Spring break in South Florida? Nah, I went to some town in Alabama.
Sorry for such a late post, but I've been running around doing school stuff ever since the break ended. Decatur was amazing though. First, Carmen Torres opened her home to me for a full week AND let me bring mah dog. Then, her and Josh McMurray were gangsters in the kitchen, even making me some legit cornbread (which really completed the full southern experience, imo—I'm from SoFlo. It's pretty much being a yankee, except with worse education systems and palm trees..... and a lot of people from the Northeastern US....... pretty much the entire state of New Jersey lives here....... and French Canadians for 4-5 months a year). Then Bmac welcomed me to town with a one on one rolling session, after my 13 hour drive, in which he proceeded to maul me for what seemed like an eternity. From then on it was pretty much what anyone would expect: lot's of quality jiu jitsu, concepts, training partners, friends, new friends, and hand to hand grappling warfare. Then at the end of the week I got to watch a bunch of sub-humans, I mean, white belts, kill each other at an in-house tournament.
I leveled up considerably last week. After the first couple days of training I began to find a game that has completely changed my strategy. Bmac showed me some tweaks to it that make life miserable for the victims as well. By the end of the week I was making people tap just from the pressure; they were white belts, which we all know aren't actual people, but still ;) My game also had new theories injected, which are honestly going to take sometime to master, but if I were to have stayed on the beach last week, instead of SACRIFICING for my jiu jitsu, I would still be the same old Ross that I was two weeks ago. No progression = regression, imo. But I don't even look at it as "sacrificing". To me, there's nothing more fun than traveling for jiu jitsu. In fact, anything with jiu jitsu is better. Want some cheesecake and jiu jitsu? How about some lamb chops and some knee reaping? Honey biscuts and some gogo clinch? Doesn't that sound incredible? So yea, pretty much food and jiu jitsu make everything better.
I really can't say enough about these Alabama warriors. They're always so welcoming and hospitable. They really do enjoy hosting out of town jiu jitsu enthusiasts. They're family.
I'd proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with them on the battle field.
But let's hope that that doesn't ever happen and we just spend our time on the mats training and competing.
There's too many people to thank specifically, but you all know who you are. Hopefully the rest of these forum-heads will wise up and come visit you guys to find out.
