Movin' on Up

I distinctly remember chatting with [Roberto] Cyborg in Florida over lunch about my belt. Roli had been training with him the week before I got there, and apparently the two had talked. "No, I told him you need more time, he needs to wait until after next year's Worlds, so you can grow." I neglected to realize that Cyborg is a sneaky Barzeelun and was just messing with me.

On Wednesday we were training, as usual, but it was a rather small class. While fending off the strength and top game of a 200 pound wrestler Chad, I saw Matt mouth to Roli, "Go get a blue belt," referring to Chad. Excited as I could be for him, I continued to train and was contemplating in my head which throw to do on him. When he received it, everyone clapped and I was prepared to bow out. Roli then started to talk again, saying, "Now, the last day to register for Nogi Worlds is tomorrow..." and I glanced to see a worn-out brown belt in Matt's hands. "What?!" People started laughing and my protests were futile. Matt wrapped the brown belt around my waist just as he'd done with my blue and purple belts.

If you've read at least two of my blogs you've figured out that my coaches are very, very important people to me, both inside and outside the gym. The belt I received was first Matt's brown belt, which as a black belt he passed to Roli when Roli got his brown belt. So I've got two generations of good jiu jitsu directly from my coaches. That's a hell of an honor.

Now competition gets as hard as it can be. There is no more playing around, I'm in with the black belts now. Real talk.

This is my "Oh shit!" face.


I'll be doing a lot of traveling in the next couple of months. If there's a star by a date, it's tentative, so if money allows I'll be going to those.

November 6-8 - Long Beach, CA. I'll be competing in the brown/black division of Nogi Worlds.
November 13-15 - Houston, TX. I'll be attending a Leo Xavier Association seminar and training at Paradigm Jiu Jitsu with Paulinho and Jake from FightSports.
December 11-13 - Memphis, TN. There is a Marcelo Garcia Seminar Saturday and Sunday at Memphis BJJ as well as the UFC, both of which I'll be attending.
December 13-18 - Forked River, NJ. Tom DeBlass will be hosting me at his school for a few days, and we should travel around NJ to hit up some Ricardo Almeida and Renzo Affiliates.
December 18-20 - Dallas, TX. NAGA Dallas for work then I'll try to get a bit of training in with Genesis Jiu Jitsu while I'm there.
*December 20-24 - San Antonio, TX. Marcello Salazar of BTT has a great school that I'll try to get some training at.
December 26 - January 8 - Miami, FL and Vero Beach, FL. Not able to spend a long time away from Renato Tavares in Vero and the FightSports Crew in Miami, I'm gonna pay them a visit.
*January 8-13 - Las Vegas, NV. Rumor has it there will be a tournament and I'd like to sneak some training in too.

Then school starts back up and I have the North American trials for ADCC Pro in FL on the 31st of January. Anyone who wants to train or grab a bite at any of those locations, let me know!

Holla.