Senior Student Appreciation

This season is one for giving thanks and expressing our appreciation for the people that have made a difference in our lives. The Cornerstone OG squad recently got together for a seminar and the group picture brought back a flood of memories for me. In this post I want to share the appreciation I have for these guys that were such a big part of my life for the 4 years that I lived in North Carolina.

My JiuJitsu team is a lot like family to me, and that was especially the case at Cornerstone. I am typically on the mats 5-7 days a week, which is a lot of time spent with my team. Then add in post training trips to the local Mexican joint (Many good evenings were spent hanging out Beer and Salsa), and weekends spent hanging out around a bonfire. The team is definitely who I spent the majority of my free time with. Over those 4 years, the guys were all instrumental in my progress from white to purple belt. The majority of my game comes from that time as well. Either adopting their portions of their games, or from working techniques to counter it.

Someone recently told me that you don't know that you're in the good old days until after you've left them and that really struck me when this picture popped up in my newsfeed. This is my best attempt to express my gratitude for these guys and share a little bit about the influence that they had on my JiuJitsu.


From Right to Left:

Tucker, Travis and I at our very first I
BJJF tournament in New York

Tucker- When I first showed up to Cornerstone, I had spent years climbing trees, moving big logs was doing power-lifting and walked around at 220lbs. I had trained JiuJitsu off and on for a few years before and had gotten to score a few wins at Army Combative tournaments. Tucker was this lanky 150lb high school kid when I met him. No one emphasized to me that in JiuJitsu, technique conquers strength more than Tucker has. No matter how hard I'd try to crush him, he'd entangle me with his long legged spider guard, take the back and choke me out. Over and over again for years our rolls always ended with me getting choked.

Tucker in a lot of ways was like a younger brother to me. We ended up being neighbors for about a year and shared many car trips talking about JiuJitsu while we drove together to and from class.

The thing that I really appreciate about Tucker is that he spent a lot of his free time teaching me. From white to blue we spent hours and hours going over and drilling techniques, and he was always willing to answer one of the million and one questions I had about JiuJitsu.

Any success I have in guard passing I attribute to the many battles that we had while rolling together.

Vince- Vince was, and still is, one of the most reliable people that was a part of Cornerstone. He was almost always at class and would frequently step up to teaching if the need came up. He was always helping out behind the scenes as well and has done a lot for the school over the years.

More of a gentle giant, Vince can be the wrong person to irritate while rolling, something that I loved doing 😆 He has a soul crushing knee on belly, something he normally saves only for those that irritate him, so I got to spend a lot of time being crushed 😜. Training with him taught me to be tough, to withstand pressure and how to grapple against a bigger opponent.

I am most grateful though for the many post training meals that I got to spend with him. Talking about JiuJitsu and the direction of the team while crushing burritos down the street from the school.


Derek (aka: Asian Man)- When I hear the word Senpai, Derek is always the person that comes to mind. No one else has had a bigger influence on my game than him. Derek used the bow and arrow choke with great effect, I even caught a quick nap once from one. I adopted his method of attacking it, and it has since been my most used and highest percentage tournament finish submission. When I was a white belt, Derek was always the guy that I looked up too and wanted to be like when I grew up to be a purple.

Aside from techniques, I'm grateful for the many late night, maybe one too many beers in conversations about perspectives on life, training any other sort of rabbit hole we happened to stray down.

Eddie-  Eddie travels a lot for work, so unfortunately I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him. Eddie is a quite and reserved guy, he has a long history of training martial arts, the old school kind with old school training methods. The kind that gives you steel rods for shins and iron hammers for fists. I just watched a season of the Punisher on Netflix, and Frank Castle reminds me a lot of this teammate.

Eddie taught me that every roll doesn't have to be a "To the death" roll. That you can know that you're a killer and still have a light, fun, and technical roll focused on improvement. Perhaps one of the lessons that I still have to fully learn, I'm grateful for the time that I got to spend training with him.

Dustin (aka: Cornbread)- Cornbread is one of the nicest, humblest people that you'll ever meet, that can also rip your arms off if he ever felt like doing so. Although a true mat monster, he always adjusts the throttle to where you are at, pushing you to be better.

I'm grateful for getting to train with Cornbread because no matter how much better I got, he always challenged me to keep improving.



Alex (aka: Lenny Bro)- While he wasn't able to make the seminar picture, I can't talk about OG Cornerstone guys without talking about my Lenny Bro. I'll be honest, when I first met him, I kinda thought he was an asshole. Our first introduction he told me that my JiuJitsu sucked and I used too much muscle. Over time though you realize that he has a phenomenal heart, but he refuses to accept excuses or mediocrity. Compliments only come when they are truly earned. I love my Lenny Bro and I consider him to be one of my greatest friends in life.

I really appreciate having him as a teammate because he will call me out if I'm slacking, but is also one of the first people there if I need someone. He cares a great deal about the school and his teammates, and cornerstone is lucky to have someone like him be a part of it.


There are many other great people that I got to train with at Cornerstone. Whether they just dropped in for a class while traveling, or we got to spend years together training. I wanted to highlight these particular guys though because they were all there day 1 of me showing up to train, and we got to spend so much time off and on the mats together. They beat the crap out of me every day at class and by doing so, made me into the JiuJitsu person that I am today. Work, life, and a sense of adventure means that we don't get to train together anymore, but I will always be incredibly grateful for the time that we did get to spend together, and any success that I achieve in this JiuJitsu thing I will hold them all partially to blame.

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.