Stressed? You’re Not the Only One!

For the last few years, research study after study has cited that an increasing number of Canadians lead stressful lives, with 76% of Canadians citing high stress levels, putting us only behind South Korea and Australia for the world’s highest stress levels.

As a backlash to the chaos of modern life, many people are now turning inward and retreating from stress by getting back to the basics and setting precious time aside to reconnect with themselves.  A few weeks ago, famous local yogi and lifestyle crusader Eoin Finn, and his band of cohorts hosted a protest of sorts with the Hammocks in the City event in downtown Vancouver.  In this pop-up art event, hammocks were strung up among the trees outside the busy Vancouver Art Gallery and passers-by were encouraged to take a few minutes to scramble into a hammock and just… be.

The Zen Moment

It was a gorgeously sunny day and if you cared to notice, the sky was full of the type of fluffy clouds that bring to mind visions of cotton candy and childhood afternoons running in grassy fields.  However, many of the busy pedestrians and impatient drives were too busy to notice, something that event founder Eoin Finn laments.  The first Hammock in the City event took place 3 years ago, but Finn vows that the events will continue more regularly.  In his quest to help others “find the best lifestyle for [themselves],” Finn strives to fight against the dominating Western drive for conquest and competition, by advocating a return to valuing relaxation and the concept of “taking in nature.”  This return to nature is one part of Finn’s top 3 tips for leading less stressful lives, which he promises will lead to a more fulfilling and satisfying life

1. Listen to your bodily feedback: take a moment to concentrate on how your body feels – does it ache here, or hold tension there?  What makes your body feel good?

2. Appreciate nature: take time to notice your surroundings and to appreciate the beauty in small things, such as the way the sun shines on water, or the cool breeze on your skin
3. Activity: exercise is important, but avoid the desire to compete with others and even yourself.  Exercise to feel good, not to achieve some end goal.

Yoga is one way that Finn says you can reconnect with yourself and is a good step to incorporating his three tips into your daily life.  Spending an afternoon in a hammock is another.

The glycemic index is a scale that classifies carbohydrates within foods in accordance to the increase in blood-sugar levels inside our bodies. The glycemic index scale is a rating from 1 to 100 which indicates how food affects the bloodstream at a measurement of 50 grams over the span of two hours. Carbohydrates that have a high index level break down faster than those with a lower index rating; in turn higher rated carbohydrates break down faster and release quicker into the bloodstream.

Click here for the glycemic index.

Carbohydrates are our main source of energy. Countless research has been done that indicates how carbohydrates impact our physical performance not to mention our physical appearance. Anytime you lift weights you will benefit from the workout provided that you eat two of the following things: protein and carbohydrates. So, when my trainer ordered me to follow the glycemic index with a snarl and a shaking fist, I often grabbed myself a protein shake consisting of 30 grams of whey protein and water, with some blueberries and strawberries within 5-10 minutes (but no later than one hour) after lifting weights. Unlike carbohydrates, protein should be digested as quickly as possible after you lift weights to help the growth of muscles. Therefore, it is best to avoid whole foods as a post-workout source of protein, but instead consume liquid protein.

There is one thing that you want to avoid directly after a workout and that is fat. The reason is simply that fat slows down the digestion process. Therefore, the carbohydrates required to restore your energy level and the protein required to stimulate and increase muscle growth will be negatively altered and will not be digested in the amount of time necessary to benefit from these foods. This may leave you looking more like a character from Roseanne than your favorite iconic sports figure. “DaaAAAaan!!” There are good fats out there that are a necessity to healthy living; Udo’s oil, olives, almonds, etc. I’m not referring to those fats as much as I’m referring to the glorified chocolate bars on the market that usually have “PROTEIN” written on their packages. If you don’t believe me, just read the ingredients as they typically consist of as much fat as they do protein.

Be smart, be healthy and don’t waste your workout; make sure you eat the right foods and benefit from the hard work you put into yourself. After all, you deserve it.

There are so many styles of yoga out there – what one should you start with? Well it really depends on your fitness level, flexibility, and goals. Here is a concise guide on various styles I’ve tried:

Iyengar

A style created by B.K.S. Iyengar, this type of yoga is characterized by its extensive use of props like blocks and straps to get you into position, which makes this style perfect for the first-timer. Iyengar yoga emphasizes correct posture and body alignment, meaning the teacher will be watching you for slouching!

Hatha

More free flowing than Iyengar, Hatha yoga focuses on relaxation and meditation through the use of poses that focus the mind and the breath. Hatha is a good overall style that has great de-stressing abilities, but can feel a bit slow.

Vinyasa

Also known more commonly as flow yoga, or power yoga, or Ashtanga, Vinyasa yoga is any yoga that focuses on the flow of movement to purify the body and focus the mind. Vinyasa yoga is more strenuous and faster than either of the previously mentioned styles. Practitioners will undergo a continuous rotation of a series of poses, usually sun salutations, which work to warm the body and get the blood flowing. Poses are held only momentarily before moving onto the next one and you can often break a light sweat during a practice. Sweating is good though as this helps to purify your body of toxins.

Bikram

Also known as hot yoga, this style is famous for taking place in a 40-degree room with matching humidity! Imagine the hottest day of your life, and then doing a series of strenuous and awkward poses in middle of the afternoon of that day. I would not recommend this for beginners as there is a high chance it will either be 1) too hard for you or 2) cause you to hate yoga forever. Once you’ve done a few classes of normal yoga though, I would highly recommend doing Bikram as you feel amazing after and it will seriously tone your body. Everyone I’ve seen doing Bikram yoga for awhile has been seriously cut.

Kundalini

A style that isn’t usually offered, but I tried this it out a few years ago and will never again! This style is not like any of the other styles and is really focused on meditation. Unless rolling around on your back like a baby with your legs in the air while chanting appeals to you, then this style is likely not what you’re looking for.

And there you have it, a beginner’s guide to yoga and the most commonly offered styles I’ve come across. I hope this encourages you to try yoga as I truly think it’s one of the best ways to unwind and exercise ever!

Time Frame:  After injury – Pre-Surgery

Right way: I was informed that while I can’t play soccer, the more strengthening and activity I do before the surgery, the quicker the recovery I would have afterwards. Once I got the swelling and pain under control, I turned into a resistance band and balance exercise fiend. I would do exercises and ice daily.

Time Frame: Surgery – Walking without crutches

Wrong way: I lay in bed in pain, only leaving the bed when nature forced it. I rearranged my room so that everything I needed was in arms reach; mini fridge, computer, phone, back scratcher, you name it. I largely resembled a baby in a crib; dormant, occasionally distracted by shiny things and would cry until someone would get me what I wanted. I iced as instructed. It was 3 weeks before I left my room, crutched to physio and started exercises. I would do the exercises 3 times a week when told, and would slow down at any hint of pain thinking once again that my knee was made of glass. It was 6 weeks until I was able to limp around.

Right Way: I crutched my way to physio on day 2, still on pain killers. I was promptly informed to not be an idiot, but to keep the ambition. Within the first week, I was largely self-sufficient, crutched to get water and food, sat outside, and would immediately ice if I felt any pain. This increased blood flow, kept swelling from pooling, and ultimately got me active. I was attending physio by the end of the first week and was constantly pushing myself with the exercises, but also being careful. I was able to start walking within a month with hardly any limp. I was informed that it was the strength of my surrounding muscles that reduced stress on the knee allowing for my quicker improvement.

Time Frame: Walking to playing

Wrong way: Thrilled by my ability to walk, I thought I could walk to the moon if I needed. I would go out with friends, head to the mall, etc., without making any adjustments for the fact that I had a major surgery. This resulted in swelling and pain, but more detrimentally me turning overly cautious again. At this point, I was given a verbal “bollocking” from my trainer, who pointed to a man twice my age that had the same surgery two weeks after I did, yet was somehow ahead of my in recovery. Determined not to let an old man get the best of me, I started rehabilitating with more determination than ever before. I soon passed him and regained my rightful place at the top of the ACL recovery podium. I was able to return to training with the soccer team in 6 months, right on schedule.

Right Way: I continued to push myself, constantly asking my trainer what other exercises I could do, and how to make them tougher. I would have days where I overdid it a bit, but would ice constantly, take a day off, learn from it, and continue where I left off. I was able to start training with the team 4.5 months after surgery and was playing in games 6 months later.

The most important thing to remember about long-term injuries is that the more effort you put into recovering, the quicker you will recover and the less impact the injury will have in the future. Too many people think that surgery fixes the injury and then it’s back to normal. While surgery may repair a ligament, align a bone, or fix a problem, it only provides a platform for which to recover. Many people never gain back the muscle strength and balance needed for a full recovery resulting in more stress and pain placed back on the joint that was injured in the first place. This leads people to think that the surgery wasn’t successful and the injury didn’t heal, when in fact the improper rehabilitation never gave it a chance.

9:39 AM – I wonder why the snooze button is only nine minutes long and curse the non-procrastinating creator of this function. I reach for my iPhone to see what I planned for myself today. Yoga at 10:30 AM. Yoga?! All I know about yoga is that bald Indian guy that used to shoot fire from the Street Fighter video game, “Yoga flame!”. I surf my iPhone for Tetris and wonder if I can squeeze in nine or ten levels before I realize that it’ll be too late to make it to yoga…

9:53 AM – I step out of the shower and remember that the character from the video game was called Dhalsim, “Yoga fire!”

10:06 AM – I finish my protein shake breakfast and glare at my shoes sitting at my front door. If I put those on, I’m committed to trying this yoga thing. I try to rationalize why I would sign myself up for this class. I remember a Sensei of mine telling me how beneficial yoga is for stretching and how cleansed he felt afterwards. I shrug my shoulders and reach for my shoes.

10:11 AM – Construction. I wonder why I never see anyone working at a road construction site. Is it some new union rule I don’t know about. I mean, there are four guys just standing there. Do they need dirt or something? Where’s the dirt guy? What do they need?! Why are they just standing there?! Do something! I wish my job allowed me to do nothing. I wish I could just stand around and drink coffee… Mmm coffee! Is there a Starbucks around here?

10:14 AM – Construction take two. Nothing has changed except I might just get one of those oat fudge bars to go with my mocha. I hear the radio station deejay inform me that Jimi Hendrix has a new album coming out… That can’t be right. What year is this?

10:21 AM – I’ve realized that the people leaning on shovels has a negative impact on my ability to drive. My blood pressure is rising and new obscenities start forming in my head. Not only have I lost about ten minutes of my life due to this new union rule, but now there won’t be any Starbucks in my immediate future – and I really wanted that oat fudge bar.

10:26 AM – I’m running up two flights of stairs with two gym bags, a yoga mat, a towel and a bottle of water. A large man wearing a sleeveless black shirt and a grimace shakes his head as I budge by him. I imagine him silently judging me as a New-Age version of Pig-Pen from Peanuts. Less dirt, more Lululemon.

10:29 AM – I tentatively walk into a very warm odd room which resembles a backwards lower case ‘B’. The room is inhabited by nine women who all look at me simultaneously. I wonder why there aren’t any guys here. Am I in the right class? Why is it so hot? There’s a woman at the front of class. I introduce myself and proclaim that I’ve never taken yoga before. She smiles and welcomes me. Her name is Judy and her smile is warm. I like her immediately. There’s only one spot left in this odd shaped room: front row centre. Exactly where the new guy without experience wants to setup…

10:31 AM – Judy has instructed me to do my best and has started playing some calming music through her iPod. Judy welcomes the class to hot yoga. There it is! I knew there had to be a reason it was 100 degrees in here. This music is extremely mellow; definitely not the ‘new’ Jimi Hendrix. She asks the class to cross our legs and close our eyes. I’m told to place my hands on my knees with my palms up if I wish to receive energy or palms down if I am in need of grounding. I didn’t have my coffee, but I choose grounding nonetheless. Judy tells us to concentrate on our breathing. Six seconds in, eight seconds out. I comply. Strangely, I feel a little bit more relaxed even after a just few breaths. Am I breathing right? I’m told to exhale all the outside worries and negative thoughts away and breathe in new air. I comply. “Release the tension from the drive over”. How does Judy know about my construction laden travel time? I don’t remember Dhalsim being clairvoyant… although I do remember him being blue at times.

10:38 AM – I’m holding a pose call downward dog. The sweat drips from my brow and splatters gently on my mat like a dew drop falling from one leaf to another. Six seconds in, eight seconds out. Deep breaths. Judy calmly requests we change poses.

10:43 AM – I’m sipping my water and I receive a smile from Judy. Yes, I’m doing well. Better than well, I feel great!

10:52 AM – My right leg is bent ninety degrees, my left leg is straight behind me. My left elbow is on my right thigh, palm up. My right hand is placed on my left hand, elbow to the sky. Six seconds in, eight seconds out. My thoughts have left me. I am serene.

11:12 AM – Sweat drips from my chin. I am balanced on my right foot with my left foot resting on my inner thigh; left knee to my side. My arms are raised to the sky as is my gaze. I am accepting new energy and dispelling negative thoughts. I am breathing. I am serene.

11:23 AM – I am laying prone on my mat. Judy is no longer speaking to me but speaking for me. I am nowhere but lying prone on my mat. My thoughts are at rest. My breathing is pure.

11:29 AM – Judy is thankful for our ability to share this experience with her. I am thankful for her sharing with me.

11:33 AM – I take my first breath of winter air in an hour. I inhale deeply. The air is cool to my lungs and to my face. A lowered car zips by me in the parking lot driven by a teenager with a baseball hat tilted sideways. Loud bass emanates from the trunk. I notice that the air smells of pine. I feel like I’ve just taken 100 hot showers: clean. I feel like I could lift a house: strong. I feel like I know what I want to accomplish in life: focused. I smile and head towards large disapproving men in sleeveless shirts; towards road construction; towards a world without Starbucks and rehashed Jimi Hendrix albums. These things suddenly don’t seem as important to me. All that is important to me is the cool air in my lungs and the breeze on my face.

Sources: http://oneyogalife.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/chakra-chart.jpg

http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/dhalsim-20.jpg

http://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/dhalsim-20.jpg

From here on out RICE is your best friend.  Not the stuff that comes in sushi, but Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.  Most of these are pretty self explanatory. 

Rest means, don’t do anything that may aggravate or worsen the injury.

Ice the injured area as often as possible. A safe guideline is to put an ice pack on the area for 15 minutes every hour. Your body’s natural response to an injury is to swell to protect the injured area.  Swelling reduces range of motion and can slow overall healing time. Icing not only reduces swelling, but also helps control pain as well.

Compression is also aimed at reducing the swelling, but also helps provide support for the injured area.  An elastic wrap (or tensor bandage) is usually the most common way to provide compression. The important thing to remember with compression is not to hinder circulation. If your toes start looking like purple grapes, you should loosen the wrap if you don’t want your foot to fall off.

Elevation is the last part. This doesn’t mean, take the gondola up to the top of Grouse Mountain (there have been no studies proving that a beautiful view will increase your recovery time…yet, anyways).  This simply means, keep the injured area elevated above your heart.  This technique uses gravity to help reduce swelling in the affected area. If at any point after your injury you think it’s a good idea to see a doctor, go see one. If an injury is more than a minor one, the longer you wait, the harder it may be to fix the problem.  RICE applies to the vast majority of injuries both short and long term.

After an injury, the best way to recover is often using active rehabilitation.  A chance to sit on the couch, watch TV, and have your friends and family be your servants is hard to pass up, but doing nothing will only prolong your recovery. I am not saying to attend your next hockey practice, but the longer you do nothing, the more of a lasting impact your injury will have. Active rehabilitation entails exercises that build up to a return to your activity.  For example, active rehabilitation for a sprained ankle would include things such as, drawing imaginary ABC’s with your foot.  This helps work on the range of motion, increases muscle, and increases circulation to the injured area without putting any force on the ankle that could further injure the damaged ligaments.

Active rehabilitation is simple way to ensure that a person starts slowly reintegrating themselves back into their activity. I cannot stress how important it is to work your way back into your sport at the right speed; simply resting for 3 weeks before going back into a game will likely result in further and possibly worse injury to the same area. If at any point after your injury you think it’s a good idea to see a doctor, go see one.  If an injury is more than a minor one, the longer you wait, the harder it may be to fix the problem.  When you find yourself with a minor injury, hopefully these tips can help speed up your recovery because next time your nephew breaks your Lego masterpiece; you want to be able to catch the little bugger without tearing your hamstring again.  No one wants to be the uncle that failed twice at catching a 4 year old.

While it is the most notable, it is not what sinks the most indestructibly Titanic of athletes. Many injuries are caused because people have not trained to expect the unexpected; they train for certain movements only. To clarify, runners train by running and skiers train by skiing. Maybe I’m stating the obvious, but allow me to explain.

Injuries rarely occur when an individual performs a perfectly routine movement. For example, a runner doesn’t sprain their ankle by running around a track; they sprain it when something out of the ordinary happens, such as stepping on the side of a curb, or while trying to hurdle a fence while running from the bulldog that’s chasing you like you were made of bacon.

The lesson here is that many injuries happen when unexpected things occur, so you must train to be able to handle whatever gets thrown your way. Many individuals, especially high level athletes, stick to the same types of training. While it’s necessary to repeatedly practice your sport, most athletes are ignorant to the fact that they are always training the same muscles for the same movements while others get ignored.

Injuries often occur when your normal movements suddenly become abnormal and you are unable to cope with the change. There are two easy training techniques that take up very little time, yet can be the deciding factor in avoiding an injury: balance exercises and resistance training.

Resistance training simply means performing movements while having a force of resistance, whether it is weights, resistance bands, or running while someone is holding you back by your shirt. Weight training is the most common form and its benefits cannot be stressed enough. I will be skipping over this common type and go into the lesser used techniques.

Resistance bands are one of my favourite training tools as they allow you work all of your muscles, including stabilizers. The other great thing about resistance bands is that they are naturally adjustable by folding them over, increasing or reducing tension. Many injuries are sustained through coming into contact unexpectedly with another person, causing a force that resists your movement.

Training with resistance under controlled conditions will help you deal with game situations, such as a hockey player getting hit while taking a shot. The natural shooting form gets halted and that can cause injury. If the player attaches a resistance band to his stick while taking shots, it will help him deal with a similar situation in a game by strengthening all muscles involved in the natural shooting motion, something that weight training has difficulty replicating.

Balancing exercises refer to conducting certain movements on an unstable surface, usually a balance board or cushion, but can include anything from a pillow to a floating inflatable raft. The purpose of the unstable surface is to train your body to regain and keep its balance quickly. Doing this builds your stabilizer muscles which are often ignored through conventional training.

The stronger these stabilizers are and the quicker they can react, the better chance a person has of avoiding injury. The most basic example (and I encourage everyone to try this) is standing on one leg while trying to stay balanced. This may seem very easy for most. Now grab a tennis ball, can of soup, or a medicine ball, if you are feeling adventurous, and start moving it around, playing catch with a friend, or bouncing it against the wall (not recommended if you are using a can of soup).

To make things more difficult, try standing on a pillow and try the same movements. The more unstable the surface, the more difficult and therefore better you will be able to react on the field, court, or track. After months or years of training, I can almost guarantee you will never slip on ice again (and may even pull off matrix-like moves in the process).

These two types of training are often overlooked and I believe they are essential to not only preventing injury, but improving athletic performance. It is the unpredictability of sports and life in general that can cause injury. Being able to adjust and cope will not only stop you from rolling your ankle, but can also help you get a basket after being fouled in basketball.

The theory behind today is if you can do a single leg squat on a wobble board while attached to a resistance band and playing catch with a medicine ball, you should be able to avoid an angry dog without rolling your ankle, or whatever else life throws your way.

Typically, when looking at carbohydrates on a nutrition label you will see two subcategories of fiber and sugar. This is where we get into the good carbs vs. bad carbs debate. One is very beneficial to our bodies and actually performs key roles in digestion, while the other may be responsible for many of our weight problems. The main issue is that the good one is consumed far less than the bad one.

Carbohydrates typically trigger a spike in blood sugar which will then trigger insulin. Insulin is a hormone that transports nutrients through the blood stream. The faster nutrients (carbohydrates in particular) flow through you blood stream, the quicker they will either be stored or used for energy.

Considering that many of us are less active and eat more carbohydrates per day than we should, that carbohydrate carrying insulin ends up being stored as fat.
Fiber is a type of carbohydrate that actually protects you from this blood sugar increase.

When interacting with fellow carbohydrate, sugar; fiber can do an amazing job of slowing down the rate of digestion. Sugars, such as fructose and sucralose, are called monosaccharides. Without getting too science nerdy on you, monosaccharide’s break down in the body extremely quickly, causing that blood sugar spike.

The key to losing weight is to regulate your blood sugar and insulin levels. Learning when and how much sugar to eat is a key to regulating blood sugar levels.

Here are some tips for you:

• Avoid sugars after midday.
• Always eat sugar with fiber (keep at least a 2:1, sugar to fiber ratio)
• Try to only consume sugar from fruits and vegetables. They have fiber built in so you will be all right.

The biggest no-no in the sugar-eating world is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Some scientists are blaming our overweight epidemic on HFCS; I too, am currently waging war against it. The food industry has begun to reduce the amount of HFCS in our food, but the numbers are still way too high. Watch this video to learn more:

Improper Preparation

When starting an activity, whether it is your first time or your hundredth time, preparation is crucial.  Treat your activities as if you are about to wander across the desert.  Fueling up with food and water before you leave is vital if you want to make it over the first sand dune.  Additionally, trying to swim through the sand blindfolded, in a parka, may sound fun, but is ultimately not a good idea.  If you are going to play hockey with friends, make sure you dress up properly.  Wear a helmet, gloves, or perhaps more importantly, a cup.  If you are going to the weight room, make sure you know the proper technique to lift weights.  If you don’t know, ask the guy with an 8-pack, or the cute girl to help.  You will learn something and perhaps even get a date out of it.

Lack of Fitness

It is now important for me to clarify what I mean by lack of fitness.  I simply mean that a person is not fit enough to do a certain activity.  I consider myself fit yet, if I attempted the Ironman triathlon, I would most certainly end up injured and probably dead (my swimming ability has been compared to that of a drowning rat).  If you are not fit enough to do something, work your way up to the activity.  If you used to be able to run a marathon, it doesn’t mean that you still can 10 years after college and cheering on the Canucks with your two friends, Molson and Doritos.

Excessive Use

After erasing all traces and memories of your friends Molson and Doritos, you have finally completed a marathon again, injury free!  I know you are proud of what you can do, but it is a bad idea to do it day after day.  This principle holds true for all activities no matter how harmless and easy they seem.  Sitting at a desk, typing may seem easy, but back problems and carpel-tunnel syndrome affect staggering amounts of people.  After years of typing, you cannot argue that a person wasn’t fit enough to type or they didn’t prepare properly.  While we may like to think of ourselves as high performance goal scoring machines, we do need rest and time off.

Unavoidable Incidents

Unavoidable incidents do not merit much discussion as they are, well, unavoidable.  However, the important thing to realize is that fitness, strengthening, and exercise are able to minimize the severity of these unavoidable incidents.  The best way to illustrate this is when a quarterback gets blindsided by the opposing team.  If the quarterback is a professional athlete , they will receive a more minor injury and recover faster than my brother who may be the same size and age of the professional, but is only active two weeks out of the year.

The important thing to realize is that everyone can minimize their chance of injury if they are smart about how they approach their activity.  I have learned many of these lessons the hard way myself.  Next week I will further explore injury prevention through training techniques.

This is a monumental event for West Coast sport lovers, as it brings the fastest growing sport to a city that was once thought to be such a backwater town that it couldn’t host an NBA franchise or an Indy event. However, with the announcement of the largest MMA organization, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), planning a June show at GM Place, coupled with the Winter Olympics, Vancouver is quickly becoming a hotspot for modern athletes.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this brand of combat, please allow me the opportunity to educate you on the basics of MMA, while attempting to dispel some archaic myths about what Senator John McCain once referred to as ‘human cockfighting’. In fact, many anti-MMA protesters try to smear this fledgling sport by typecasting it as barbaric and primal.

The Beginning

While the original concept of MMA was indeed primitive, I believe it no longer should be labeled in such a manner. The Ultimate Fighting Championship was first displayed in 1993, in an attempt to decipher the greatest form of martial arts style this side of a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. Combatants from the striking disciplines of Boxing, Savate, Kickboxing, and Karate, as well as from the grappling disciplines of Sumo, Shootfighting, and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu all stepped forward to prove their style superior. The fighters were pitted amongst each other inside a chain-link cage in a 16-man tournament held for one night of pugilistic warfare. Originally, the UFC consisted of very few rules: there were no weight classes and the only striking restrictions were no eye gouges and no biting. Imagine a primitive no-holds bar form of fighting that even Mike Tyson wouldn’t have been exempt from. The winner of the first UFC event was the 175 pound Brazilian Jiu-jitsu ground wizard, Royce Gracie, who came to fight in a kimono that another fighter mistook for pajamas. Royce Gracie and his family of ground technicians will forever live in infamy as pioneers of MMA due to this performance, as well as those displayed at UFC 2, 3, and 4 (but not so much in UFC 60).

Present

Today, Mixed Martial Arts consists of a plethora of rules and regulations to minimize injuries and maximize fighter protection. There are strict drug testing policies that often supersede the hosting cities guidelines to promote fairness, something in which other major professional sports have not yet adopted. Yes, Major League Baseball, I’m talking about you. There are also trained medical professionals cage-side to ensure fighter safety. Although there are strikes used that are somewhat foreign in the history of North American combat sports (i.e. elbows, knees, joint submissions and strangulations), statistically, MMA has proven a much safer sport than that of its’ established older brother: Boxing.

Not Just Any Martial Art

Boxing purists have attempted to discredit MMA through attacking striking techniques, the homosexual positions that two fighters often find themselves in when grappling, and the types of people who view the sport. These are nothing more than ignorant, uneducated claims from sporting figures that have defamed a once great combat art through perversion and corruption. To lay claim that Jiu-jitsu promotes homosexuality is as fruitless as stating that reality television promotes abstinence.

Although the styles used in MMA vary from fighter to fighter and can be viewed as unorthodox to downright sloppy, depending on the user and the viewer, what is difficult to process (especially for boxing promoters like Bob Arum), is that in order to be successful in MMA in the 21st century, fighters must train in at least three disciplines full-time. To focus on only one art and expect to be superior in today’s world of Mixed Martial Arts is to discover what hurt feels like (again, see Royce Gracie’s performance in UFC 60 for a better understanding). With that kind of training, the perfection of one form will obviously take three times as long to achieve. I, myself, have been trained in Kickboxing, Can-Ryu Jiu-jitsu, and Judo which allows me an educated, but hardly expert, opinion on this matter. When I tend to focus on my striking, the skills I achieved in my grappling suffer and vice versa. However, there are indeed fighters on the UFC roster that exhibit amazing proficiency in all aspects of MMA. One such fighter is the Montreal native and UFC Welterweight (170lb) champion, Georges St. Pierre (or GSP). GSP has twice earned Canadian Athlete of the Year and is perhaps the most dominant fighter in recent memory. GSP is a modern hybrid-fighter who has amalgamated wrestling with Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Kyokushin Karate to enable him the opportunity to be apt wherever the fight goes. Although fighters like GSP are few and far between, the evolution of these modern warriors is increasing as well as prominent in bringing MMA to a higher level of mainstream viewership.

Make no mistake about MMA however; although it is a neophyte sport, it is here to stay. I have witnessed the first hand experience of a UFC event having taken in UFC 102 in Portland, Oregon and can honestly attest to the excitement and enjoyment. Perhaps, this is not your cup o’ tea, so to speak, but one thing that is exciting for Vancouver, is that we are finally being targeted as a city that is progressive and prominent. Good for us.

Sources:
Mixed Martial Arts – Sanctioning by the Vancouver Athletic Commission
Research – Combat Sports
Bob Arum Blasts Floyd Mayweather, MMA