This year’s Canadian Jiu-jitsu Union Winter camp was an awesome success. It was held on Feb. 4-5 in Sunshine Valley RV Resort just outside of Hope, BC. It featured some of the highest ranking instructors in Can-ryu Jiu-jitsu, including, Ed Hiscoe Hanshi (9th Dan), Steve Hiscoe Shihan (8th Dan), Allen St. John Sensei (6th Dan), Phil Wiebe Sensei (3rd Dan), and me, a humble 4th Dan.

I always come away learning a few cool tricks at these seminars. One of my favourites from this year’s camp was Steve Hiscoe Shihan’s new version of the bent wrist comealong (shown the the pic below on the left), in which he showed us how drawing the elbow in front of the hand on application allows you to use more of the weight of your shoulder to apply, giving greater control and with less arm strength used. My second favourite was a simple technique shown by Ed Hiscoe Hanshi that could be used by bouncers to separate two people engaged in a fight using the blade of your hand on the infra-orbital nerve (shown in the pic below on the right).

Like other instructors, when I go to these seminars I focus on teaching a training concept that students and instructors can take back to their home dojos and apply to other techniques beyond the ones shown during the seminars. For my teaching portion at this year’s winter camp, I focused on the use of balance breaking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of joint lock comealongs and throws. Below are a couple of pics of me teaching from the camp.

In addition to offering cool training experiences, these weekend camps we do every summer and winter are a great way to connect with people from our style who hail from different places all over BC and Alberta. The resort it was held in was ideal for having fun outside of mat time too. People played pool, enjoyed the hot tubs and indoor pool, and campfires out in the snow. One of the highlights of the extra-curricular activities was a screening of ‘Enter the Dojo‘ which kicked off with a personal video of Master Ken addressing the participants of the camp from the Canadian Jiu-jitsu Union (as seen in the video below).

We thanked Master Ken by sending him a photo of all the participants doing a “tiger salute” and a demo of our “kill faces”, which elicited commentary by the Jiu-jitsu community as seen below. If you haven’t seen the ‘Enter the Dojo’ mockumentary series, you must think us all a little nutso, so be sure to check it out.

After such a fun event, I can’t help but look forward to the annual summer camp held in Sicamous, BC the 2nd weekend in August. To see more cool pics from the camp, check out our album on Facebook. If you’re part of the CJU, I hope to see you there!

Do you attend martial arts conferences with your dojo? Do you find them beneficial? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. 🙂

Tags: canadian jiu-jitsu union | martial arts conferences