I’ve been training in Martial Arts since February 2015 at the Basches Martial Arts school. For about three years, I took regular classes at Basches and got my Black Belt in December 2018.  The main focus was the stand-up martial art, Taekwondo, where kicks are emphasized.

About two to three years ago, Sensei Basche asked me to train one-on-one with him during the weekday mornings and I agreed.   For the most part, two days a week we practice stand-up Taekwondo sparring and drills.  Two other days we train in Jiu-Jitsu which is ground-based and similar to wrestling.

Training with Sensei Basche who is a 5th degree Black Belt in Taekwondo has really made my martial arts better. I’m learning to punch and kick better and my defence is improving due to our sparring and grappling so often.  He also trains at the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school and shares his knowledge with me.

If you ever have the chance to train with someone better than you, do it. I’ve got so much better training with Sensei because he pushes me farther than I think I can go or want to go sometimes.  Not only is my technique and toughness improving, but my stamina has improved because the length of our sparring rounds are getting longer and longer.  Our typical Jiu-Jitsu rounds are seven minutes and we have gone a 17 minute round once.