Congratulations to Team Joslin (Hamilton) competitors Joey Martin and Dolan Walker on their success at the Junior Combat Classic – Provincial Grappling Championships.

Joey took home two provincial titles by taking the gold medal in 2 divisions and Dolan fought hard for the Silver Medal.

Great to see all of their hard work on the mats pay off!

Coming off a win in his professional debut –in the first round by armlock–, Ryan Dickson (@rydmma) has been steadily building his MMA skills and fighting record over the last few years. He has faced a some very tough competitors throughout his amateur career and has remained undefeated with a 6-0 record (all finishes).

His next fight will be very soon. I`ll post more info once everything is confirmed.

Here`s a recent television segment aired on CH Television about Ryan and his recent success inside the cage:

I just want to congratulate one of our team’s fighters, Ryan Dickson on his win this weekend over a tough Brett Biederman. He did a fantastic job inside the cage!

Ryan trained hard for this one!

During the fight, Ryan used a solid mix of striking, wrestling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to win what was his professional MMA debut by armlock in the very first round.

6-0 as an amateur  –all finishes/no decisions– (and an XCC welterweight championship belt) Ryan has been steadily building into the strong force that he has become inside the cage.

Thanks to the rest of the Joslin team that helped him get ready for this fight and to everyone who came out to cheer him on. We could hear you all from the cage that’s for sure!

Also special thanks to the many great sponsors that got behind us –>

Ancaster Dental
Tegs Tools
K-Weld
S.S.T (Sports Specific Training)
Trenchless Utility Equipment
Fightzone

Next up…some BJJ tourneys and more MMA fights in September.

Here’s a couple clips from weigh-in and warmup

Early this morning I got back after a fun night in Port Huron Michigan.

A small crew of us –Kevin, Mike, Antonio, and I–headed down with our fighter Steve Bingham and his family to the Border Wars mixed martial arts event.

Steve, who was going into the fight with a 4-1 amateur record, fought in the main event against undefeated (3-0) fighter, George Abdallah from Adrenalin Training Center in London, Ontario.

Watching some of George’s previous fights, we had a strong feeling that he would try to attempt to use a thai style clinch in an attempt to knee Steve in the body and face. He had done exactly that really well in his previous victories.

We drilled many counters to that type of clinch and it definately paid off. Steve showed some good composure throughout the fight, landing some crisp strikes and reacted like a friggin Ninja to catch the armlock submission after only 32 seconds.

Here’s the fight vid…

I just came across the video of the championship MMA fight between Ryan Dickson and Jason Meisel at the XCC in Michigan.

Man, I was super excited to see Ryan win the belt! He had trained so hard for the fight and did absolutely everything he had to do in the gym to prepare for a tough battle that night.

His opponent, Jason, was also 5-0 coming into this fight and showed solid skills and great composure during the action which made for a excellent match-up between the two fighters. It was a very fun fight to watch that’s for sure.

Here’s the video of the entire fight:

MMA Fight Night!

It was a long drive –over 4 hours– from Hamilton, Ontario to the MMA event venue in Flint, Michigan but we managed to arrive long before the fights were to begin.

A buddy of mine, Kris, who also trains with us –a BJJ purple belt–, ended up driving while Ryan and me rode along as passengers.  Our other fighter Steve Bingham traveled with some members of his family.

Hoping to head home right after the fights, it would have been great if our fights were early on in the line-up but that was far from the case. Out of a total 29 amateur MMA fights, we were fights numbers 23 and 28.  We didn’t get out of there until well past midnight.

The fights went really well. Both Steve and Ryan each earned another “win” on their record with perfectly executed arm locks. Ryan landed his submission early in the very first round –45 seconds in I believe– and Steve slapped his on with 1 minute remaining in a three round war. His opponent was tough! After surviving repeated triangle attacks and landing some strikes in the process, he was forced to tap out when Steve locked on an ultra tight and powerful arm lock.

Here’s a video with some highlights from the night…

A Great Weekend at Joslin’s BJJ in Hamilton!

Last weekend was pretty awesome! We raised close to $1000 for prostate cancer research through our in-house Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament. A ton of people came out to the event and the competitors had plenty of fun as they battled it out for medals and a few championship belts, all for a great cause.

Afterwards I held my first ever BJJ black belt grading where I tested two of my longtime students, Dave Mark and Dean Massicotte,  for the faixa preta (black belt in Portuguese).

After a short warm-up, Dave was up first. He flowed through his eight minute long technical demonstration very smoothly and executed a huge variety of take downs, guard passes, escapes, sweeps and of course submissions. A great teacher as well, Dave studies the game of BJJ diligently and possesses a ton of technical knowledge.

After that, he became the man in the middle, having to face a fresh sparring partner every minute for quite a while.

Showing a lot of heart and great technique, he pushed hard through it all doing extremely well with everyone that stepped up onto the mat to face him. At the very end he and I matched up to roll. Two minutes later, we were back on our feet and I had the pleasure of wrapping his waist with the belt that few people ever achieve –took Dave close to 14 years I believe–, the BLACK BELT!

Here’s a video with a few of Dave’s grading highlights

Next up was Dean Massicotte!

In the weeks previous, I had been noticing that Dean –along with his demo partner Jack– was spending a ton of extra time after class preparing for the technical demonstration he was set to do at the grading.

On the weekend, all of that hard work payed off! He blasted his way through an amazing and inspiring display of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Starting with some solid and very important self defense movements, Dean progressed to showing some nice take downs, then went on to  lock on a bunch submissions, passed a few guards then swept his training partner using many slick attacks.

Just like Dave, I put him to spar next against a new, fresh, and fired up rolling partner every minute or so. One by one, he worked his way through them all busting out a few nice submissions in the process.  The crowd cheered often as he showed why he deserved the belt presentation he would soon be receiving.

Ten minutes later Dean was a BJJ BLACK BELT!

I was very proud to present him with it, that’s for sure.

Here’s Dean’s grading highlight vid…

Afterwards, about fifty of us went out to eat and celebrate!

I must say that presenting each of these two great guys with their black belts was very special to me as it was the first time I’ve ever awarded that rank to anyone in the art Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I look forward to the next time I get the chance to do it.

Congrats guys!

I just wanted to congratulate all of my students who competed in the Grappler’s Quest tournament this weekend in London, Ontario. Great job guys!

When the smoke cleared and the tournament was over, we ended up taking home a pile of medals. In total I believe the numbers were 6 gold medals, 5 silver, 4 bronze medals and one fourth place finish.

• Shane Callaghan – 2 Golds
• Wyatt Leblanc – Gold
• Mike Hoad – Gold
• Joe Martin– Gold,Silver
• Michelle Fulton– Gold
• Dave Mark- Silver
• Cory Dunne– Silver
• Rudy Sbranchella– Silver
• Ryan Dickson– Bronze,Bronze
• James Long – Silver,Bronze
• Eric Dufresne – Bronze
• Lam Ngo– 4th place

(I think I have all of the results in. If I missed anyone please let me know.)

It’s great to see everyone’s hard work paying off. Also I’m loving the new BJJ schedule and am fired up about now being able to teach more gi classes than ever before.

See everyone on the mats tomorrow night!