Summer Training

It is hard for me to believe how fast time has flown by. Last summer, Stephanie and I started teaching the Women's Class at Fabio's. A few weeks ago, during Women's Class, I was watching the girls grapple and realized that they deserved stripes. 

It is funny, because we don't focus that much on stripes and belt promotions at our school. Fabio tries to get us to think about learning, not about "advancing". So it is not something that is in the forefront of my mind usually. 

But when I was watching the girls grapple, I was noticing things like how they were keeping their base when passing guard, how they are keeping good pressure from top positions, how they are attacking and seeing submissions from different positions and transitioning between positions and submissions. And I realized belatedly that these girls are not brand new beginners anymore. 

They've grown. 

Fabio had taken the stripe tape with him to the Brandon school, but I was too excited to wait for the real tape. So one my friends, Anthony, helped me make stripes out of medical tape. Hahaha. Three of the girls got the most gheto (but really meaningful to me) stripes that night. Congrats to Victoria, Madison and Shelby!! 

There is someone else I need to sing praises to as well. 

Stephanie is the cream filled center of my Oreo. She's not only my best friend, but she has been right beside me since day one with the Women's Class. Starting up a new program--especially one that tries to convince women to come in, get sweaty and fight other women--is hard. We have seen a lot of girls come in and not come back. We've seen some come and stay for a while, then leave. But slowly, over time, we have been built up a core of dedicated women who love the sport. I don't think I would have been able to do it without Stephanie.

 Now, as summer comes, we are getting ready to bring or Women's Class to a tournament in July. The girls are kicking it into high gear and I couldn't be more proud of them. It is so exciting for me to see them growing both in skill and confidence. I love my ladies!!

On an unrelated note, I had the pleasure of going to visit The Armory in Palm Beach a few weekends ago. I went to visit a friend of mine, Marcelo Cohen, who trains there. Everyone at The Armory welcomed me like I was family. I had some awesome training there and, if you're ever in the Palm Beach area, don't miss the chance to go there. You will meet some great people and get some great training. Thanks to everyone there for making my weekend so awesome!