Our friend Stephane from the excellent French website www.planetejjb.com was recently in Montreal, Canada and trained BJJ at the famous Tristar gym which is Georges St Pierre’s very own base camp. Check it out:

“In my Canadian holiday, I was invited by my friend Thearron to train at the famous MMA/ BJJ academy: George St pierre’s very own TRISTAR GYM in Montreal, Quebec , Canada.

Thearron is a French expatriate in Montreal and a friend of Francis Carmont (UFC fighter and former member of the Cercle Tissier). He has been practicing MMA and Thai Boxing at a pretty good level. He has been training for the past few months at Tristar.

Tristar gym building

On Saturday morning, I met up with Thearron and we headed to Tristar. The club is on the outskirts of Montreal while we were staying in the city center. (Allow about twenty minutes to get there.)

The TRISTAR is located on the 3rd floor of a building. We climbed the stairs and there I discovered the room. It is a real old school type of MMA gym. You can feel the liters of sweat ran down the rings and carpets to shape athletes to help them achieve their goals.

At the reception a “pro shop” expects us to do our shopping: Juice bar, protein shakes and energy bars. When I entered the gym, I discovered several MMA cages, boxing rings and the floor mats for BJJ and Karate as well as a weight room.

The courses are taught by professionals and the room is open every day from 9am to 10pm with courses at all hours (MMA, wrestling, BJJ, conditionning …)

The changing rooms are large and spacious with giant racks. Thearron introduced me to the owner of TRISTAR which is none other than Mr. Firas Zahabi and we started to change for the BJJ session which ranfrom 1pm to 3pm. The training was given by Firas Zahabi himself. Firas is a black belt in BJJ under the famous John Danaher (Renzo Gracie).

The traing consisted of a lot of technique with lots of details and a lot of repetition. Firas’s BJJ focuses heavily on the protecting your head because of the applying BJJ to MMA.

It was then time to roll. There were many blue belts and some white belts. I’m the only Brown belt. I had a few rolls with different partners. Since I’m a guest, I have no reason to roll hard. The blue belts have a good level so do all the guys there in general.

Firas offered me to roll with him also and it was a real pleasure. We rolled lightwith the end of the training approaching. In fact, at 3pm, the pro training starts and is reserved for PRO TRISTAR MMA fighters or invitees from the outside.

Stephane with Firas

Thearron and myself started to change and we were joined by Francis Carmont in the locker room. Francis will fight on September 21 in the same card as Jon Jones in the next UFC. What a pleasure to see him (Francis was at Le Cercle BJJ academy in France for many years). He told me that Georges St. Pierre iwill be here soon. GSP (George St. Pierre) joins us. He is very relaxed, shaking hands with everyone and accepts graciously to pose for a souvenir photo which is unforgettable.

When the Pro training starts, there were so many UFC stars that I can not name them all, but were present: GSP, Francis Carmont, Ivan Mendjivar, Alex Garcia ….Truly a great day and experience TRISTAR.

Thank you to Firas and Thearron for giving me the opportunity to spend time in TRISTAR.

Contact of the gym:
5275 Rue Ferrier – Montreal, QC H4P 1L7
Telephone: 1-514-343-0148″