medium read about how i got here

this is a look back on how i got involved with brazilian jiu jitsu, where i feel i stand in this ever growing martial art, and what my goals are now that i’ve received my black belt.

i got into the art of brazilian jiu jitsu late in life, i was 32, compared to most people, especially the brazilians. at the end of 2003 i found myself in need of a different outlet/activity in my life. i had been working out with heavy weights and hitting the gym pretty steady for about 6 years, after a lifetime of not really doing anything organized, athletically. i had been a fan of mixed martial arts for years. with a very small amount of time wrestling in high school in 9th grade, experiences in both street fighting and as a few years on the bouncer scene. i didn't think of myself as anywhere near the baddest guy on the block, but figured i could take my experiences and expand on them. i thankfully knew if i wanted to take it further i would need a very serious amount of help in the training department.

i made a few phone calls to people i knew in the mma scene. one of the first calls i made was to eugene robinson, who had great ideas on how i should proceed. i also called a guy i vaguely knew from around the punk scene, and from work as a convention booth installer. the guy i called, butch, helped out a lot. he invited me down to the warehouse he lived in. they lived in the second story, and used the first floor as a dojo. he also gave me a contact name for a local bjj school. it was a claudio franca affiliate run by stephan goynes, someone i was already an acquaintance of. i began training regularly with stephan/claudio in the beginning of 2004. on the side i would train stand up technique and combinations of stand up and grappling with butch at the warehouse.

we quickly hit a roadblock with my aspirations of becoming a mma star. or as i apparently, embarrassingly, told a fellow claudio student, "i want to be a cage fighter". i'm hoping that was said after one of my early sessions, after being choked repeatedly. the problem was my elbows. after several punching drill sessions, something, most likely my ulna nerve, would flare up. my arms would shoot pain from my elbows outwards and be useless as functioning limbs other than maybe clubbing someone. yet, if i didn't do the punching drills, i could easily get through a grappling session with no elbow problems. i quickly gave up on my "cage warrior" dreams and focused on brazilian jiu jitsu. it was challenging, exciting, and after coming in second at a small tournament, after only a month of training, i figured i might be decent at it. it was also, dare i say, fun.

turns out i wasn't all that good at it. i was just tenacious. my method of winning as a white belt was ugly, to be kind. for winning 3 tournaments and coming in second in 8 months i was promoted to blue belt. at this point i changed instructors, and as all things of this nature, they're was drama/politics, but as i was fresh on the scene and a little lucky, i avoided a good deal of it. i began training with eduardo rocha.

i'll make a long story a little shorter by cutting out every detail of every learning moment along the way, but suffice to say, there have been a million of them. realizing as i started at blue belt, that overwhelming my opponents wasn't going to work anymore. figuring out that just being stronger than everyone else didn't mean as much. plus, what happened when the other guy was stronger than me. it also helped that after about a year into training with eduardo he started pushing me to assist him at the academy. it was both helpful and went to my head pretty bad. i must have been a very annoying know it all blue belt. once again, once i got focused on technique, i started winning tournaments left and right. i still lost and still got the humbling i needed but i did well.

once i got to purple belt i started understanding what was expected of me as an assistant teacher more. i feel like how i teach now began somewhere around the middle of purple belt or towards the latter half of purple belt. i had some tournament experiences in the first year and a half of, that after time had passed i wasn't all that proud of. when i lost in the second round at the worlds, i decided it was a sign that i wasn't ready to be one tournament win away from a brown belt. after consulting with a few people i trusted, and them thinking i was too big of a deal about, i didn't listen to them. i gave back three of my stripes. it made me feel more honest about where i was a bjj artist, competitor, and teacher. it slowed my ascent to black belt but i needed it. i quickly went back out and won the stripes back.

getting my brown belt on the podium was unbelievable. it was at the american cup. it was made all that sweeter by the fact that i fought in the adult division. like i said earlier i started later than most, so i started fighting in the master's division (31-35), and by the time i got to purple belt i qualified for seniors 1(something i go back and forth on. when i sign up for a tournament, i go for masters division first. if no one is in my weight division there, i'll try the senior 1 division, if not there, i'll look at the adult division.). for me it's never been an issue of keeping up with the younger guys, or feeling outmatched. i just find that a lot of the lower belts even at purple and brown there's a level of frenzy that detracts from the art/technique of jiu jitsu. so when there was no one in any age bracket other than adult, i went for it. besides it seemed fitting for a tournament win that would propel me up to brown belt. i pulled it off with flying colors, and as a reward got to a new color.

My stint at brown belt was the shortest and most up and down of any of the colored belts. right after receiving my brown belt i went through a series of illnesses, long stretches of work, and a major injury that prevented a lot of training keeping me off the tournament mats til 4 months later. i did well in back to back to back tournaments. it was very gratifying to step out onto the mats as a brown belt and take home 4 golds and 1 silver in my first three tournaments. i found my ability to get my ideas across as i was teaching was getting smoother. i'll write more about 2011 in a couple of days when the year ends, but it ended with me getting my black belt and a hernia repair surgery. while on the mend i've been able to reflect on how i got here. i've also been able to look forward examining what i want from jiu jitsu and what i have to offer it.

i know i'm never going to be a black belt world champion, and i don't think it's selling myself short to think this, it's realistic. i can be a good, really good competitor in the old guy divisions of the black belt ranks. with the idea of getting my hand raised in the masters seniors international masters division. i can also keep honing my craft and become an even better instructor year after year. those are my goals at this point, ones i keep working on every day.