New Dojo, New Sprung Floor
This weekend we are moving into our new location at 140-12811 Clarke Place in Richmond BC. It’s an exciting time for us as it is our first location that we have had complete autonomy over. It is a vast improvement over our last location, with 50% more training space, bigger changing rooms, even a lounge in which parents will be able to watch their children train by video camera in our new martial arts classes for kids 9+.
In addition to the expanded facilities, we’re also building a sprung floor to provide greater shock absorption when falling. This is a wonderful addition that will help reduce the impact to make it easier on the body to train longer, but also to help prevent injuries. We are using the sprung floor system outlined by the Denver Judo Dojo. The only major differences in what we’re doing is that we’re using plywood instead of OSB.
Here is the floor plan for the new dojo:
We picked up all the ethafoam cubes (1050 total) yesterday and are picking up all the plywood today. We ended up buying them through Wisconsin Foam Products then shipping them to Point Roberts, just across the border. Doing this saved us a couple hundred dollars in shipping, so if you’re ordering from Canada, I highly recommend this. Of course, the volume of 1050 3″x3″x3″ foam cubes was a challenge to fit in a Toyota Corolla, but we managed (see below).
Tomorrow morning we get started nice and early with our student Kevin Holter, managing the project. Lots of students are coming in to help us out with the building, for which we are very grateful. If we get this all done this weekend, we’ll hopefully be able to start training out of our new location on Monday morning. YAY!!!! 🙂
We're proud to announce that Lori O'Connell Sensei's new book, When the Fight Goes to the Ground: Jiu-jitsu Strategies & Tactics for Self-Defense, published through international martial arts publisher Tuttle Publishing, is now available in major book stores and online. More about it & where to buy it.
I’m glad to hear you’re doing so well, over here it’s quite a hassle to get an even remotely acceptable training space. How many students do you have? I can’t imagine such a pristine location to be cheap, luckily your students are willing to help out to cut costs.
I’m going to have to leave it at that since I just got home from training (lots of kicking & kicking defenses coupled with a review of the yellow belt for the two beginners and rather advanced knife training for me), I’d better get to bed since I’ve got a ton of things to do tomorrow.
Zara
PS: I’d like to see Canada one day and visit you guys, unfortunately that’ll have to wait for now since it’s rather expensive and I’m still looking for a job atm.
We have about 30 students but hope to expand our numbers a little with the extra space and our new youth program (ages 9+). It is more expensive certainly but sometimes you have to take a bit of a hit in order to grow.
You’d certainly be welcome to visit one day when you can afford the trip. You’re a long-time reader after all. 🙂
“First we get the foam… then we get the power… then we get the women.”
LOL!!!
I thought it was pretty clever, especially since they look like giant sugar cubes. Homer Simpson used that Scarface quote about his sugar pile. 🙂
The allusion to Scarface was pretty obvious yet quite funny. What’s not so funny is that the original quote is true in most if not all of today’s world: those with money call the shots and get to make the rules, even if in a so called ‘democracy’. Just look at today’s debt and financial crisis: those who’re getting screwed are always the Joe sixpacks of the world, never the big shots. Greed really does make the world go round…
Congratulations on your new space! I hope to find space someday and move out of the community centre I’m teaching in and have a more flexible teaching schedule. Best of luck!