"Lynn Valley Martial Arts", North Vancouver, BC, Canada

**CharlesH** · Posted On: 8/10/2009 12:54am

So, as my first contributive post to Bullshido, I decided to review a Krav Maga/MMA dojo I've been training at for a couple years and provide my thoughts behind the ratings. Admittedly, it is a bit of a flawed review, as I am only able to train there a few months at a time before I head back to Ontario for school, but it's the best dojo/gym I've ever trained at. That being said, favouritism takes precedence

Aliveness - 8:

This one's an interesting category because I think it should be called combat intensity, or at least that's what I'm going to consider it to be. Anyways, the combative intensity varies significantly depending on the mood those involved are in. There aren't that many regular fighters - probably 7 or 8 of us in total - but the intensity corresponds to the mood we're in, from some non-striking groundfighting, to gloves, shinpads and (sometimes) headgear for stand-up. Regulations are restricted by what the fighters are willing to tolerate and are often supervised by an instructor.

Equipment - 6:

Good quality equipment provided - tombstones, kicking pads, gloves, stand-up punching bags, well-maintained mats (aside from occasional stubborn bloodstains), rubber knives/guns - with some additional equipment available for purchase.

Gym Size - 6:

It's big enough for four or five very energetic roly-poly groundfights.

Instructor/Student Ratio - 7:

I'm not sure what an objective classification for a "large" class would be, but a large class to me is about one instructor and an assistant for 16-18 people. In our dojo, we generally have 8 - 12 people, with one or two instructors, at least two assistants, and experienced students provide positive support when paired with less-experienced ones.

Atmosphere/Attitude - 8:

There is no judgement applied to newbies; my greatest critic when I began was myself. Generic "orders" are given that often push you to your limit - many of the workouts are intended to be nearly impossible just to keep you constantly moving - but that is the most invasive an interaction will get.

Striking Instruction - 7:

Striking training focuses more on the training element until you demonstrate some initiative and spar with others on your own, but strikes use all points of the body (though we do seem to prefer the knee).

Grappling Instruction - 7:

Groundfighting instruction is based on what situations you get into when you simply try to make your opponent submit. A few moves are taught and run through a few times at the beginning of instruction (after the "warm-up"); after, students are loosed on each other in varying size/weight pairings.

Weapons - 4:

We do some rubber knife fighting and some rubber/metal gun fighting. Nothing really serious and techniques are more often oriented toward the unarmed individual (disarming), but we do learn strikes and have "free assault" time where we just run around trying to stab each other. Also, the drills aren't compliant (or 3-like)

Overall - 6.875:

Worth your time and money, and will push you for a good training session almost every single time you go; I was unable to write my name while signing the papers when I began training, but have since reduced this to simply shaking involuntarily. There is a team you can join to be trained for international competitions if that is what you're interested in, and, as of September of this year, you must fight a "rhinoman" (or well-padded person) while unprotected yourself to move up in levels.

Let me know if there's anything about the dojo I missed or elabourated on anything inappropriately. I understand the objective system's intent, but I can't say for sure I've clicked with it intuitively. I'm also really frigging tired right now.

**default** · Posted On: 8/13/2009 2:21pm

Your gym gives out mixed martial arts belts?? Why do the instructors have mma black belts? I didn't see a link to a full contact team,.
The only grappling experience I saw from the instructors link was a blue belt in JJ and a brown belt in Judo.
The striking experience of the instructors is all TKD or different karate styles.
Do any of your instructors have competitive experience?

Do you have martial arts experience outside of this place, and if so what kind of experience do you have?
Do you have any competitive experience?

**1point2** · Posted On: 8/13/2009 2:31pm

Read the sticky regarding aliveness and revise it. The striking and grappling 7s raise an eyebrow, which goes to default's questions on background. Otherwise it looks mostly fair.

**cyrijl** · Posted On: 8/13/2009 2:49pm

3rd Degree Black Belt Mixed Martial Arts

Hrmm?

As someone who has done Krav before and heard all the junk, this school seems to be doing exactly what is giving Krav a bad name. It looks like a TKD school that is a Krav affiliate just for the propoganda. Combined with the MMA black belts, I have to be a bit skeptical.

The core of our Karate / Mixed Martial Arts program tought at Lynn Valley Martial Arts consists of :
Effective stand-up striking Karate Taekwon-Do, Kickboxing and Muay Thai, utilizing punches, kicks, knees, and elbows
Karate point sparring and Taekwon-Do ITF sparring
Best ground techniques from Wrestling, Judo and Jiu Jitsu
Karate weapons, forms and board breaking
Self Defence inspired from Hapkido and Traditional Jiu Jitsu

**CharlesH** · Posted On: 10/12/2009 1:11am

Man, you guys do *not* joke around when you look into the gyms, eh?

Well, I've looked into what kind of BS is taught at gyms - and have nearly signed on to some before realizing it - and I just want to say that these guys are not like that at all; I really, really want to avoid giving them a bad name just because I'm not applying the rating system properly. Just google "Laurian Lapadatu" and check out what you find there; maybe that'll provide some more credible context. Here are some of what I found:

More background: <http://www.skdun.com/board_LaurianLapadatuy.html>

This one informs you that he is Regional Director for Krav Maga operations in BC/the West?: <http://www.commandokravmaga.com/html/locations/bc.html>

Chief Instructor of Canada for "SHOTOKAN KARATE-DO OF UNITED NATIONS": <http://skduncanada.com/aboutus.html>

This one has info about competitions he's been in, including military-run: <http://www.tvfilmsource.com/product....1?productId=41

Originally Posted by default

Your gym gives out mixed martial arts belts?? Why do the instructors have mma black belts? I didn't see a link to a full contact team,.

Well, he is level 5 in CKM, so I'm going to go on a limb and say that was probably a miscommunication with the web designer... (the site sucks balls; Laurian wanted me to do some work on it, but I'm at school so I don't have time). I am confident in saying that he could probably eat a lot of guys on this site alive... Literally. He bit me hard to show that there's *always* a way to get out of a situation (after I was all proud of myself for setting up the best arm-lock of my life) and to never give up.

Originally Posted by default

The only grappling experience I saw from the instructors link was a blue belt in JJ and a brown belt in Judo.
The striking experience of the instructors is all TKD or different karate styles.
Do any of your instructors have competitive experience?

It does only list a brown and blue belt in traditional grappling styles, but I'm betting it's just because he's stopped *formally* training in the belts. Honestly, I'm really not a grappling expert, so I can't really judge the technique or instruction quality there.

As for competition, check out the links above and I know the other instructors have competed in international competitions (Aryannah is currently recovering from an injury received during competitive training; happened just before/during a tournament).

Originally Posted by default

Do you have martial arts experience outside of this place, and if so what kind of experience do you have?
Do you have any competitive experience?

Euch... I don't like talking about myself, but I see why it's necessary here. I've trained in TKD for 10 years (2nd degree black belt instructor; specializing in weaponry), Japanese Jiu-Jitsu for 2 years - funny story: not enough money to spare for promotion tests, so I'm still a white belt but I would be allowed to train with the higher belts to keep the legitimate white belts from feeling stupid - and Commando Krav Maga/Kickboxing (I took both classes back to back) for about half a year. I'm currently training in muay thai, but only *just* got started (as in my first session is this Wednesday at OAMA).

My competitive experience is limited to a single TKD championship - can't remember the year and the medal is back in Vancouver, but I could check if you like; I think it was in Pemberton - when I was younger... probably grade 6 or so? As the tall white boy in a sea of Koreans, I naturally got kicked in the nuts a lot, but I won bronze and I've been an informal fighter since (which my balls appreciate).

Originally Posted by cyrijl

Hrmm?

As someone who has done Krav before and heard all the junk, this school seems to be doing exactly what is giving Krav a bad name. It looks like a TKD school that is a Krav affiliate just for the propoganda. Combined with the MMA black belts, I have to be a bit skeptical.

I think they recently un-became affiliated with Krav Maga for political reasons; I don't know the story behind it, and I don't know if that's cause for concern, but we don't have Krav Maga brand wraps anymore (which I think sucks because I found they were the strongest, so if anyone knows where I could find some, I would appreciate; however, it's more habit than function). Again, they have a shitty website and I'm sure a lot of the stuff that's written up - especially the MMA black belts - is because of miscommunication/ineptitude on the part of the web programmer; Laurian wanted me to do some work on it, but I can't because I'm too busy with school. We don't have uniforms and we *certainly* don't have belts for Krav Maga.

If you have any questions for Laurian or the other instructors, you can contact them at <info@lynnvalleymartialarts.com>.

Hope this clears some things up; let me know if you have any more questions.