Alex Kendall
Head Instructor
Alex has been a devoted practitioner of Jiu Jitsu for over 14 years and has dedicated much of that time to sharing his knowledge with those who share his passion for Jiu Jitsu. Alex obtained his brown belt from Amir Yafawi in 2019 and has since been steadily focusing on improving his own technical and teaching capabilities.
Influences
Alex has always been involved in competitive sports from a young age and so naturally gravitated towards the sport side of Jiu Jitsu and has therefore focused heavily on learning from top competitors such as Joao Miyao (pictured bottom left photo) and the Mendes brothers (Rafa & Gui).
Teaching Style
Alex is known for creating a warm, welcoming, and learning-focused training environment where close attention is paid to the development of each student. Alex's priority is to ensure everyone reaches success and achieves their goals; whether that's to lose weight, learn valuable self-defense skills, or stand on the podium as a champion.
Bio
Alex grew up in Mississauga, Ontario but currently lives and works in Miramichi with his wife Tysha. Alex has had the opportunity to travel to, and train at, many places around the world and has decided to settle in the beautiful city of Miramichi. Alex & Tysha are hoping to lay down roots in the community and part of doing so is sharing his knowledge of Jiu Jitsu and martial arts with his neighbors.
Yolanda Bolk
Assistant Coach
Yolanda grew up in the Netherlands in a small fisherman’s town called Urk. When she was a teen, her family decided to immigrate to Canada for the beautiful nature and warm people.
While in Canada, she moved around from city to city in Ontario until she landed in Ottawa where she met her husband, Eric. They decided to sell most of their belongings and began the trek towards New Brunswick in 2021 where they fell in love with their current home and property in Murray Settlement. Yolanda has a day job as an SEO writer. She writes mainly blog articles for her clients so that they can rank higher in search engines.
Because of the nature of her freelance work, she has the flexibility to be at the academy during office hours, allowing her to work with the wonderful kids that already captivated her heart. While she doesn’t have any children of her own, her love for kids started when she was one herself. She became an Auntie at 10 (or Tante in Dutch) and helped co-parent some of her nieces and nephews whenever a third parent was needed.
Now years later she has the privilege of being an aunt to almost 20 kids with the oldest already an adult. When living in Ontario, she spent several summers working with kids from ages 8-18, as well as a weekly youth event throughout the year on Friday evenings. Her first priority when teaching kids is to build a healthy relationship where they see her as either a friend or a big sister. She believes role models are so important for the younger generation, and she aims to be a positive influence that will further their development.
