ALRIGHT already.

At the urging of Slideyfoot, and the recommendation of many others, I have finally decided to start a BJJ blog. There will, of course, be non-BJJ things occasionally involved, but jiu jitsu and how it pertains to my life (or how my life revolves around it) will be the main focus.

I guess I should start with a little of my personal BJJ history. I started with my brother right after I finished high school, in 2004. I trained at Serra BJJ with Matt and Nick Serra that summer, then went to NYU and trained with Mike Harmon at the BJJ club he started there. Then I heard Kyra Gracie was coming to New York, so in February I started training with her as well at Renzo Gracie's academy. I had to take the summer off due to conflicting work schedules, but I resumed training at the NYU club and at Renzo's that fall. Unfortunately, due to a long-ass commute and progressively worsening grades, I kind of burned out and stopped training that winter. It took me almost four years--until September 2009--to start again, this time in Knoxville, TN at Knoxville BJJ during my second year of veterinary school. So despite the fact that I started training almost seven years ago, I'm still a white belt. I received my fourth stripe a few weeks ago, and I'll be testing for my blue belt at the end of March. Yeah, I'm a little nervous.