HUGE DILEMMA- Need help in trying to advance JJ career

[Tori Applegate]

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.

Your opinion was fine! I agree. I think what I've concluded from all of this is to travel and train. I guess I thought I just needed to mainly travel and compete and some training too. But if my schedule and everything opens up some I have certain spots I'd like to visit with some really high level players. It's nice to see belts higher than blue posting on the forum honestly.

[Tori Applegate]

Maybe I took that the wrong way so apologies Tori. Its hard to tell tone on a forum If two 10p females are matched in a tourney then let the best soldier win (it happened to Gabby at Gracie Nationals last year) but in a super fight situation where you have a say who you have a match with it doesn't make sense to fight a teammate (my two cents). If you do make it out this way hit us up...gabby is always up for a good roll and i have 500 SQ foot mat space in my barn that we can use whenever. If you come out for a PGL or Pans or whatever and need a place to practice for the week give us a holler we would love to have you guys.

Nice, so do y'all live in NJ? I think that's where I saw they hosted the last one. I thought y'all were in Cali, but it's easy to get confused on who lives where sometimes. Yea, I agree on the tone thing. No I'd rather not fight 10p, but have had to before. Just somewhat used to it, fight My TRAINING partner lol, not tranny, all the time just because we start on opposite ends of the bracket and we fight for first, always. But!! You're right. It'd be cool to go and both of us have matches. I'd like to see one of her matches in person for sure. It's always better that way, but hey we'll see if I can get on it or not.

Is everyone going to gloss over that her phone auto corrects training for tranny? Maybe I'm just immature..

Gray, my phone is a PIECE. I have a new one coming in the mail right now!

[Arman Fathi]

It's nice to see belts higher than blue posting on the forum honestly.

You could always just put a disclaimer only asking for advice from higher belts. Wouldn't take it personally.

[TThompson]

Well I couldn't agree more with what Ben Eddy and Brandon were saying about the location is an important key to success. I am also in favor of training with different people at different schools because I have learned a lot in this past year training at three different schools versus just one school. That is my preference though because this is the first real sport I have done in 15 years, so I get mad jitters when I compete. After training with so many different people lately it has helped me grow in tremendous ways (and this website too). Anyways, Jiu Jitsu Magazine for me has always had great references for tournaments all over the country. One I just saw an article for which you might already know about is Newbreeduc.com which sounds legit. Another decent website is BJJTour.com. I don't know what your financial situation is but in the winter here in California there is NABJJF and the Jiu Jitsu Expo which is always fun and great deals on cool equipment., and there are other tournaments but that's just to name a few. Hope this helps, sorry I don't have the experience to help benefit you but I do like to help no matter what.

[David Rosado]

I think I'm going to start referring to training partners as tranny partners now. Just to freak out people who are already homophobic about BJJ. Like, "Yeah, so me and my tranny partner were doing some BJ......J."

[VJ Bella]

Nice, so do y'all live in NJ? I think that's where I saw they hosted the last one. I thought y'all were in Cali, but it's easy to get confused on who lives where sometimes. Yea, I agree on the tone thing. No I'd rather not fight 10p, but have had to before. Just somewhat used to it, fight My TRAINING partner lol, not tranny, all the time just because we start on opposite ends of the bracket and we fight for first, always. But!! You're right. It'd be cool to go and both of us have matches. I'd like to see one of her matches in person for sure. It's always better that way, but hey we'll see if I can get on it or not.

We are in South Jersey just outside of Philadelphia. Gabby goes over to Cali from time to time so shes not always here but she hasn't been out there in over a year now. I know she is planning on going back fairly soon, just not sure when.

[Jeremiah Macy]

Tori, get out here to SC and do some tournaments. Sara Mcmann competes at local tournaments around here. Having trained with both of you, I think you two are a great matchup. I know it wouldn't be high status competitions, but you would get to compete against Sara.

[robster]

some opinions on this subject


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[robster]

https://youtu.be/fp6aPo279og

[Brent Smith]

Tori, I honestly think you'll go far. And I 100% disagree that you need to move to accomplish that. LA and NY may be the hot bed now but that doesn't necessarily mean that is the model everyone has to follow to become the best of the best. You keep doing you and you keep training like you are and the nay sayers can look back and say "shit I was wrong".