Shane Fishman is from Toronto, Ontario and began training BJJ at age 15 years old. As he puts it, “An MMA gym opened up in my neighbourhood. I was still playing competitive hockey 4-5 times a week so I could only train BJJ 1-2 times a week, but that same year I started training I quit hockey so I could focus on training jiu jitsu.”
Currently a brown belt, he got promoted to the rank in 2017 at 23 years old and trains at the East Coast Jiu Jitsu gym in Dublin, Ireland under Darragh O’Conaill.
When playing BJJ, his guard mostly uses Butterfly and X-Guard, favouring the reverse X-Guard sweep. He is also known for the Fishnet sweep which he popularised and has used it successfully in competition. When asked about his entry into the Fishnet position, he said “When I moved to Ireland and started training at ECJJA all the competitors were excellent at defending X-Guard and shutting down my attacks as its one of Darragh’s best positions. It forced me to work on different attacks and sweeps from X-Guard and over time I started passing the leg over and working from the reverse X-Guard and lockdown position. I think it was just a natural progression of being shut down enough times where it forced me to adapt and find new paths for attacks.”. Like many things in BJJ it seems, this move was born out of creativity and constantly evolving to avoid failure.
When on top, Fishman prefers the smash pass to the side and then likes to finish his opponent’s by using a Rear Naked choke whilst trapping an arm. He also adds that his style has been influenced by Marcelo Garcia and Ryan Hall; with Marcelo influencing his guard style and Hall with the back attacks.
Whilst competing, he usually weighs in at the medium-heavy category and his best achievement to date was getting Gold at the Nogi Euro’s in 2019 as a brown belt. With this in mind, he will be hoping to get the same medal at black belt which would be a huge achievement.
Away from competition, he states the Norweigan duo of Tommy Langaker and Epsen Mathiesen as his most challenging opponents in the gym and adds “Training with Tommy Langaker and Espen Mathiesen in Norway was eye-opening experience and demonstrated how much of a gap there is still to close between the highest level competitors at black belt.
When visiting back home in Canada and abroad I get to train with a lot of the competitors from Cicero Costha and those are always the hardest rounds.”
Interestingly, Fishman is also a qualified physiotherapist with a degree in the subject – he says “Yes, I finished my Masters of Physiotherapy at University College of Dublin in 2019 and have been working in private practice getting experience with sports injuries since graduating. I’m not sure if there is an advantage in terms of applying joints locks with a background in physiotherapy, but I do think there is an advantage in terms of manual handling skills when assessing patients.”
He also applies this sporting knowledge to BJJ and how to avoid injuries whilst training – stating “Yeah I agree I think it helps give me an awareness of what positions I’m particularly vulnerable in. Additionally, I think the most important aspect of avoiding non-contact sports injuries is managing training load. It’s a bit of a paradox where high training loads helps build tissue resilience and prevent injuries; however, rapid increases or spikes in training also leads to an increased risk of soft tissue injuries. It’s common sense but the ideal goal is to build a high chronic training load incrementally over time while avoiding spikes in training load. There is a lot of good research out there on how to track and manage training loads in team sports like rugby and I think we can definitely apply some of the research to jiu jitsu.”
As mentioned, whilst Fishman was born in Canada, he moved to Ireland to study and this is where he currently lives and trains BJJ. Here he speaks about the differences in the two countries both in terms of training and daily life “I think if you’re in any major city like Toronto or Dublin the level of jiu jitsu is quite comparable. I was placed at different clinics and hospitals around Ireland during my student placements and regardless of where I was in the country, there was always an academy nearby and I always managed to get some good training. I think the most enjoyable part of living in Ireland has been experiencing the European scene and getting to travel around Europe to compete.”
Looking forward to the future, Fishman wants to continue to try and compete at the highest level either at IBJJF or nogi superfight events like Polaris. He also wants to thank his team at ECJJA and his sponsors Tatami Fightwear for the continued support.
