Derby City MMA (Round 2) and Private Lessons with Chewy

I had so much fun last time visiting Derby City, that I had to go back! This time I jumped in the car with my teammate Preston (Who ya'll me here) and his wife Katie to make the 8 hour drive. The whole trip was a ton of fun and felt like a family reunion with everyone getting together. As always, there was great training, good food, shenanigans and late night ice cream runs.





The Food:
We had to make sure that Preston and Katie enjoyed the best of Kentucky Barbeque, so we revisited a lot of the same spots from the last trip. The highlight from this time was going to a Brazilian Steakhouse in downtown Louisville. I have heard many stories about the gloriousness that these places contain, and have wanted to eat at one for years now. This place was everything I had imagined and more. Why the chip stayed green the food just kept coming and coming. It's a mind bending thing to experience. After some hard training that morning, we ate and ate perfectly cooked meats until we waddled out of the place. If you've never been to one of these places, you most definitely need to experience it.

The Shenanigans: 

Sleeping in was not tolerated at this dojo

Getting all of us together was simply a riot. There was ample amounts of typical Jiu-Jitsu smack talk and roasting, and we all laughed until our sides hurt. We'd hang out late into the night, and then decide that a spontaneous ice cream run was needed. You meet some really awesome people in Jiu-Jitsu and this trip really highlighted that. After this trip we all headed out to different states and I'm going to really miss these guys.

We also had some fun filming with Chad "The Beast" Hardy. Check out my promotion! 😂

The Training: 
I think someone made a phone call to the brute squad to let them know that we were going to be in town because the purple and brown belts were out in force this week. With one or two exceptions, I don't think I even rolled with someone lower than a purple belt. The school has a friendly, yet competitive style to it and I loved it! There was nothing but epic clashes and battles to be had on the mats, mixed in with roasting and laughing. No meal went unearned, and I felt right at home in my element.



Private Lesson with Chewy
Undoubtedly one of the coolest parts of the trip was getting to be a part of a private lesson with Chewy. Preston had recently competed at a NAGA  tournament and the lesson was focused on improving his game while I functioned as an UKE. Chewy really impressed me with the preparation that he had put into going into the lesson. He had watched video from all of Preston's matches and brought with him a note-card filled with things to go over. He first covered strengths and areas to improve upon in Preston's game. They then broke down the video from a particular match. Chewy watched the video with Preston and would pause it at certain points. He would then discuss what was going on in the match, then they would recreate the situation and go over options. Just being the training dummy for this, I still took away a TON of conceptual guard passing knowledge from the lesson. 


Overall it was another great trip in the books and a great way to spend the last few days before we all headed to separate states across the country.

About the Author:

Steven McMahon earned his Kyuki-Do Black Belt in 2011 from Grand Master Kim at Kim's Black Belt Academy and his  BJJ Purple Belt in January 2017 under Professor Charles Nunley. He trains out of Cornerstone BJJ in Fayetteville, NC. He is an active competitor at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Army Combatives tournaments.