Drop by the Steveston Judo Club any Tuesday or Thursday night and there’s a good chance you will see multiple national champions honing their craft.
In this day and age when the cost to play elite level sports can be extreme the 53-year-old club, located at the Steveston Martial Arts Centre, quietly goes about its business.
At the recent Canadian Judo Championships in Calgary, Tavis Jamieson and Ian Ryder were the latest to add to club’s extensive lists of accomplishments.
Jamiseon captured silver in his own under 21 -100 kg class and also stepped up to senior men’s -100 kg to earn bronze. Ryder solidified his status as one of the top up-and-coming judoka in the country by capturing the U16 73+ plus kg division and adding silver at the U18 90 kg as well.
“The last three years we have had five national champions,” said Steveston head coach Kane Morishita while overseeing the club’s Advanced Senior session. “This is a very down to earth club. I think our dues are $35 a month. It’s a great environment and our membership keeps growing.”
The 2016 Nationals were Jamieson’s final time competing as a junior. The 19-year-old has already got a head start as a senior athlete, having competed at that level the past three championships. His decorated career includes capturing the U21 Canadian title in 2015 and winning silver the same year at the Canada Winter Games in Prince George. His sister Meghan has also been training out of Steveston for the past seven years and won bronze in the senior -70 kg class at the 2015 nationals.
“I would like to get to a senior World Cup before I retire,” speculated the UBC math and computer science student. “To do that I need to get to Europe where it’s much easier to compete with none of the events being too far away from each other. There’s a tournament in Finland I would like to go to.”
Ryder learned last week he is one of just 12 athletes — six male and six female — from across the country invited by Judo Canada to participate in a High Performance Camp this summer in Montreal.
The 15-year-old McMath Secondary student’s potential has got the attention of national team coaches, according to his training mate. His victory in the U16 division came against an opponent who outweighed him by 32 kilos.
“Most of the high up coaches notice Ian now,” said Jamieson. “There’s a Polish coach who calls him ‘Easy Ryder.’ (Laughing) Neither of us are sure why.”
Morishita knows exactly the path one of his top students is headed down.
He was a former national team member himself but says the program has changed significantly and now requires a different level of commitment.
“They will be bringing them to the national training centre, develop them, and also see how they do in special tournaments as well,” explained Morishita. “Back in my day, there was no national training centre. Now you have to go there full-time. When Ian is 17-or-18 they will be hoping to get him in the direction of moving to Montreal when he graduates from high school and go to university at Concordia or McGill.
“Ian is very mature for his age and really is an athletic phenom. We brought a rope in here and he just climbed right up it with little effort. I have taught him since he was six or seven years old. He was always a little bit bigger and very active too. Now that’s really paying off for him.”
Ryder, who won gold at the B.C. Winter Games earlier this year, also happens to be a standout lacrosse player.
He played for Team BC at the Bantam Box Lacrosse Nationals last year and this season has aged up a number of times to play for Richmond’s Intermediate “A” team.
“Judo has definitely helped me with lacrosse,” he said. “Sometimes on a breakaway I will get tripped up, roll and get back up with the ball still my stick because I know how to break a fall. I also feel a lot stronger than other players. That’s where the physical aspect of judo comes in.
“It can get pretty busy, but I would like to try and do both for as long as I can.”
