First off, I am no way worthy of the title Nibiru Warrior of the Year, by any stretch. In my opinion this is Zog hands down. BUT, Eddie went and made it all democratic and is going to allow vote. He has also laid down a prize that I covet deeply. An all expense trip to hq. Dayum! In my eyes this just became a competition. Kinda political maybe, but fuck I hate politics. Buncha liars and manipulative con-artists. One thing that I will not do now is lie, but i digress. I will begin this petition by answering one simple question. This is an attempt to sway all Ronins out there 8-15 hours way from an affiliate. All you wanna do is drill a gogo or two and try some lockdown sweeps after readin the books, or drill that amazing tech you just saw on Mts that will fit beautifully into your game.. If only you could get the reps. It ain't easy man, I know. Even if your in a good school, good luck finding the amount of reps it takes to become effective. That question is, "Why do I deserve a trip to HQ?"
Now i'll admit. I'm not the most humble guy on the block and have been told that I can come across as arrogant at times, which means its time for me to take another hit real quick, then im good- but thats beside the point. My point is I know its not cool to toot your own horn, and it echoes so much louder when others blow it for you(cliches rock). But im going to tell y'all a lil about myself and journey with 10p. Dont worry, ill abridge it.
Growing up I had little supervision, so me and my friends(also not supervised)kinda raised eachother. I graduated highschool with no plan or ambition, but a relatively high gradepoint average. I kept waiting for me to find a career I would enjoy. It never came to me. So where Im from, guys like me join the military. I look back and still wish I woulda joined the coast guard, but we are the choices we make right? And then a girl told me no to go. She said to come to Mobile and go to college with her and we'll live happily ever after.. I bit. I moved. She left me and is now married to one of my good friends little brothers and I here there happy as ever @#$&. Anyway, now I was three years into a degree that I randomly picked and hated doing. I had a decent bartending gig and quit college. I still dont know if that was the right decision or not, but I saw it as me dedicating and stressing over shit I did not care about and did not want to do for a living. In the end our jobs define us and ill be damned if im defined as an accountant. No offense to any accountants. I am still a brokeass bartender so it kinda backfired. However I have never valued money or material objects, and dont have any dependents because I have found I cannot afford a girlfriend. Plus, it takes me so little to be content. Clean house, transportation(shitty), internet, a couple of books and im good. This is where 10p enters. Victory Belt. And MTRG.
Through my late teens and into my mid twenties I was a b-boy. It is how I defined myself and also my main source of booty, when we're honest this is often our sole motivation. I was pretty good, everytime we went to a big comp we got destroyed, but it took a drive to find someone who worked hard enough to 'serve' us. But there was no way to be sure because of subjectivity, I would lose to guys I felt I was far better than because of technicality, style, creativity, and lack of repetition. I will always love it, but I needed competition. Real competition. I needed the fuckin ufc cuz.
So I went and tried out for our local fight team SlaughterHouse, and they threw me in the ring with a pro boxer which sucked, but then they threw me to a purple belt. Which was fascinating. Ive fought, and lost, my whole life. I have never got my ass kicked like that before. I wanted more, but as it turns out, it was hard to get a hold of. That fight team was made of a bunch of washed up old boxers and overzealous newbs. The purple belt was not part of the team and I just got lucky he was there the day of my tryouts. I kept practicing with the team, which was fucking insane! Non of them do shit anymore. We damn near killed eachother everyday, and I instinctively knew that this was wrong. I think it was.. yeah.. complete lack of any tech whatsoever. I could flip the shit out of a tire and swing a very rhythmic sledgehammer though. After my second broken nose during 'light sparring' I bailed. And bought Bj Penns book. I cant say I learned much from it, but i loved it. I would bumbrush my crewmates and try to slap on something, practicing my positional control and advancement. Rolling was the shit! So much fun!! I needed another book. Loved the way victory belt did things so thats the direction I was gonna go. Mastering The Rubber Guard? Oh yeah I saw Micah Miller do somethin like that, cool shit. My life has changed after that moment. The system has you in the end, but Eddie wins you over in that book. A man who traveled a very similar path to mine, who refused to compromise, create the most beautiful form of violence ive ever seen, and live by anybody elses terms but his own. Ive always seen this as the only way to be true to yourself and art. Any art. I was going to listen to him and do what the book told me too.
There was no site, I didnt even know there was a Hq, and had no real concept of what a real jj school might be like. This never appeared an obstacle to me because of my bboy mentality. I just needed to get some dudes together, and we needed to get in these positions. Luckily I was able to get one of my ridiculously athletic friends to play with me at first. We quickly realized we needed mats, and that bullshit from lowes was a waste of money. So I went to old martial arts schools till I found someone selling puzzlematts and I scooped em up on the low, threw them in the back of my truck with a bunch of towels in case of rain. So now I had my school(matts/truck), my teacher(MTRG), and a student(Jeff). Way I saw it, I was all good. No way Ill ever learn everything in that whole book so we drilled(wrongly) for hours getting thousands of reps and a half decent guard game. Jeff herniated a disc in his first match at our first tourney, so we were setback. He was hurt and I was without a training partner. I started recruiting wherever I could and ended up getting about 8 guys together to train pretty regularly. One of those guys was Scott Phillip's. If Tom Petty has an illegitimate son out there this cat is it. Ill get back to Scott later. Anyway, we were training and rolling where ever they wouldnt kick us out. It was probly one of the first Hotboxes before they were called hotboxes.
I knew from my experience competing in breakin, that there were whole other levels out there that we needed to get to advance and make this shit work in mma, my ultimate goal. Where could I find these levels? Duh.. So after I google 10thp, I found 10thplantet watch run by Alder. It was awesome. I never knew MTRG had a dvd and after watchin the vids I was floored. You should of seen our kungfu move before the vids. It stepped up our training immensely, but we were still pretty raw because I was the coach and I have never had a coach. But the alternative was sit and wait for a coach or relocate, which I couldnt at the moment due to legal troubles(longstory) and Im constantly broke due to hopital bills, student loans, a shitty job, you know, life. So I kept coachin.
Then the sight dropped. I never made any excuses or felt unfortunate to be isolated before, but now. Im set. I saw it immediately for what it was. Revolutionary. I watched the vids getting thousands of mental reps, preparing drills for the net session while finding my second home and future family members. The Forum. The og's here know my newb ass lit that first forum up sun!! I lead the post count when it dissolved into this one. I would give my uncredible opinion and advice on everything, thinking I had so much figured out. One thing I had right though was listening to Eddie had always worked in the past, and I was seein this one through.
Most of the guys ended up quitting, because they couldnt match my passion for progress and my knowledge of what it takes to achieve it. Sweat, gallons and gallons of sweat. Mixed with pain, hours upon hours of pain. This was not a class, I was only spending money and receiving nothing single handedly trying to build a competitive 10p squad so I had little patience for anyone who could not make it regularly to learn the drills and terminology, but I would never refuse someone who wanted to train and drilled with everyone personally, every practice till I knew the light bulb went on. It got old and painful doing the the same drills everybody should already know, again, because apparently everybody doesnt obsess over it like I do. Reluctantly, I was getting exactly what I needed. Fundamental reps. But like I said, only few stayed.
