on Sunday July 28th at 10am at Action & Reaction MMA.

August 25th in London:
See the facebook event for details.

Why do the ladies get their own sub only tournament?

This was asked by a facebook friend of mine today, after this past weekends mat militia women's sub only event. 

In this case, it was because they had a guys version a few months ago and wanted to give the ladies a chance to showcase their skills as well.    It was free to compete in, and they collected donations to support a breast cancer charity.  All very cool and I am sad that I missed it. 

But, the question still stands and has been talked about by many.  Why do we need / want ladies only camps, classes, tournament and what not?

There are many many reasons, and they don't all apply to everyone and I doubt every reasons would apply to a single person, but it all comes down to community and not being an outsider.

Have you ever walked Into a  room and been the only young person? Old person? Have you ever taken a course and upon surveying the participants felt completely out of place?  Do you have a hobby that society or your friends and or family think first suit you?  Do you wish you had friends you could talk to about your favourite things but can't because none of them have a clue?  If you answer yes to any of these, then you have a slight idea what its like being a lady in the Bjj world. 

It's not abnormal for their to be zero or one girl in a typical class at moat schools. There are some that have more, and because they have more, they attract more, but that is far from the norm.
It's not abnormal for womens divisions in tournaments to have less weight classes(if any) and less belt division. But, even with these accommodations, empty divisions and combined divisions that leave huge disparities in size and skill level. 

Let's be honest when practicing Bjj, we get close, far closer then most people are comfortable with.  It's weird, its awkward at first, and as they say in all the memes "its only gay if you make eye contact".  Shit like that does NOT inspire anyone to try jiu jitsu, and most certainly not women!  Comments like "that's what I came here to see" when a fighter almost has a wardrobe malfunction are equally damning to the sport and don't really make us girls comfortable training or competing with or around guys.  

I've been lucky in my martial arts career, I started judo young before I even thought about how awkward some positions are, so it was normal and not weird for me from day one. Adults coming to the sport don't have that luxury.   I've also trained at schools that always respected me and didn't make me feel like an outsider.   That being said, I did choose to not train at a club because I was told "the guys wouldn't be comfortable with me in the class and that I should try cardio kickboxing". That was a few years ago, the club now has ladies in their classes, and will remain unnamed.

I've also been lucky because I am not an average build, I'm tall, and not exactly built like a model. Years of working with my dad in the tire business, martial arts, and Dutch genetics have made me not exactly petite.  So I don't have the troubles a lot of smaller more petite women do.   That being said, I'm still female, and. While I am not petite, I don't have a guys body either and still struggle with being less strong and having the lovely issues that come with the hormone roller-coaster that is our lives.  (water retention, mood swings, joint issues, ect, higher body fat ext). 

So you say, "really small, and really big guys have to deal with some of these problems to"!  It's true, and I feel bad for them sometimes, but the fact of the matter is, there are minimum 3 more weight classes for guys, and there are also masters and sometime senior divisions and most tournaments.   If. Guy had no one in their division at a small tournament or they are on the extreme ends or in an alder weight class, they will, almost Guaranteed have to chance to move down to adult or up one weight class.  For us, we don't have different age categories, and chances are, there is no one up a weight class, or two, or you are already in the top weight class, which is 50 lbs lighter then the guys.

Here in Ontario, tournament promoters are pretty good about supporting women in the sport.   A lot give us discount registration fees, which some of my male counter parts complain about.  But, as I have explained it to them. With the average division size for women sitting at 1 or 2, of 3 if you are lucky, and the average male division at somewhere between 8 and 16,  if they win, they get 3-5 fights, if we win, we get 1 or 2.  So, it's fair that we pay less right?  Also, many tournament give out prizes for absolutes or specific divisions,  it used to be the norm that the guys prizes would far far far outnumber the ladies, if there was prizes for the ladies at all.  This is also improving greatly, with the Ontario Open giving almost 1/2 to the ladies, and grappling industries committing to always having at least 1 trip for the ladies.  

I've had conversations with masters guys athletes, with them complaining and stating that they should have trip prizes or other prizes for their divisions to, because there are more of them then their are women.  My argument was, and still is,  they have the OPTION to compete in the old guy division, we don't have the option to compete with the guys (not normally anyway, grappling industries has allowed it, in some cases, when there was 0 competition available).  So, they choose to be in the smaller divisions, so I feel like they aren't actually being discriminated against.  That being said, saying the women are discriminated against is not really true either.  It's business plain and simple.  Should there be big trips for divisions/absolutes that have 1 or two competitors in them?  Hardly seems fair to the promoter!  It's not really the promoters fault there is no competition, and it's not the fault of the athletes that did show up either.

It's tricky to balance, and even talk about without someone getting offended.  I think it's totally fair that there are LESS trips/prizes for women, but we should get the chance to compete for a trip if our male counterparts get the chance.  What I mean by that is:  if there is a white belt guys, blue belt guys, purple+ guys, and blue and up girls trip, then the while and blue belt ladies should either have a trip for themselves as well, OR the opportunity to compete up in the division that does have a trip.  Sure, they probably won't win it,  but then, neither do all but 1 of the guys in their respective divisions.  It isn't fair to the promoter to expect them to have exactly equal prizes when the competitor pools are so insanely different in size.

So, why do we need our own classes/camps/events?  So we can complain to each other about all this.   So we can work together to try to fix all this, and so we can roll with some one who isn't either afraid to hurt us or trying to fix their ego by simply overpowering us. and so we don't always have to roll with smelly boys who have cooties. haha.  You think I am joking, but seriously,  boys are smelly.  But then, sometimes girls are to.  PSA to everyone, wash yourself, wash your gi.

For competitions, we need /like our own events because if we have our own events, we can plan them and work together to all get to them.   It's nice to have our own thing.  Also, because we are excluded from events sometimes. Like the gracie nationals, the 32 MAN showdown, and other things.  Most tournaments do have divisions for us, but they tend to be combined weight/belt classes with less prizes and whatnot, which, in most cases I am fine with. But I'm not fine with events that disclude us completely and that is why we "NEED" to have our own sub only event Kofi :P

This blog post really is all over the place isn't it?  Whatever, this is how my trains of thought work.  I am not your typical woe is me, poor me, I am a girl in a boys world type person. I've been lucky with who i've trained with, and the community around me.  I've got a great gi sponsor who supports me, even though I don't give him nearly as much exposure as the guys do(smaller divisions, lack of divisions = mess mat time = less advertising time). I'm also sponsored by grappling industries, who really are trying hard to help the women in the sport.  By being sponsored by them, I compete at their events for free.  This generally means, that any other girls who show up, have someone to fight. I think doing things like this really helps build the sport.  I know a lot of people don't want to register and waste their time/money when they have no one to compete with.  (of course, I am on the side line with this useless shoulder injury, so the theory isn't quite in practice at this moment).

So, ummm, yea.  Girls only events are cool. I wish we had more of them.  Co-ed events are even better.  Guys only events already exist and on one even blinks or notices.

If you are a member of the female half of the population, there are a bunch of facebook groups where there are open mats organized and stuff.  Ontario has one, Boston has one, There is the Women's Grappling Network,  the Grappling Camp group, and I am sure there are many more.  If you are looking for opportunities to roll and train with women they are out there!!