Red is still my favorite color..

Monday night Fabio gave me my purple belt.

I feel very undeserving and nervous about it, but I've come to realize how I feel about the color of my belt matters zero.  All I need to do is grapple like I think I deserve it.  I think it was

Royce Gracie who said, 'The belt only covers two inches of your ass, and the rest is up to you.'  (Or something like that.)  Turns out that's highly accurate.

When I started BJJ I was an out of shape, awkward, bookworm with absolutely no aptitude for BJJ.  I am still an awkward bookworm but thanks for Fabio and the rest of my team the other two things no longer apply.

Obviously Fabio has played a major role in my getting to this point.  His instruction and encouragement have been invaluable, but my teammates have been just as important.  They are the ones who sacrifice their time, emotion, energy and their bodies for me to practice the sport I love.  Without them, I couldn't train at all.  Outside of all the wonderful things BJJ brings into my life, it can be mindbogglingly frustrating and physically painful.  Sometimes, I think we forget that the rest of our teammates have similar struggles, but still train, help and encourage others. ... and they count just as much as Fabio.

While every person, and every grapple has helped me get to where I am, a few people have helped more than others, and some of them for nothing in return.

Erica is literally my perfect training partner.  She is my weight, my height and my same skill level... And motivated like no other.  She pushes herself always and in turn pushes me.  She is humble, and always has words of encouragement.  Every grapple with her is challenging yet still fun, and being that we are the same size, she is my ideal partner for getting ready to compete.  I love her on and off the mat, she is a good friend and great training partner.  I am so thankful for her!

Jimmy has probably endured more questions from me than anyone else.  If I get stuck on anything, which is often, he is the person I ask.  I am fairly retarded, so sometimes it's not so easy to help me over my hurdles, but he always find a way to make me understand.  And he is really good at helping me translate things to my own body type.  Obviously my gangly girl body is going to go about things slightly differently than the way he would go about doing them, and he helps me to see what will work for me...something I still struggle with.  We have all body types in our women's class and I wish I could as easily tweak techniques to make them more applicable to the individual girls doing them.  His brain understands BJJ about 90 billion times better than mine does.

 And these guys, are always willing to help me out in whatever way I've asked.  Whether I needed a special guest in my class, or I needed to pepper them with questions, after class... or sometimes during or before class, they have always done so happily.  

Anthony! Congratulations on your brown belt!  It looks so nice with your brown face!  ha! 

Brian, and his annoying armbars makes me strive to suck less at escapes.

And Doug I consider to be man version of me.  We have kinda similar body types, so I like watching him grapple.  A lot of what he does will work for me as well.. You know, if I could stop sucking at turtle guard.  Plus, he is my fellow BJJ Jew... and lets face it.  That matters.  lol  

And of course, all of the women's team.  Teaching BJJ has probably helped me just as much as it helps the girls I teach... if not more.  Having to think over every last detail, and walk them through every step helps to burn them into my own memory.  And their new honeymoon type love for BJJ gives me so much joy.  Some of them have already hit that inevitable wall, but endured the frustration and tears, and broke through the other side.  It inspires me, and makes me want to be better for them.  I want to be the best teacher I can be.  They deserve a teacher as dedicated and committed as they are, and I hope I can be that for them.

I love my team!


And here are a bunch of pictures of my post new belt bullying.

Pan Ams 2013 and Tattoos

Fabio competed again this year and brought home another medal!  Congrats Fabio!  Always proud to be one of his students.

I watched online, and serious props to Budo Videos.  Their multimat technology kicked ass.  I saw every single matched I wanted to see.  Absolutely worth it this year... my only request would be they have the scores on the screen for all the matches, not just the adult male finals... which by the way, were amazing.  Caio Terra is probably my favorite grappler, so I always enjoy watching him grapple... Third gold at the Pans in a row! Woohoo!

I would watch the Pan Ams online next year, but I'm going instead. Woohoo! I've wanted to go the past two years, but I am tried of just wanting to go.  I'm going.  I've already got it worked out.  So, 2014 Pan Ams.. I will see you there! =D

I am also doing the Miami Open in six months.  So, it works it self out perfectly.  Miami is in 6 months, and the Pan Ams are six months after that.  I'll have plenty of time before each to give my body rest, then kick my own ass training.

And speaking of rest.. .that is what I am doing now.  I am in the middle of a one month break.  My knee is being lame and I would like it to fully recover before I start competition training.  The break perfectly coincided with tattoo time as well.  So my arm and knee can heal at the same time.  Multi tasking for the win.

Sean Williams, my tattoo artist is all sorts of awesome as you can tell.

www.CollectiveTattoo.com

This tattoo is finished, but in all likelihood this will become a half sleeve.

Vacation: Over

We went up to the mountains for Christmas this year.  

My kids saw snow for the first time!  They were very excited... as you can see here.  The look on her face is priceless.

It rained two days we were there.  I am told one of the storms we got was considered a blizzard, even though there was no snow, but I don't claim to know anything about real winter weather.  I was cool though, and pretty.  We were in a really, REALLY rural area and you could hear the wind coming.. snapping branches as it came.  It sounded like a giant was storming through the woods.  

This fire place was the soul source of heat for the entire house.  Which meant we had to chop wood everyday if we didn't want to freeze to death.  (And yes, I was on vacation   I had whipped cream on my coffee.  It's freaking delicious.)

 I learned to chop firewood! I am told I stand wrong, but I'd rather stand wrong than lop my foot off.  Fair trade I think.  Plus, the wood still gets chopped in half even if I stand like an idiot.  And Zaile being my little mini me had to give it a try too.  I helped her chop the ax a few times, and then staged this picture for her.  She loved it.

I loved this little winding road that lead up to our cabin.  And mountain driving is a trip.  Its like a roller coaster in which you can fly off the track and die, and a lot of the roads we had to drive down were essentially one lane.  I took a wrong turn once, and ended up having to drive down BACKWARDS, because there was no where for me to make a turn.  Insanity.  

This was the first morning it snowed.  It was also the first day the sun broke through the clouds in three days.  This picture doesn't capture it AT ALL, but it was snowing when I took this, and all the little snow flakes caught the sunlight and it looked like it was raining white glitter.  It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen.  That, and I desperately missed the sunshine.  I could never live somewhere that wasn't generally sunny.

This is my niece.  I got to spend a lot of time with her while we were up there too.  She and my other nieces and nephews are fantastic kids, and I wish we lived closer.  I miss them so much!

I took these on my snow adventure.  You non Floridians may not as been overly impressed with snow and frozen water as I was... but I never see it.  I'll spare you the 300 other pictures of snow I took.

We went snow tubing down the side of a mountain too.  It was a lot of fun, and also terrifying and painful.  I almost always had to go down with a kid in my lap... and we weren't sliding down snow.. we were sliding down ice.  My butt was sad about it.

This is what I got for Christmas!  Yay!  

This was me New Year's Eve.  We spent it at Disney World like we do every year.  

Happy New Year Everyone!  I hope your 2013 kicks ass!

Spectator!

Yesterday Team Fabio Novaes rocked the NAGA Pan-Am.  (Really, Naga? The Pan-Ams?)

I made a great contribution to the team by spectating my butt off.  I spectated SO much that I can be spotted spectating in pictures all over Facebook.  

Most of my spectating happened in the Women's corner of the mat.

And here I am spectating WHILE taking pictures!  Clearly, a multi-talented individual.

And my most amazing feat of the day.. Here I spectating while actually standing.  Amazing.

This grapple by the way, was awesome.  The human fanny pack of doom pictured, is Marcelo Cohen.  He trained with Fabio under Marcelo Saporito and now teaches at The Armory in Jupiter, Florida.

Seriously though, I wish I could have made an actual contribution to the team and actually compete, but alas, I could not.  

Team Fabio Novaes didn't need much help though.  They kicked butt up and down the mat all day!  At the last NAGA our team took second in gi and no gi.  We lost first in gi by 80 points.  The team who won first place, by the way, had 86 members.  Our team had 23.  I think we brought home more medals this time.   And yes, I am shamelessly bragging on my team a little, and I think it is allowed.  I sort of love those guys.  

I especially wanted to give a huge congratulations to Erica!  This was her first competition as a blue belt, and she took home silver and bronze!  Awesome job girl!  Love you!! 

Pardon my failure of a picture.  Some annoying official photographer was in my way the entire time.  Didn't he know I needed to get a picture of Erica?  Jerk!  lol  Clearly, more important that his official business. 

 Didi He won second in nogi, and first in gi.  This kid keeps his cool like no one else.  Way to go Didi!! 

 Beast mode Jimmy!  (Though, I think that is his only mode.  Some guys tried to mug him once, but he told them to stop... and they listened.  Seriously.) 

 This is Derrick.  He is currently working his lumber jack look.  He pulls it off quite nicely, don't you think?

Jimmy.  He throws people.  Hard.  

Erica America! 

 This guy, who was very nice, got his day ruined by being bracketed with Jimmy and Derrick.  Two if the biggest scariest most technical blue belts we have.

 Congrats Didi!! 

Congrats Jimmy!

 Tony - He is the one in black and white.  Like Jimmy and Derrick Tony is also, very large, scary and technical.  

 Erica!

 Derrick!

Tony!

Thank you Fabio for all that you do for us!  We love you!!