Path to the Black Belt

Been getting to class and rolling a good amount. Cardio is on it's way back up.

Traveling to Houston and Tucson for the next few days. Tomorrow I'm going to drop in at Gracie Barra and hope they have a loaner gi.

The hotel has a gym with dumbbells so I will do my best to train legs in the AM too.
 
Moved to San Diego. Trained at Victory MMA today. I'm in love with the place.

No-gi on a Sunday was packed! We went over only one technique and did about 20 minutes of rolling, with open mat after. I rolled with a brown or black belt, a guy whose belt I don't know, and a couple of white belts. Did well with everyone but my cardio is still sucking.

I saw Jocko walking off the mat when I first rolled up. He looks tough.

No class tomorrow due to Memorial Day, so I'll go to the gym for strength training and tabata or something. Maybe hit the beach or hike afterward. Then I start my new job and training at Victory on Tuesday!
 
Update

Been training strength 3x/week with good gains. Going to Victory for BJJ 4-5 hours per week.

Yesterday there were more brown and black belts on the mat than blue or white belts. So that was an experience. Got tooled up by a couple of black and brown belts, but I have also been doing really well against brown and purple belts here. So far have only been tapped by one brown belt and a couple of black belts.

One thing I really love to see is a hobbyist black belt that is really, really fucking good. It gives me hope that even if I can't train full time like some young sponsored motherfucker, you can still get REALLY good at jiu-jitsu with a full time job and family. Guys that are murderers but train full-time or don't have jobs/families don't impress me. Of course they are amazing, that is no surprise. These older guys in their 40's and 50's that murder me on the mat are truly inspiring.
 
whoa its been a minute. Or almost a year, actually

Since I last posted, I've moved back to my old place in Southern California because my TDY to San Diego ended. :( I miss the place like crazy but I have a couple of job offers in motion right now that will take me back to either SD or Tucson. I'd be happy with either but Tucson would be my number 1 choice.

Did a tournament back in SD over the summer and placed third, tapping 3 out of the 5 guys in my division.

Also went to a BJJ Globetrotters Camp in the Caribbean which was really interesting to experience. My body was completely beat from training 18 hours that week!

Weight-wise I've bulked up to 210lbs but no more abs. Arms are about 16" but I'm going to keep going until 220 or 230lbs. I've been getting a LOT of comments about my size and strength lately.

Goal for now is just to keep getting better as a brown belt, improve my timing and understanding of things, correct bad habits and LEARN FROM EVERY CLASS, always take away something concrete to remember.

My current gym has very tough standards. If I stay here, I don't see myself getting a black belt for 3 years. If I move back to Tucson, I could see getting it within 2 years.
 
Highlights of the last three days include:

-A 24hr stomach flu

-Tapping one of the best guys in our gym for the first time, with a toe hold, then tapping another one of our best guys, also with a toe hold

-Today I got tapped by a white belt who claimed he has been training for only 9 months. He has cauli ear and was one of the strongest guys I've ever felt in my life. Legit better than some black belts I know. Who knows the reality of his training history but good god it was terrifying that someone can be that good in just 9 months

-Word about one of my new job possibilities is that I could be going to FLETC in Sep or Oct
 
Hit no-gi today, so 4.5 hours so far this week.

Rolled with some of our tougher guys today. A heavy wrestler who competes at ADCC tapped me about 6 times in 6 minutes.

I also went with one of our UFC pros. Got taken down but swept/attacked leg locks but was unable to catch him in anything. Didn't get tapped either so that's good. His cardio was 10x better than mine.

Drilled with a newer guy and also went with one of our brown belt females.

Physically feeling great. No big injuries or problems. Sleep has been 7ish hours on average. Gonna get 2 more hours of mat time in this week and get ready for another great week of training.
 
Trained last night and this morning. Got in some really tough rolls with younger, game, athletic guys and a verrrrrry good black belt.

The most important thing right now is that I'm relatively injury-free and my back and overall body feels fine. This will allow me to continue training at this rate.

Also I have been using these rubber finger-extension things to work the opposing grip muscles of my hands. My hand/forearm recovery has been feeling way better using these things off and on at work every day.
 
Good bench session today. Back to BJJ tomorrow AM for 60 minutes of drilling and 60 minutes of class. Injury-free and feeling good. Gunning for 7hrs of mat time this week
 
Trained legs yesterday and did an hour class of just drilling. Then today did 90 minutes of class including a few rolls. Felt a little lethargic today.

Going to register for a tournament a few weeks away to increase my accountability and have something to focus on. Just a smalltown local tournament but should have a few guys in my division.
 
Sleep was a little fucked up and had an errand to run, so I just did back/tri strength training.
 
Did an interval sprint session plus almost 90 minutes of no-gi. Trained with a black belt, purple belt and three white belts. The purple belt gave me fits. I defended from turtle a lot before he took side control, and I couldn't escape. The black belt tapped me once but dominated me the entire time.

We have been working a lot of DLR this week both in an out of the gi with a guest instructor.
 
Fri
Shoulders, traps and calf training, bodybuilder stuff
75 min BJJ, q&a class. Rolled with a couple of purples and a blue belt

Sat
tabata sprint interval
12 minutes of rolling at open mat. Felt physically exhausted after two rounds and was cramping up bad. Need to hydrate more and eat a banana next time
 
Pecs and bi's

plus 100 push ups, 100 sit ups and 100 bodyweight squats
 
Legs and sprint day at the gym

60 minutes gi BJJ. I have some weird, severe wrist tendonitis on the inside near my thumb. I can barely move my thumb without pain. So was extra careful at BJJ but came out OK. Tapped a big brown belt and an older brown belt a few times and did well (better at least) against a competitive, super heavy weight brown belt. My x-guard sweeps are coming along nicely. Still need a better game plan for closed guard bottom against bigger guys. Then did a chill roll with a female white belt.

Gonna tiger balm the shit out of my wrist, take tons of cissus and hopefully MK677 will help with the healing too. Weird injury, never had anything like this before.
 
90 min gi BJJ. Working arm bar escapes, an area I definitely need to improve in. Didn't feel like training today because I slept poorly but glad I went in.

Wrist tendonitis is bad. Hurts to touch. I think curls are out as far as bicep work goes. If I could strap something around my wrist/lower forearm I could probably do some reps, but any kind of supinated wrist flexion is murder right now.

EDIT

I just realized I started using those stupid rubber finger exercise things about 10 days ago. Then my wrist/thumb area started hurting a lot more. I wonder if I overstretched/strained something in my wrist. Not going to touch those things and see if this shit improves.
 
Last edited:
Weds
Back and tris

Thurs
60 min no-gi

Fri
Delts and traps
60 min gi, drillin only no rolling

Then I came down with food poisoning from bad kugel. Maybe take off tomorrow's gym session and hopefully back on the mats by Monday

reminder to self, if they try to roll out of the heel hook, switch the leg to the other side of your body and hit the reverse heel hook. Way better than rolling with them endlessly trying to shut it down
 
Sat
Nothing, recovery from food poisoning

Sun
Pecs and biceps, no cardio

Woke up feeling a lot better. Not 100% but good enough to train and my appetite was back. Plus a real desire for gatorade and water.

In an effort to heal my wrist injuries I opted for only doing pec dec flies and zottman curls. Neither of these aggravated my wrists so it was a good workout.

Not rolling for 3 days has me really missing BJJ!
 
Mon
Legs, sprint interval training

Gi BJJ 90 min

Tues
Gi BJJ 90 min

Weds
Back and triceps
sprint interval training
 
Wrist and thumb are feeling a little better. Hit the sauna the other day at 180F which is hotter than any sauna I've been in in my life. Think the max before that was 140F. Just doing anything I can to hurry along the recovery process.
 

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