Arashi-Do News

Each year our schools in Calgary and Cochrane participate in a club tournament. Featuring Karate, BJJ, Muay Thai, weapons and team competitions, this tournament is fun, fierce, and fantastic!

Arashi-Do Martial Arts is pleased to welcome it's newest school to the Arashi-Do  community! St. Albert, a northwestern suburb of Edmonton, is a great place to start a new school. 

On Saturday, July 30th, the Arashi-Do Martial Arts Rocky Mountain House Summer BBQ was a smashing success! Hosted by our own Melissa with a assist from Darla, good food cookery from Renshi Russ, and the food and company contributions of our members, this was a great time! A special visit with Kyoshi Mike and his family helped make this day even more fantastic. We can not wait for the next Arashi-Do Rocky event! A special thank you to Melissa for hosting and to Darla for the help!

Summer break is upon the Arashi-Do Calgary schools! During the week off our schools take the opportunity to do some maintenance, paint, do a little renovating or updating, and in general spiffy up the schools! Right now, Arashi-Do Acadia (Calgary SE) is hard at it putting in time and sweat equity to help insure that your school is awesome. Similar renovations and updates are taking place at Deerfoot North (Calgary NE) as well, and the Rutland Park (Calgary SW) school is undergoing a big renovation. Check out the pictures from the first two days of work at Acadia!

Arashi-Do Rutland Park is making a few changes for the summer and beyond! Check us out as we add Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) and new classes to the schedule and invite you to share in our social media!

Mestre Sylvio da Matta Behring, our BJJ guide and mentor for over a decade, paid his semi annual viist to our Red Deer school in April.  An instructors seminar was followed by a grading of all of our Red Deer and Central Alberta area BJJ students and a student seminar.

Mestre Sylvio da Matta Behring, our BJJ guide and mentor for over a decade, paid his semi annual viist to our Calgary schools in April. His first stop was in Calgary. An instructors seminar was followed by a grading of all of our Calgary BJJ students and a seminar.

Summer is traditionally a time of exploration, loose bedtimes, warm nights and cool (hopefully) mornings, vacation and playing! Summer is game nights, family camping, roasted marshmallows and star gazing, and more than anything else it is that time when you can let go of some of the stresses of everyday life and relax. Summer is also one of the best times to start your martial arts journey!

What do you do when you are the Innisfail High School Principal AND you are owner and lead instructor at the local Arashi-Do Martial Arts school AND it is Twin Day at your High School?

Wow! What an amazing day! 

 VS

Muay Thai and Kickboxing are two different sports; two different martial arts. Though the terms are often used interchangably, they are in fact quite different from each other. We asked some of our Muay Thai instructors to talk about those differences.

I watch a lot of movies. My whole family are movie watchers and enjoy different genres and styles across the board; a good movie is a good movie. However, since I work with a lot of people in the martial arts, it occurred to me I might actually not be watching the "good" martial arts movies; just the ones I happened to stumble across. Looking through IMDB didn't help much because based on my own likes and dislikes I know that sometimes the movie you like isn't necessarily a "good" movie. So I put together an informal poll, sent it out to both martial artists and people involved in martial arts in many different ways, and compiled this list. Sit back and enjoy the "Arashi-Do Top 12 Martial Arts Movies" list! Remember, this is an informal poll and not meant to be a definitive list; this is for fun and information. Sit back and enjoy!

ATTN ATP & BBC Calgary club members and those who would like to become members! ATP and BBC will adopt a new format as of January, 2016.

Anticipated start date is February 7, but subject to change as needed. 

Sign-up sheet will be available at Deerfoot North desk or you can call 403-612-4050 to reserve your spot. Fee for the session must be paid before the first class and you need your own bo staff. This class is limited to 15 students so if you are interested please reserve your spot right now!

Date: Saturday January 30, 2016 at 10 am

Place: Fox Run School

2 Falcon Ridge Drive, Sylvan Lake, AB

Karate starts at 10 am

BJJ starts at 12:30 pm

Muay Thai starts at 2:30 pm

Hello, Arashi-Do members, students, family and friends! It has been a busy beginning to fall this year and we have a lot to cover so let's get going!

Mestre Sylvio da Matta Behring's annual fall visit to Calgary and Edmonton to teach, grade, and share his vast Jiu Jitsu knowledge was a smashing success!

On Saturday, October 31, Arashi-Do North hosted an Halloween party at Deerfoot North for the West Hillhurst and Deerfoot students, members and family! 

The students, members, and their families at Rutland Park and Acadia had a wonderful Halloween party at the Acadia, Calgary south location on Saturday afternoon. 

A tournament can be fun, competitive, and affirm your skills and development as a martial artist. The Samurai Sword Series 4, Calgary, was definitely fun, competitive, and affirming!! The fourth in a five part series of tournaments for our Calgary and Cochrane locations, this tournament was a special challenge as there were so many students who were brand new and had never participated in a tournament. Every one of the competitors was an example of good sportsmanship, courage, and skill development across the martial arts continuum. 

* Disclaimer: I am not a martial artist. I am a parent of several, friend to even more, and have attended close to 100 tournaments over the last 15 years. This is written from my perspective and is meant to be helpful to those who have never been to a martial arts tournament or have never been the support system for a participant before.

     It's tournament season! For those of you relatively new to martial arts, tournament season runs from late September through early June, usually, and a tournament can be a small club tournament where only those members of a certain club, such as Arashi-Do, are invited to participate, or a huge open tournament that is open to all clubs and several martial arts styles. I would like to offer my top 12 hints, tips, tricks, and things-you-should-know before your first tournament.

Hugh has a Karate Black Belt with Arashi-Do Martial Arts out of Springbank, Calgary. He cross trains in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He started Karate with his 3 sons and though they have since taken on other pursuits, Hugh stayed with it. After 4 years he earned his Black Belt. He sometimes helps teach at the Springbank dojo, and attends most of the seminars and tournaments (as time allows). He admits that he was in generally good shape when he started Karate, or he thought he was, but believes his current good health can be attributed in part to continuing to train, to develop as a martial artist, and to the community of martial artsists who encourage and build up their team mates. Hugh is 60; he started when he was 52.

I am a teacher. I was certified as an Early Childhood educator and Elementary Educator over 20 years ago.

When it came to choosing extra-curricular activities for my children I stood upon my high elevation as

an educator and judged those who were "teachers" in these activities. It did not take long for me to be humbled,

inspired, and in turn to learn from the outstanding Karate educators my children were fortunate enough to learn from.

 WELCOME! It's a new season and we have a lot to catch up on. First and foremost, welcome or welcome back to all of our students, family members, staff and instructors, to the new season!

 In 2010, GSS (General Social Survey) conducted a research survey asking Canadians across the age, gender, income, and nationality spectrum when and what sports they actively participated in.  This survey and the conclusions drawn from the results are not so much startling as they are a guide to helping understand what is happening and may suggest ways to see an increase in participation.  The single most telling result showed decreased sport participation across all age groups (pg 14).

Finding The Right Martial Arts School: Where To Start

The martial arts have been around for centuries and many people from many different backgrounds have trained in martial arts. This trend is not just local but is in fact global. With the growth and popularity of mixed martial arts and martial arts in general in national and world wide competitions (i.e., The Olympics), showcasing many different martial arts, more parents are interested and becoming involved and are looking for their children to become involved. One result of the growth of martial arts as an industry is the perpetuation of many different schools offering many different styles, curriculums, and structures.

So, what do you look for in the school that is right for you and for your child?

Check out all the fun and trial, tribulations and fantastic training for our 27 members team in Rio de Janeiro for the inaugural CBJJD Tournament!

Arashi-Do Martial Arts and Arashi-Do CSW Team Affiliates Coach Steve Newman and Kyoshi Gary Vig were not just honoured to help bring Erik Paulson to Alberta, but were extremely happy to participate in the first ever CSW seminar in Canada! Erik Paulson not only brings decades of experience with him but is an outstanding coach as well. His ability to communicate with his fellow instructors and students is matched by his energy and his willingness to demonstrate each and every move and countermove with the students. Learn more about Combat Submission Wrestling from Coach Erik's website. This was an great event for our instructors and for our members. Having special guests like Erik visit us here in Canada helps our whole martial arts community and being affiliated with professionals like Coach Erik, people with a vast pool of experience and knowledge, can only make our Arashi-Do community stronger. Stay tuned for updates on upcomingseminars and when we can expect Coach Erik to visit us again.