Originally Posted by
Ross Davidson
TL;DR: This Friday, Millenium Martial Arts, Hialeah @8 pm. Be there, and bring your brown pants (if you're in SoFlo). The official send off of the South Florida Hotbox.
Just about 9 years ago, the 10P Miami Hotbox was formed by the Woolsey boys, and the OG SoFlo crew was born out of Lotus Club Jiu Jitsu. At some point, they moved the hotbox just a little bit farther north to become the Fort Lauderdale hotbox, sharing the mats with Underground Jiu Jitsu.
I met the Woolseys in 2013, when I was about 7 months into my journey, and I was training out of a dinky little boxing gym. Their knowledge and love of bjj, and the caliber of guys at Underground, got me to jump ship and join over there to get as much 10PJJ and MGJJ as possible. Needless to say, my journey skyrocketed and within 9 months I went from a total scrub to a blue belt, so like a scrub, but not the worst in the world.
And so it went for while, until the hotbox had to move again, this time to Boca Raton at Imperial Martial Arts. This was also, unfortunately, short lived, and the hotbox was temporarily disbanded. It wasn't for lack of trying, however, as the Woolseys really tried their best to get a full fledged moon going. But things never quite worked out the way we hoped they would.
Then there came a point where the Woolseys just couldn't steward the hotbox anymore. So they passed on the responsibilities, this time to Dory and Kai Bele. Kai was another young crusher like Tyler, but his talent on the mats made him a prime candidate for a good high school wrestling program, and so they moved out of SoFlo to find a program for him to excel at. Then they gave me and my buddy Rich Barnes the reigns. It was right around this time though that the rules were changed, and our hotbox had to take a step back from being 'official', to the 'unofficial' designation. That's when the name was changed to "Nibiru Warriors of SoFlo".
For a while we trained out of a karate school in Fort Lauderdale, but I think they saw me on camera making fun of their katas or something because they ended up kicking us out, while using a pretty flimsy excuse at that. But hey, it was 2015. We tried to keep it together though, training out of Rich's garage, but injuries and work sidelined him. So once again, we had to disband.
But then, something amazing happened: I didn't die and I didn't quit jiu jitsu, so I got my purple belt. At that point the head coach and the gym owner finally felt comfortable giving me my own class to teach, which I promptly turned into a spot for the hotbox to train. This little arrangement lasted just over a year, but during that year, we were able to do something great that I hadn't experienced yet before; we formed a team, and great friendships. Hell, we even have one of the OG hotbox members training with us again, Enrique Crespo. Now it's harder to keep the group disbanded than it is to get us together. We're always planning #dojostormfridays or even just showing up and training with various members at their home gyms, and a few of us even train at the same gym now! It seemed for a while that we were destined to finally get a legit moon here in SoFlo. We were right.
But it took us by surprise. Recently, our new buddy, Gabe Tejada, out of 10P Bethlehem, decided he wanted to get away from the snow, and start a gym in Magic City. So he did it. Well, almost at least. Yep, 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu is soon to be a reality here in SoFlo, and we couldn't be more excited.
And so it brings me great joy, and great sadness, that I must officially say, the hotbox is coming to a close. We have done it. Mission accomplished. But I must warn you to keep an eye out, because our group is still thriving, and there are big plans in store for the "Nibiru Warriors of SoFlo" page. Just, from now on our meeting place will be at the new 10P Miami location, wherever it ends up being, everyday of the week.
So to close out this chapter of the 10P SoFlo history, we're doing one last shin dig, this Friday, at Millennium Martial Arts in Hialeah. We wanna make this a great one, so bring your best game, and possibly your appetite.
Let's send this hotbox off right.
