1 week Ago By Perry Bergson
On a busy night at the WAMMA dojo, Carwin Craig has his legs on his father Colin’s chest and is working to isolate his left arm. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support.
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On a busy night at the WAMMA dojo, Carwin Craig has his legs on his father Colin’s chest and is working to isolate his left arm. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? On a busy night at the WAMMA dojo, Carwin Craig has his legs on his father Colin’s chest and is working to isolate his left arm. Carwin slides his right arm around his dad’s left elbow, tucks his hand back to his own shoulder and gently eases his body weight down to the mat as his father taps out to an arm bar.
“It’s very cool,” Carwin said of the jiu-jitsu class. “I love it. He teaches me stuff and I try to teach him stuff.
” Carwin Craig works on a technique to cinch an armbar as his father Colin watches during a recent jiu-jitsu class at the WAMMA dojo on Park Avenue East. The sport has become a passion for the father and son, who will both participate in an upcoming show in Brandon. (Perry Bergson/The Brandon Sun) April 8, 2025 Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a century-old, non-striking martial art that focuses on trying to submit an opponent with techniques ranging from chokes to joint locks.
Carwin, 13, is a a grey-white belt who started in WAMMA’s Bully Safe program at age six and never left. For four years, the elder Craig watched his son in classes. “I decided I wasn’t getting any younger so if I wanted to try it, it was now or never,” said Colin, a 41-year-old purple belt.
“I came to a free trial class and never looked back.” Both are competing in Brandon Bouts 2: Submission Only Grappling that will be held at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium on Saturday, April 26. The road to the sport for Carwin was paved with some trial and error.
“He started jiu jitsu because we tried the traditional hockey and baseball and stuff and it just wasn’t his thing,” Colin said. “We just thought outside the box and put him in jiu jitsu and he’s thrived in it.” “I like fighting,” Carwin added.
“It got my anger out.” WAMMA founder and lead instructor Chris Kading said the sport lends itself to families, with that one scenario playing out over and over again. “What happens by default — we never thought this was going to happen — is that the fathers that are watching the kids programs because we encourage them to stay, they start getting interested and want to join and vice versa,” Kading said.
“We get a lot of kids coming down just to watch: We encourage the kids to hang out here. Before you know it, the kids start bugging their parents that, ‘Hey, I want to try the kids class.’” He said they now have about 15 families training at the facility.
Watching the Craigs training in front of him, Kading said there is an appeal to that sort of hands-on bonding. “Everyone who starts jiu jitsu starts it because they either want a little bit of additional fitness or, most importantly, they want a little bit of self defence,” Kading said. “But they start discovering all the other benefits.
The camaraderie, everyone down here is pretty nice, the bonds that I see with the parents and families because they are interacting. I think a lot of touching and hugging has gone the way of the dinosaur so there are all kinds of benefits. “I don’t know where I would be life-wise if I hadn’t found this years ago.
” WAMMA founder and lead instructor Chris Kading demonstrates a jiu-jitsu technique during a recent class at the dojo on Park Avenue East. He is organizing Brandon Bouts 2: Submission Only Grappling, which will be held at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium on Saturday, April 26. (Perry Bergson/The Brandon Sun) April 8, 2025 The club originally started in a 700-foot space downtown and had a few locations in the area prior to moving four years ago into a 4,000-square-foot dojo on Park Avenue East.
It’s already straining to accommodate all the different activities, which also include Muay Thai, kickboxing, wrestling and mixed martial arts. It didn’t take long for Carwin to realize he’d found his place. “I knew nothing and within about a week of coming here for the first time, they taught me so much,” Carwin said.
He enjoys the feeling of improving on his technique, and likes the teamwork in the gym as well. Colin said he has Kading to thank for that fact. “Chris is amazing,” Carwin said.
“He’s always here with open arms to anybody who shows up. He’ll teach you whatever you want to know, and whatever level shows up, he’s here to show to all his techniques. Jiu jitsu wouldn’t exist in Brandon if it wasn’t for Chris.
” The sport has certainly brought the Craigs together. Colin now serves as head coach of the youth competition team, which enters tournaments usually within about a four-hour radius of Brandon — Steinbach, Winnipeg, Moose Jaw and Regina — although they’ve also gone to Saskatoon. “Carwin likes to compete, and a lot of the time, it’s just me and him on the road,” Colin said.
“The whole team doesn’t always come so my favourite part is those road trips, just me and him hanging out. The matches are cool, we’re there for a couple of hours, but really it’s the driving to and from and hanging out in the hotel before the matches that is my favourite part.” This time, they won’t have to travel nearly as far.
The inaugural Brandon Bouts 1 was held on April 1, 2023 at the Western Manitoba Centennial Auditorium. While Kading hoped to have one every year, it’s taken two years to build on the inaugural event. He said the experience in 2023 showed him the concept could work.
“We learned that Brandon and Manitoba are ready for more Brazilian jiu-jitsu events,” Kading said. “I was a little concerned because this was the first super event we put on that was strictly jiu jitsu, it wasn’t striking. But with the increased activity of the UFC, you be hard-pressed to find an 18-year-old male who hasn’t watched jiu-jitsu videos and can’t strap on a rear-naked choke and demonstrate some jiu jitsu.
“The popularity of jiu jitsu is still not anywhere near where it’s going to be. I’m predicting it’s going to be as popular as hockey in the next 10 to 15 years.” He has 16 individual matches confirmed for Brandon Bouts 2, a number that will likely grow.
When Kading unveiled the plans for the second card, the least of his concerns was finding athletes willing to participate. He actually had the opposite problem. “My students were waiting in line,” Kading said.
“We could have had a lot more matches on the card if we had a little more time and people wanted to stay for six hours as opposed to three and a bit.” Kading noted the first event had overtime in the non-submitted matches, but to make the second event more dynamic and moving quicker, that’s been eliminated. A winner will instead be declared in every match by judges.
In a neat twist, at the halfway point of each match, the three judges will indicate who is leading. Carwin Craig works on a technique to cinch an armbar as his father Colin watches during a recent jiu-jitsu class at the WAMMA dojo on Park Avenue East. The sport has become a passion for the father and son, who will both participate in an upcoming show in Brandon.
(Perry Bergson/The Brandon Sun) April 8, 2025 To encourage action, a little bonus will be made to anyone who comes up with a submission victory. The length of the rounds are based on the level of the competitors. For blue belt or under, the maximum length is six minutes.
Purple belts can compete for eight minutes and black belts are 10 minutes. If a brown belt fights a black belt, that bout is also eight minutes. While the first card featured UFC veteran and jiu-jitsu black belt Joe Doerksen of Winnipeg, there aren’t as many matches involving black belts in the second event, with a focus instead on blue and purple belts.
“Realistically, they’re a lot more exciting,” Kading said. “In a lot of cases, the black belts are so good the action is almost negated because they are so dynamic and they’re so good defensively that it will look like they’re just hugging each other. There aren’t as many explosive exchanges.
” Tickets are $39 for adults $33 for students and seniors and $15 for children. The doors open at 6 p.m.
, with the first bout at 7 o’clock. “It’s going to be awesome,” Colin said. “It’s going to be exciting.
I haven’t competed a lot lately and it will be a good opportunity to do it on a stage that’s not quite just a local tournament. It’s going to be televised and the whole team and gym is going to be there. It will be a bit more pressure but I’m excited.
” And unlike the tournaments the Craigs attend, this time the son will have a chance to be on the sidelines watching his father. “I’ll be cheering,” Carwin said. “I’ll want him to win for sure.
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