BLACKFALDS – Just like the all-time great Anime character Goku, top-voted 2023 Best of the Bow coach and Dark Horse Martial Arts’ Travis Erlam had a big test in his recent No Gi Superfight.
In classic underdog fashion, that “big test” was six-foot-eight heavyweight Mitch Soloway looking to do whatever he could to tap-out the Canmore jiu-jitsu ace Saturday (Oct. 7) in Blackfalds at the Submission Ace Championship Fall Classic, a submission-only jiu-jitsu tournament.
After 10 minutes of grappling with the giant, Erlam, who, at six-foot-three looks short next to Soloway, was dead-tired and he needed to come up with something quick before overtime started.
“I was about to be gas and I was like I need to put everything I got into this one thing and it was like [Goku’s] Kamehameha [attack],” said Erlam, an avid Dragon Ball Z fan.
Mere seconds into OT, Erlam went Super Saiyan, grabbing onto the bigger opponent with a rear naked choke, a chokehold that cuts off oxygen to the brain. Like Goku so many times, the Canmore ace prevailed against his foe with the bout-ending attack.
“I just locked it in and I squeezed as hard as I could and it worked out in my favour,” the black belt said with a laugh.
The last Submission Ace was held in 2019, but made a comeback last weekend. Erlam was one of the Dark Horse athletes competing at Submission Ace, which saw the club earn seven medals in the gi tournament portion.
“This is the first tournament in a long time that we've had like a serious crew going out and I'm unbelievably proud and grateful for this community,” said Erlam.
Dark Horse’s Carter Haines competed in another No Gi Superfight, but the brown belt lost to black belt Brad Hill by kneebar.
Dark Horse’s Eliot Martel, Danny Parram, Brook Faichnie and Reece Vandersanden won bronze medals in their categories, Nathan Chan and Bryn Williams took silvers, and Dana Noble won gold.
Noble, a white belt competing in the women’s 18+ category, said she was inspired by the wall of medals inside the Dark Horse club.
“I just looked at one of those golds on the wall and was like, ‘I’m gonna get one of those,’” said Noble. “That was the only thing that I said to kind of like talk myself up in, in my own head, a little bit for motivation.”
Noble earned the only tap-out in her category, a kimura shoulder lock, which advanced her to the open-weight bout. Although, she was giving up serious height and weight and would go on to lose.
A former national-level archer, Noble traded in bull’s eyes for jiu-jitsu’s bow and arrow chokes, and is grateful and excited for the community she’s a part of.
“This is a culture I have never seen in other sports that I’ve done,” she said. “I find that the inclusiveness of being a woman in a combat sport – it was never really daunting to me, but I see the way it is to other women. During the tournament, it was so cool to just be with women my size, my age, my experience and high-fiving each other, hugging each other, thanking each other for the submission that I just had on myself."
“It’s such an invasive sport, but the women that I’ve met and the men who have rolled with me and treated me so respectfully and so delicately.”
Dark Horse also hosts its own submission-only grappling series. The next event is yet to be announced.
