HUGE DILEMMA- Need help in trying to advance JJ career

[stan myaskovskiy]

Check Mate is awesome!

[Brandon Mccaghren]

The Atlanta Open would be a great tourney for you. Start slipping over to New Orleans too.

[Gray]

Sounds like July is too early, but there is America nationals which is nogi IBJJF. Then you have pans and world's in September/October

[Drew Champlin]

Chicago Open mid August. Bit of a drive but I'm sure you know ppl in Chi-town!

[Ben Eddy]

I doubt you'll find anyone who has ever become the best and wasn't training daily under a high level teacher with an abundance of high level students to roll with. Without relocating to such a spot, you're going to have a hard time. Your daily practice partners and teacher is what is going to make the difference, not the tournaments you travel to or the camps you make it to as these are not frequent enough to make the difference.

It's going to be very hard to become the best if you are not living in LA/SD or New York. That's where the BJJ is in the states. There is constant tournaments, training partners, teachers etc. and that's what you have to have to make it to the top level.

Making it to the top while training in the south of Alabama is just going to be very hard / impossible. If that's truly your goal, you're probably going to need to seriously consider how you can relocate.

[Cora Sek]

I doubt you'll find anyone who has ever become the best and wasn't training daily under a high level teacher with an abundance of high level students to roll with. Without relocating to such a spot, you're going to have a hard time. Your daily practice partners and teacher is what is going to make the difference, not the tournaments you travel to or the camps you make it to as these are not frequent enough to make the difference.

It's going to be very hard to become the best if you are not living in LA/SD or New York. That's where the BJJ is in the states. There is constant tournaments, training partners, teachers etc. and that's what you have to have to make it to the top level.

Making it to the top while training in the south of Alabama is just going to be very hard / impossible. If that's truly your goal, you're probably going to need to seriously consider how you can relocate.

You hit the nail on the head with this advice. This past Worlds, I have been following practically every top level players from TX and NONE...yes NONE from blue belt to black belts, NONE made it on the podium. These guys are practically the best that we have in TX in their particular divisions and yet none made it on the podium. Texas has a lot more gyms, a lot more top level black belts and competitors and a lot more tournaments than AL I'm sure but yet these Texas guys aren't even good enough to get on the podium. It seems all the top guys are either in Cali or NY. So if one has aspiration to be the best, those are the states to be in.

[Brian Debes]

The IBJJF American nationals are next month as I understand it. As a female, you may need the IBJJF more than the guys unfortunately. No where else can give you more matches or more prestige as an up an coming female right now. I sure don't like them though.

Yes, in Texas, NAGA Dallas has had 2000+ competitors at both their "NAGA Worlds" events the last two years. And NAGA in other places has bumped me two divisions just to get a single match, so, really its not so much the event but the location.

I would say a grapplers quest in Vegas would MUCH MORE than replace Gracie worlds in terms of prestige and difficulty. That's what I might look for if I was you. Any Large tournament somewhere like that would be just as big of a deal as Gracie worlds I'd say. Heck, a small tournament in LA that's cheap might attract some local beasts that wouldn't pay the different for Gracie Worlds, because outside of 10th Planet, "Gracie Words" has no prestige.

P.S. To Bruce, an old training partner of mine from Beaumont, TX has been on the IBJJ Worlds Gi podium... with a gold medal... He had basically no quality training partners his size at all to train with leading up to it, but still made it happen. You can make it happen if that's what you want. I, personally, could care less about being on an IBJJF podium though.

[sean applegate]

I wonder how som many people from Atlanta are so successful, without living in L.A. or N.Y.....weird

[Arman Fathi]

Rhetorical question: is competing the only way to advance one's jiu jitsu career? While highlight reels will undoubtedly help and could serve as a jumping off point, I'm curious as to what the long term goal would be. Perhaps seminars, privates, books, blogs, dvds, t shirts, merchandise, better yet running a successful school, but it all comes from people digging your jitz. I know a few people close to me that are married, and doing pretty well for themselves, cuz they're not out there looking for someone or caring about dating. They're focused. They invest their time on their lives and their goals. I think you have that working in your favor. The hungrier you are to invest in knowledge, fine tune what you already know, and make breakthroughs, improving the reflexes, never being satisfied etc., those financial things take care of themselves. If you invest in your jitz, then jitz will invest in you.

[Tori Applegate]

I'm simply looking for bigger and better competition options. My training partners and coach are perfect, in fact, I don't think I could ask for a better team. I definitely have intentions of visiting NY for traincations in the future. It may seem like Alabama's Jiu Jitsu is weak is comparison to Cali or elsewhere, but I feel it is only in the way of tournament options. It's picked up in the past year, and I like local tournaments, but I really would like to travel to just one big one this year if possible!