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FREE Judo, Wrestling, and BJJ for all CAF members @ 3 CDSB EDMONTON

ballz

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Circulating around the base right now... began on 1 Oct 18.

FREE Judo, Wrestling, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) for all CAF members.

Instructors (bios attached)
Graeme Hill, 2nd Dan Judo black belt (British Judo Association)
Rick Biollo, 3rd Degree BJJ Black belt (Gracie Humaita)
Danielle Anderson, CIS Wrestler (University of Regina), BJJ Blue belt (Brazil 021 Edmonton)

Monday. Judo 1430 - 1600
Tuesday. Nogi BJJ 1430 - 1600
Wednesday. Combatives Grappling 1300-1400, Wrestling 1430 - 1600
Thursday. Gi BJJ / Newaza 1430 - 1600

Location. Unarmed Combat Room

Classes are completely "drop-in" style. No registration, no obligations to compete, no requirements to show up so many days a week, regularly, etc. Beginners highly encouraged to join us, we have plenty of beginners taking up martial arts and you won't be out of place.

Email Capt N.T. Sheppard on DWAN for further details / questions.
 

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Wow, that's a pretty great opportunity!  Hope folks take advantage of it.
 
Navy_Pete said:
Wow, that's a pretty great opportunity!  Hope folks take advantage of it.

The first week had good participation and there seems to be plenty of interest with the brigade finishing up fall exercises.

The bigger obstacle is more to do with the machine getting in its own way rather than having enough troops who want to do exciting training and actually  train like warriors. I already know of a handful of people who have been told they are not allowed to participate. That's an ominous symptom of a bigger problem if you ask me.
 
ballz said:
The first week had good participation and there seems to be plenty of interest with the brigade finishing up fall exercises.

The bigger obstacle is more to do with the machine getting in its own way rather than having enough troops who want to do exciting training and actually  train like warriors. I already know of a handful of people who have been told they are not allowed to participate. That's an ominous symptom of a bigger problem if you ask me.

Considering the Brigade hosts a combatives tournament each year it would seem silly not to allow them to participate. An I know the Strats have a pretty involved combatives program.  Why the hesitancy to allow people to participate?  It's not like combat sports aren't part of the CAF - Taekwondo is a CISM sport that the CAF is very active with for example, and you're more likely to get seriously hurt doing that than you would doing ground work.
 
Strike said:
Considering the Brigade hosts a combatives tournament each year it would seem silly not to allow them to participate. An I know the Strats have a pretty involved combatives program.  Why the hesitancy to allow people to participate?  It's not like combat sports aren't part of the CAF - Taekwondo is a CISM sport that the CAF is very active with for example, and you're more likely to get seriously hurt doing that than you would doing ground work.

It generally isn't Bde units that are the issue. 
 
ballz said:
. . . I already know of a handful of people who have been told they are not allowed to participate. . . .

MJP said:
It generally isn't Bde units that are the issue. 

Have they been told that because it's not a touchy-feely activity or because the timings would interfere with their day job?
 
Blackadder1916 said:
Have they been told that because it's not a touchy-feely activity or because the timings would interfere with their day job?


This. Pretty much why we don't do anything fun in the Navy (unless you are REALLY good and then get to go to CISM).

I remember fighting against the guys from 3 Can Div at last year's tournament in Pet. I couldn't believe how good they were considering we were  fighting in the "beginners" category. Turned out that the Brigade Cdr gave the whole team a 1 month CFTPO to do nothing but train for the tournament.

Kudos to them for taking it even a step further!
 
Blackadder1916 said:
Have they been told that because it's not a touchy-feely activity or because the timings would interfere with their day job?

I thought training to defeat the enemy was our day job?  :stirpot:

It is primarily because of timings.

MJP said:
It generally isn't Bde units that are the issue. 

This is accurate, however, I think the level of support is more divided along lines of which trade you belong to than by formation/Unit.

A certain infantry Battalion here generally fully supports letting soldiers train in combatives. However, within that Battalion, I know an EO Tech in that infantry Battalion who's having trouble being allowed to take part. His supervisors feel this is just PT, and it should be done at 0730 during PT timings. They want him to skip morning PT in order to take part, etc.

I know an FSA who has *no* supervised PT from Mon-Thurs, only Fridays. She wants to come in to work at 0730 (vice 0900) and then do this stuff. I still have not seen her out. Most of that cell doing "PT" from 0730 - 0900 simply aren't, and they aren't working all the way until 1600.

I know two people it the same branch, an officer and a MCpl, who wanted to participate. I'm 99% certain they don't have supevised PT either. Their branch head wouldn't even look at the program and gave a flat out no. They remarked how stupid it was to do this fromm 1430 - 1600, said it was "too much PT," and then when told it was training she compared it to skiing as winter warfare training.

The reason it is at 1430 - 1600 is because for one, *most* soldiers on this base are doing supervised PT from 0730 - 0900. Doing it during PT would mean taking away from platoon PT, or they simply wouldn't be allowed to go. The other reason is... *this is not PT* This is skills training. It is no different than gunnery, marksmanship, map & compass, urban ops, etc, and the fact that it is physically arduous is just a bonus. If there was a range running and someone wanted to hop on and do marksmanship training from 1430 - 1600, there would not be much adversity to it. As long as that person's presence at that time was not critical, they'd be allowed to attend. In a lot of the units, soldiers are often dismissed at 1500 anyway because there is simply no more floors left to sweep and they're not going to hold them until 1600 just because.

So for the reasons of the way the daily work routine works, and because of the trades, the Brigade units are generally more able to support. I understand that not all jobs work that way... for example, clothing stores who need to keep hours open for a certain time, the claims cells who need to keep hours open for a certain time, etc. However, my sense is some mid-level supervisors simply can't be arsed enough to be flexible, look at their manning / tasks, and say "Yes you can go today" or "you'll do the morning shifts so that you can attend this in the afternoon, etc" because our culture does not value fighting or warriorism.

This is where I normally insert the story of the 57th Maintenance Company who weren't supposed to the "fighters," they were all "non-combat" MOS's... until combat found them.

Lumber said:
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Turned out that the Brigade Cdr gave the whole team a 1 month CFTPO to do nothing but train for the tournament.

Kudos to them for taking it even a step further!

The Division Commander has blessed a plan to roll out across the Division, Army Reserve included. Edmonton was just the logical starting point to what is a 3 year plan that will be set to repeat on annual basis. It won't look the same everywhere as each geographic region looks different, with different resources and different constraints. But this is honestly the biggest step in the right direction I've seen in the way we approach training.

I'm actually not a fan of "immersion" training. The problem is, that's all the Army knows how to do... we've got a tournament coming up? Train train train for a month... win... and then they haven't actually trained since... so 95% of the training value is lost, but that is time we can never get back. However, I'm just happy that the support is there, it just requires some refinement in approach which is what we're hoping to do here. The tenets of this program are consistency, professional instruction, aliveness (sparring) and environment [allow the soldiers to practice it in a realistic environment (with kit on, etc... more to follow on that) so that they can determine what works best and what can be discarded].


 
ballz said:
This is where I normally insert the story of the 507th Maintenance Company who weren't supposed to the "fighters," they were all "non-combat" MOS's... until combat found them.

It should be required reading for everyone, typo notwithstanding.
 
Although I support this idea and iniative, I would throw out an alternative view regarding the current timings. 

First I don’t think the timings of mid afternoon are very supportable for two groups of people; those above the rank of Cpl maybe MCpl and those who aren’t in either L2/3 HQ staff positions or Garrison institutional support units.

For the personnel above the rank of MCpl in a line unit, mid afternoon is the peak time for IBTS and collective training. As the junior, mid and senior leadership, they can’t take an afternoon and leave their Section/Platoon/Company without the leadership nessecary to conduct the IBTS or CT training, PCFs, maintenance etc.

Additionally that time frame is when it’s possible to do the up and out coordination that is nessecary to get future training arranged, again this is being done by that mid and senior leadership.

Finally I would suggest that PT needs to be understood as something that prepares you for your job, aka to close with and destroy as an example. Therefore PT needs to be considered training that is physical such as rucking, combatives etc. It is not preparation for a body building competition.

I would be far more willing to cut someone loose from unit morning PT which generally has an individual bent to even collective PT than from IBTS gateways or unit CT or PCF courses or maintenance and exercise preps.
 
Unfortunately there is no timing that’s going to work for everyone, or even a large majority of people, as long as the culture doesn’t value it. A timing that works for a critical mass of people (50-70% of the base’s population) is probably the best I can hope for. But my experience doing this within an Infantry Battalion before (2 RCR) was that if we did it once during PT that was fine, people would get let go because it was a one-time occasion / special offering, but to run something consistent during PT like two, three, or four times a week, people simply weren’t allowed to attend. I had originally defaulted to PT timings as well but that experience changed my opinion. I can’t say I disagree with wanting to have your dudes on your Pl-level PT… when I was a Pl Comd, PT was the only time I had with to train with my guys in any meaningful or useful way and it was continually degraded by having onesies and twosies not attending because of this, that, or the other thing.
And how many Platoon Commanders can’t skip Platoon PT? How many Pl 2ICs / Sect comds / etc are going to feel “right” skipping Pl PT to do martial arts training? While their subordinates are on PT? So I’m not sure moving it to PT addresses those folks you listed at all…

When we moved the training to the afternoons, we had a lot more participation. We know starting this we will have to test and adjust accordingly based on participation. I do intend to add some programs to PT timings to accommodate those who don’t have supervised PT but are locked to their desk / cashier cell / orderly room / counter / etc. for the rest of the day, I just can’t roll everything out at once. There is are also facility upgrades coming and standing offers being put in place that makes it easy for a Pl Comd to do this type of activity as a platoon or OC for a sub-unit, etc.

As for whether it is PT or not, I think people associate it too much with the competitions because that’s what they see. Highly intense 5 minute matches. However, that’s not how training works, it’s not very comparable. If we did that for 90 minutes we’d all be the fittest people on the planet or dead. The reality is, it’s more like 15minute warm-ups, 45 minute drills (which can vary but are usually low intensity), about 15-30 minutes of some sort of live sparring which is about 25-50% of a competition intensity. I did BJJ 5x a week in university without added PT and still managed to gain weight. So it may be my outlook but I do not view it as PT, I view it as training no different than urban ops training. Urban ops can also be exhausting, but most of the urban ops training we do is far lower intensity than actual urban ops because it’s a learning/practice environment.

I would be far more willing to cut someone loose from unit morning PT which generally has an individual bent to even collective PT than from IBTS gateways or unit CT or PCF courses or maintenance and exercise preps.

No one is asking anyone to let people out of other training, but let’s not oversell how much training the junior ranks are doing after 1500 on any given day of the week in a line unit. There’s a few points in the year where we are filling mandatory checks in the box and need to make sure Pte X is in his seat so we can put his name down as having attended, there’s also a lot of points in the year where Pte X is sitting on the stairs or sweeping the floor from 1300 until 1500 and then dismissed at 1500.

We’ll see how it all plays out and adjust accordingly!
 
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