A look back on October 2018

This might just be my favorite picture ever 😆

Wow October was a busy month! Finishing out three tournaments in 3 weeks, moving into a new house, heading back to North Carolina for National Guard training and recovering from whatever sickness I got after two long flights and three nights without sleeping. The month seemed like it
lasted a week long for me.

The first weekend of I participated in a Proving Grounds Submission only tournament. Ya'll know that I'm a massive fan of sub only venues as it fits my personality and my game, and I had a blast at this venue. It was a bit different from the way US Grappling does sub only, as it did have time limits; 7 minutes for purple and 6 minutes for advanced no gi. I had a submission and a draw in gi, and two submissions and two draws in no gi. I was really happy with how I performed in no gi. I've shared that this is an area of improvement for me, and I felt like some of the hard work that I've been putting into the area showed through that weekend.

A huge huge thank you to my friend and teammate Jules for driving me to the event, recording and coaching me during my matches. Tournament pictures and footage are priceless for me and it really meant a lot to have someone in my corner.













I don't think it was the 3 back to back tournaments, so much as it was the weight cut for the last one, but I body felt wrecked afterwards. I spent the week after rolling light, stretching a lot, and holding my ribs while I felt sorry for myself 😆 JiuJitsu is my therapy, so I kept showing up to class and only missed three days of classes this month when I returned from Army training with some type of crud and skipped being on the mats for infecting my teammates.

The Highlights of the Month
-This article that I did HERE  with my teammate Heath really meant a lot to me. If you haven't gotten a chance to read it yet, I would strongly encourage you to do so. I can't express my appreciation for him in taking the time to share his story about his JiuJitsu story with me.

-The Wakizashi team. I've spent four months with this team now and I have continued to feel incredibly blessed to be a part of what they are doing. In particular, I have been really impressed with the progress that a couple of the new students have been making. They started just a couple of months ago, but the technical knowledge and rolling capabilities that they already posses I think speaks volumes for the level of instruction and quality of the team here.

-Being promoted to sergeant. While not JiuJitsu related, I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant in the Army National Guard this month. This year was filled with a lot of long flights, long miles under a ruck and extra work going into the Guard's Best Warrior Competition. It was rewarding to see that extra work pay off with the promotion this year. I have had many great NCO's in my career, and I hope that I can live up to the example that they have set for me.

-Open mat at Bellingham BJJ. I had a great training session here the last Sunday of the month, joining them for an open mat session. With people from three different schools, 2 brown belts, 5 purple belts, 2 blue belts and 1 white belt in attendance. It was all the best things about JiuJitsu. We set the timer for 5 minutes a round, and enjoyed over an hour of tough, friendly rolls. It is always a blast to meet new JiuJitsu people, and experience different styles and games. I like what Jeff says about their are only so many of us weird people that train this JiuJitsu thing, and it's always fun to get a bunch of together for training.


 -Getting to see my friend "Lenny Bro." While back in North Carolina I got to spend dinner with my very good friend and teammate Alex. We trained together for four years while I lived there and we grabbed dinner together at Bad Daddy's (one of my favorite burger places.) It was great to swap recent stories about life, training and recent adventures. It mainly though reminded me how great it is to get to spend time with good people. The friendships made from training are worth more than any piece of medal or technique that we can learn.
 
What I'm looking forward to in November
Unfortunately, all the tournaments in the PNW for November are going to be held in Canada. With my passport still in the mail, it doesn't look like I'll be getting to compete this next month. For October though I only visited two other schools, and both of them I have been to before so they aren't able to be added to the list. With November's drill and Thanksgiving at the end of the moth. I'm going to set a personal goal of getting to at least 6 new JiuJitsu schools in Washington, so if anyone knows anyone that would welcome in this purple belt, please let me know!

Other than that, the month will be continued focus on improving and enjoying the mats with my team.

As always, thank you so much for reading and I hope to see you all on the mats soon!

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 currently trains out of Wakizashi BJJ  in Oak Harbor under Professor Eli Trevino. He is an active competitor at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Army Combative tournaments.