Originally Posted by
Ben Eddy
No offense meant guys. I'm certainly not dissing anyone's skills or abilities as a coach etc. Humans are amazing at overcoming and adapting to their situations and I wish each of you the best. I just was offering advice to possibly consider specifically for a person with the explicit goal of becoming the single best practitioner in the world at their weight/sex. You are only having a problem finding tournaments because of where you are located.
Also didn't mean anything derogatory to "the south" and the people who live there. I would say the same to anyone living in Canada, or the northwest, or the midwest etc. and that is only pertaining to this very specific sport BJJ goal. You're just stacking the odds against you at a significant degree. Can you overcome those odds? Sure. No one has yet though. It's just something to think about. All the examples cited are of people who first got to a high level in Cali, New York or Brazil first. There is a big difference between Cyborg who trains under the best, becomes the best and then relocates to a place not known for jits like Florida Vs. someone trying to go from white to the best while living in a place not known for jits.
I think you can recognize Brandon that if your goal was to win competitions at the highest levels at your weight and you were truly serious about it, you would need to relocate. Absolutely I am talking just from a competition perspective and just specifically from a perspective of wanting to be the absolute best. And absolutely by "best" I just mean someone who consistently wins within sport bjj designed rulesets that might be arbitrary and not adequately reflect the knowledge or full skillset of said practitioner. You can certainly focus on becoming a great coach, having a perfect understanding of BJJ, wipe the mats with the likes of people like me, be an ambassador for BJJ in your area and add a great deal of value to our sport and to 10th Planet. But to change gears from a coach perspective to a competitors perspective and aim to win at the highest level, much would have to change for you (yes maybe even including steroids ;-).
Sorry to take it off topic for you Tori by interjecting some unwanted opinions. I wish you the best. I would probably agree with others in saying that you might see more gain from week long training trips at various schools rather than competitons. When training with new partners at new schools, each roll is basically like a competition from a learning perspective other than getting better at the ruleset and strategy side of sport BJJ.
Ben, I think you've earned the right to have any opinion you would like. You're a monster and you have all my respect.
I don't disagree at all that you need incredible training partners to rise up. If someone came to my gym with the goal of being a world champion, I could get them started down the path. I could probably even raise them up to purple or brown belt champion status. But at some point they'd have to move on. For now. I don't expect that to be the case for much longer. So at this moment, yes to become a world champion at Black Belt level it would be wise to bash heads with another world champion everyday, and that is tough to find outside of the major cities.
But yall watch what the south does in the next 5 years. Remember the names Sam Davis, Matt Skaff, Tori Applegate and Sean Applegate. And if Michael Bartlett, Bobby Rivers and Scott Phillips want that, they could do it, too.
Interesting comment. I was letting you know so two teamates (technically I guess) would not have to fight each other on a high level card (but rather support each other?) but if this is the route you would like to go to make a name for yourself so be it. Best of luck!
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