California Jiu-Jitsu: A Month in Review
Wow time has flown by quickly! It is hard to believe that it has already been a month since I hopped on a plane and flew to California for work. I'm going to be honest I was pretty nervous coming out here. The job seemed like it was too good to be true and I was leaving everyone I knew for a place I didn't know anyone. I tried to dive in, moving too quickly to try and out think myself and not jump on this opportunity. I have been rewarded with an absolutely incredible experience so far! I wanted to share with everyone what I have enjoyed, what I think I did well and what I could have done better.The Highlights
The first thing that blew me away was how many Jiu-Jitsu schools and how many black belts there are here! The first school I visited in Carlsbad had something like 32 black belts on their roster. Coming from a school that just gained our second black belt, this is mind blowing to me. My first day of work was a quick one, and I was able to jump into 3 different classes at the same school. I was able to roll with 6 different black belts in that day alone. 6! That just has not stopped to blow my mind. At class tonight at Alliance Eastlake, there was 6 black belts on the mats for open rolling. The wealth of knowledge and different styles is just quite simply amazing.
-Another highlight was starting this blog. I've been wanting to do it for a long time. I have a lot of down time here, and after one too many very very long Facebook posts, decided it was time to get something rolling on this whole blog thing. The response that I have received from everyone has been way bigger than I ever expected, especially having just launched this thing.
-A really cool, non Jiu-Jitsu thing was that I was able to meet up with my good friend Josh Eaton. We have been friends since 8th grade, but he is in the Army and we haven't been able to see each other for over 2 years. He was doing a training rotation 4 hours away, so I took the opportunity to see him and skipped two days of training so that we can catch up. I'm very glad that I did! Making new friends is great, but it is always good to be able to catch up with old friends and I'm very glad that I made the trip.
The big name school visits:
-I have been wanting to train at Art of Jiu-Jitsu for the past 3 years, and I couldn't believe that my work dropped me off just 90 minutes away from there. I love the Mendes brother's style, and training with my own brother I love to see families that train together, especially on the level of success that they have had in the sport. I also got to train with Geo Martinez at 10th Planet Oceanside. No gi isn't quite my thing, but being just 5 minutes away from them, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to train with one of the highest ranked guys in submission grappling.
-I wrote more about it HERE, but CSG 360 and the Alliance organization have quickly become my home away from home places to train. The hospitality in the Jiu-Jitsu community is unmatched, and no one has done it better than these guys have. It is wild to be a visiting student and be welcomed in to open arms into competition training with these guys. The new style and different teaching perspective I feel has just exploded my game. I'm really looking forward to eventually coming back and sharing everything that I have learned from them these past several months.
-I'm really not the best at this part of traveling, but I have tried to get out some and explore a bit more of California and what it has to offer that makes it unique. I'm just a 4 minute walk from the ocean, and I got to try paddle boarding for the first time. I even only fell in once! I'm much more of a woods and mountain person, but the beauty and serenity of the ocean is incredible to enjoy.
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| The view from my hotel |
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| Out on the pier |
What I did well
-I have been hitting training hard! Coming out to this area really fired me up to start training again. New training partners and new styles to roll against has made excited about every day of training. I have only missed a few days of training, and have with a plethora of options to chose from, have even been hitting open mats on Saturdays and Sundays.
-I have been really challenged to grow my Jiu-Jitsu game here. The different styles and techniques I have encountered have forced me to adapt and change my game. Many of my go to moves are ineffective, which has resulted in reaching back for forgotten techniques or creating new types of attacks. Something that I absolutely love doing! Being able to get new perspectives and techniques from different black belts has been incredible as well. I haven't gone to a class here yet that I didn't learn something new. Whether it has been something as big as a new concept, or as small as a change in grip placement, every day has brought a light bulb, or an Aha! moment. I wrote about it more in depth HERE , but I have found myself to be one of the smaller guys on the mats for classes, and it has been awesome. Being the smaller guy means that I'm not able to get away with any BS or fooling around, and has incredibly sharpened and tightened up my game.
What I could have done better
With hopefully a couple months left for my stay here, I hope to work on these areas.
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| Monday nights are when it goes down at EastLake! |
- I should have packed more white gi's. You'd think I would have followed my own advice when it comes to traveling that I wrote HERE, but I dropped the ball here when it came to packing white gi's. Many of the schools here are white, un-patched gi's only. The only two white gi's that I packed are of course patched from top to bottom. I'll be putting in an order for a couple more white gi's later next week to solve that problem.
-Visit more of the unique things that California has to offer. This one is really tough for me because it's hard to pass up an open mat to make a road trip. I do want to make a better effort to do things like go to a wine tasting, maybe visit Lego Land or Disney Land, as well as try more of the local food offering. I have frequented In and Out Burger probably a dozen too many times already, and I'm happy to report that it does live up to the hype. Just make sure you go animal style on the order!
-Take more pictures! I can't share it with everyone if I didn't take a picture. I'm always so excited to roll and talk to everyone after class I often forget this one. If it wasn't for other people catching photos for me I probably wouldn't even have any. I need to get better at this though so I can capture more of the memories that I'm making here.
What I'm looking forward to
Pan Ams! I'm completely stoked to be registered and be able to go to Pan Ams at the end of March. It would typically cost over $1,200 to make a trip to the tournament. It's only an hour drive from me here, so all it will cost me was the registration, a vacation day and a little bit of gas money. I'll be the first student from my school competing at this tournament, and I'm looking forward to putting on a good performance to represent them.
-San Franciso Open. This will be my warm up for Pans. It is at the end of February and should be a good way to get into competition mode while hopefully snagging a medal or two.
That's it for now! If you have a recommendation on a school or other place to visit while I'm here, please feel free to share it with me. I hope that you enjoyed this and thank you for following along on my traveling!
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