It was an overcast Saturday morning when I arrived at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Finding it was easy, it was a short walk from Union Station. When I arrived, I had a little bit of trouble at the front desk. After the Convention Centre staff centre wasted about half an hour of my time haggling over where I had access to, I was able to gain full access to the expo and take in all the sights and sounds.



The first noise I was greeted by heading up the escalator was a loud ‘Wham!’ of a gi-clad body hitting the nearest mat. It was a cavernous, square-shaped room, with the majority of the floor space being taken up by twenty mats in the centre. There were spectator bleachers to one side and vendor booths to the other. I walked around a bit, scoping out the scenery and the major players. Immediately recognizable was Dan Severn, who seemed to tower over his students on the mat. Other than a few people I know personally who live in the Toronto area, ‘The Beast’ was the only face I recognized.

I observed the participants on the mat, and took note of several things. Although the gender of the expo-goers was surprisingly mixed, the vast majority seemed to have one thing in common: Taekwondo black belts. There was not a single seminar I can remember seeing that did not have a Taekwondo black belt participating.

Aside from the majority of Korean martial arts practitioners, most people were wearing gi’s or their martial art’s equivalent dress. In sweat pants and a t-shirt, I felt somewhat out of place and amateurish, despite my Muay Thai background.

The overall atmosphere was phenomenal. There was not a single person I met who was not friendly, and that in itself is remarkable. As I went from mat to mat trying different arts, I performed the moves clumsily, but whoever I was partnered up with took the time to help me out. As a training event, the MMA Expo felt the part.

The first seminar I tried was Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. I was surprised at the complexity of the moves we were being shown. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to even fully grasp each submission, we were moving onto the next one. This was not unique to the BJJ class, I found this was the case in every seminar I took.

I talked to one of the BJJ instructors after class. He told me most instructors had started the first day of the expo off by focusing on a single move and practicing it with their students for the 50 minute duration of the seminar, but most people became bored with it, so they decided to introduce a wider variety of strikes, takedowns, submissions and other types of moves. While it may not have been too helpful to absolute beginners, it was nice to see the instructors accommodating the requests of the trainees; it really added to the atmosphere of cooperation.



Twice a day, each day, there was an ‘Extreme’ martial arts demonstration by Team Ryouko. Although there were some flaws in choreography to work out, they were a skillful group and amusing to watch. They showed real talent, especially the younger members. Another interesting note was that between shows, Team Ryouko members walked around casually swinging their weapons around themselves in a blur. That was pretty damn cool.

Sometime into my first few hours on the first day, I heard a thunderous applause. I had seen some people clapping at the end of seminars, but nothing like this. I turned around and saw a crowd. From it emerged a smiling Carlos Newton, given a hero’s welcome. I stopped watching the seminar I was taking notes on, and walked over to Mat 4, where Carlos was beginning to hold his first seminar. I could not hear what Carlos was saying, nor could I even see him. There were so many people in fact, that they spilled over onto the (ironically) vacant adjacent Taekwondo mat. After the class ended, he was swarmed again by people wanting to take pictures with him, get his autograph and shake his hand. He was definitely the crowd favorite.

I tried several times to approach him, and I was not successful. When I finally caught him in a rare moment when he wasn’t being heckled by adoring teenaged girls, he greeted me.

“Hey big guy!” he said, grinning. I was kind of caught off guard.

I shook his hand and met him for the first time. I spoke with him for a short while. He gave me his phone number (watch for Carlos’ interview in the near future) and promised me an interview as he was quite busy. I regretted I did not have the chance to take one of Carlos’ seminars; there were just too many people taking it.



I checked out the vendors. I tried on various boxing, MMA and bag gloves and headgear from the various booths. The quality of the merchandise seemed to vary from booth to booth. I noticed the KTFO booth and some of the more eccentric aspects they employed to attract attention, including a bodybuilder whose sole job seemed to be to sit around and look tough in KTFO gear. I was quietly watching within earshot. I saw a customer walk up and look at some of the KTFO t-shirts.

“Hey,” said the vendor.

“Hello,” the customer replied.

“Know what KTFO stands for?” he said, smiling. The customer shook his head.

“It stands for knocked the fuck out!” he exclaimed with a grin.

The customer walked away.

I did, however, get to try Dan Severn’s seminar. Not only was it enjoyable, I learned valuable techniques to help me in the top guard, which I field-tested the next weekend. They worked.

It was interesting to observe the ‘traditional’ martial arts. Kung-fu and karate, the arts which have largely been disregarded in the age of UFC and Pride FC, are still very much alive, although their numbers dwindled in comparison to the grappling-oriented mats, at least at the expo. At times, I saw instructors without students to teach, who simply passed the time by doing katas. The traditional martial artists I talked to, mainly karate practitioners told me they were far more interested in the meditative and health benefits of their art, rather than its combat efficiency. It is also worth noting that the majority of these people were middle-aged or older.

The prevailing theme in all of the traditional martial arts I saw is the response to a single strike or chokehold. Enemy throws a punch, and the martial art provides an infinite amount of different reactions, mostly by trapping the punching arm and counter-striking.



I was hanging out at the Muay Thai mat with Kru Darwin Miranda (commonly known in Toronto as ‘Krudar’, he’s the North American Super Lightweight Muay Thai champion). I was standing around with him when someone approached him and asked him if he was Tony Jaa’s son. He mustered up the politest chuckle I have ever seen and said he wasn’t.

There were also numerous weapons classes, such as Arnis and Irish stick fighting. They felt somewhat out of place, though. For the recreational or sport oriented martial artist, weapons are of little interest. For a street defense oriented martial artist though, the classes provided intelligent techniques for defending against knives and using canes.

My only major complaint of the MMA Expo was not even within its control. The refreshments, as I found out later, are under the jurisdiction of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I wandered over to the food court area, and bought a small bottle of water and a 6-piece box of sushi. The clerk punched it into the register, and the number on the display read $15.05. I thought it was a mistake, but the clerk confirmed it was not. $2.51 per piece of sushi – I’d say that’s pretty outrageous. It only started there. Later, I went back for a protein shake, which I found was $10. The coup de grace though was when I walked over to the sandwich counter.

“Excuse me,” the clerk said as I was reading the menu. “We aren’t using those prices today. All sandwiches start at $8, but we’re willing to negotiate.” I just walked away without a word.



Overall, my impression of the expo was a positive one. The prices were a little high, which may have contributed to the lower turnout than was expected. But it was a genuinely fun event. There may be another coming event this fall, and hopefully IronLife will be there in force.

A special thanks to Milton Jiu-Jitsu for letting us use some pictures they took.