Quote:
Rough translation (sorry for the sketchy English):
My name is Geovanny Martinez and I'm a black belt under Eddie Bravo.
Naturally, my inspiration in Jiu-Jitsu is my master Eddie Bravo.
His style was different from everything else I'd seen. So, he quickly caught my eye. I also like Marcelo Garcia a lot because he's one of the best, and JJ Machado because the things he's done are a great inspiration for me, my brother and my family, you know.
First, I started breakdancing with my brother. It was our first passion. One of my friends opened a 10th Planet school and asked me if I wanted to teach breakdancing to his son because his son didn't want to learn Jiu-Jitsu. He wanted to break dance. So I said OK, I taught him how to dance and I could learn and train Jiu-Jitsu for free. I showed up every day and dragged my brother along so he could start learning Jiu-Jitsu as well.
When I first started Jiu-Jitsu, I was 24 years old and many people told me that it was too late to start, that I would go nowhere in JJ and that I was wasting my time. But I enjoyed Jiu-Jitsu from the start and it made me feel happy, so I kept coming and I kept training. And after 3 years and a half, I got my black belt from Eddie Bravo and won competitions along the way, earning people's respect.
My message to people is that you should do whatever you want, regardless of what people may say. If it makes you happy, carry on, no matter what people may tell you. Don't let them stop your motivation. Carry on and on.
Sometimes, it's going to be hard. It's not easy. But if it were easy, everybody would do it.
I think what's helped me a lot is my breakdancing. From the start, I could already do moves that other people couldn't. But I've also studied a lot, asked a lot of questions, a lot of questions. I lost a lot of matches, you know. Many guys almost killed me, you know. But I kept going. I kept showing up. You have to work hard. Sometimes, you feel like stopping training because you're tired, your body aches and many other things which make you want to stop training. But I kept at it. And I kept studying the system, you know. You have to have a system to learn, you know. And I had the 10th Planet system to learn, so I studied it over and over again. And I competed as much as I could. When I was going to the academy and we were doing rolls, I always wanted to be the first on the mat and the last to leave. I kept pushing.
You never know when you'll get promoted. When you least expect it, you get promoted. You never think about promotion, you only think about working hard. And one day, you get promoted. Eddie thought I was doing things right and I got promoted [to black belt]. Now, I want to work even harder because I've barely scratched the surface of what I want to accomplish. And I know there's a lot more to come from me.
One of my greatest accomplishments was to win the first edition of EBI, a great competition created by Eddie Bravo. Because in my last match, I defeated Jeff Glover, who I looked up to when I first started. The whole event was amazing but the finals against Jeff Glover were like a dream come true. I had dreamed about that moment for so long, you know. And it finally happened. I have a lot of respect for Jeff but I knew I had to win, no matter what. I wanted to win. I don't know whether he thought he was going to get an easy win, but when we started our match, I felt I had the upper hand to win it.
I've been to Mexico before but it's my first time in Colombia. Colombia is beautiful, you know. Everything I've seen around is beautiful. People are really nice here and work hard. Jiu-Jitsu also make you see that people here are hard-workers. It's part of the culture here. I think people here are doing things the right way. Everything we do over there [in US 10P moons], they do here [in Baranquilla]. I don't see many differences. We have Eddie Bravo over there but the 10PJJ school here is doing things the right way. I love what Nathan is doing here. He has a very detail-oriented focus on the 10P system and it also shows on the work of his assistants.
Greetings to everyone in Latin America. I'm Mexican, always representing, me and my brother. I love the culture.
10th Planet is open to everyone. Everybody is welcome. That's what I love about 10th Planet. Everybody can come to train. Everybody can come to learn. We don't have any limitations. Everyone is invited to come and learn something new. Don't be scared! Try something new and if you like it, carry on and if don't like it, leave it.
Oss!
