Featured traveller: Marju Kern – BJJ Globetrotters
Age: 45
Belt: 4-stripe white belt
Profession: I identify mostly as a full-time mom. All legal work experience, telco business, and investments feel kinda irrelevant compared to parenting.
How many years in BJJ: 6
Other martial arts: I started with MMA after my 4th child was born. I guess I was a bit overwhelmed with the chaotic life with kids at home and I was looking for a place where I could release some stress (sometimes moms need to kick something for their sanity). A 3-month introductory course for beginners seemed just the right thing, because I thought 3 months is doable and by that time I’ll have gotten the stress out of my system. However the club also had a 3-month follow-up course, and as a young widow I had new reasons to keep going. During MMA classes I sometimes saw people doing BJJ on other mats. BJJ looked awful, sweaty, and embarrassing. Not for me, I thought.
Where do you live: Tallinn, Estonia
Where are you from: I was born and grew up in this lovely town Pärnu, where this year the BJJ Globetrotters beach camp took place.
Other fun or curious information you would like to share: I like real letters and postcards. I have a penpal in Finland with whom I’ve exchanged handwritten letters for 32 years. I was on a school trip to Finland and a girl asked my address when we were visiting a local school. The next time I saw her again in person was 27 years later during another trip to Finland.
A few years ago I discovered postcrossing. This is also a cool way to send and receive postcards from all over the world.
Marju Kern – BJJ camp in St. Barts
Tell us what inspired you to travel and train?
I think the first time I read about BJJ Globetrotters camps was on social media, when someone from Estonia shared her experiences. I was immediately mesmerized by this – imagine that! The two best things combined: travelling somewhere and training with friendly like-minded people! Then Priit “defensivebjj” Mihkelson started participating in camps and was very un-priitly happy about that. As a curious person, I wanted to go and see in person what it’s all about. Finally in the summer of 2020 the planets were all correctly aligned and I could go to my first abroad camp in Iceland.
Participating in a camp is an excellent chance to squeeze more training hours into a smaller time period. At home I can go to the gym 2-3 times a week, if I’m lucky. At the camp I can take 3 classes a day, plus open mat time. Accordingly it’s all win-win for me. I can see new places or familiar places from new angles and have more mat time. Plus hopefully there are more people of my size to train with.
Tell us about your most recent travel and your upcoming travel – where have you been and where are you going?
The last one was the Faroe Islands Camp. I arrived a couple of days earlier because I wanted to look around. The nature in the Faroes is breathtaking and it’s worth taking time to enjoy that.
A trip that I’m looking forward to next August is a 10-day expedition to Greenland on a sailboat.
Marju Kern – BJJ Globetrotters
What are the things you enjoy about travelling?
I enjoy being in a new environment, where everyday chores don’t haunt me. New tastes, different smells, light from different angles, different landscapes – when travelling I notice more details around me and that changes the perception of time. Days feel longer and that in itself is really uplifting considering how regular days tend to slip away too fast.
Can you give us some examples of experiences you had that makes it worth traveling and training?
Here I can only tell about travelling to BJJ Globetrotters camps, since those are my only training destinations – at least so far.
When travelling to a camp I always have this feeling that I get more local inside info on what to visit and what to do. For example, I hadn’t heard of summer tobogganing before the family camp in Austria, and that was really fun to try with kids.
Of course, travelling to Caribbean Camp pays off price-wise. The camp is the cheapest option to stay on this wonderful island for a week.
What has so far been the most surprising experience for you when traveling?
The most colorful experiences are definitely from trekking trips to remote places like Kamchatka and the Kuril islands (far east of Russia) or Torres del Paine in Patagonia. Apparently I am very naive and I believe everything they write in ads. I went to my very first trekking trip with a small organized group to Kamchatka. It was said that no special skills are needed, only that I have to be morally prepared to walk 8 hours a day while carrying supplies for 1 week in my backpack. There were moments where I cried (inside) and would have definitely preferred to have had certain mountaineering skills. The lesson I learned from there is that when there are no other options I am able to do so much more than I ever thought.
Surprising experiences in random order:
- How many steep and slippery cliffs I can climb (without any safety ropes).
- How easily you are given a gun in Russia when you have to wait in the woods and there is high probability to meet a bear. No questions ever asked about whether you know how to use it.
- How my body feels after a 10-hour boat trip on a heavily crowded boat, sitting on a hard bench when legs could be moved only when the entire row of people moved their legs together.
- How many midges are in Scotland in a quiet morning.
- How rainy the rainforest is during raining season.
- How friendly people are everywhere and how many interesting stories they have.
Marju Kern – BJJ Globetrotters
Are you a budget traveller – and if so how do you plan for a cheap trip?
Not so much. At my age I prefer comfort and I’m not looking for the cheapest options possible. I usually don’t have the liberty to wait until last-minute cheap offers or discounts pop up.
If you were to pass on travel advice to your fellow Globetrotters, what would it be?
Pack less and see more.
