What is this all about? What am I doing? What am I searching for? I think what it all boils down to is just that I would like to have more gratitude...for everything. So, how do I go about that? That is the next chapter...

The Return of the Blog! I've been in the process of making some changes in my life and wanted to keep a document of it. I didn't want this to be part of the overwhelming and excessive constant blasting of the reality show-stream of consciousness-attention whoring-need for approval-competition for "likes" and "friends" of Facebook. I wanted this to be something more personal...that someone choses to read. I want this to be more about choosing to participate as a reader/viewer rather than getting caught up and washed away in the constant flood of Facebook white noise. Last week I found myself helping someone out who was really frustrated with BJJ and I remembered a blog entry I had written years ago. I had to check and make sure this blog was up and get the link of the correct entry. I started reading some of my old posts and was pleasantly surprised. I had forgotten a lot of what I had written and was amused by how I felt a sense of identification with the writer who had some pretty good insights! I realized that maybe this was again the right forum for what I needed to communicate and how I needed to communicate it. This is deliberate. This is not fast food Facebook or the People Magazine for the masses of Instagram. A word of warning if you go peruse the archives: you can pretty much ignore all the entries from 2011 and 2012. I don't think there was anything interesting or insightful but I decided not to delete the entries because I still accept them as part of my history and a document of what I was doing at the time. I also decided against creating a whole new blog because I think part of what paints a bigger life picture is the challenge to integrate all the different experiences, lessons and roads that we travel into the one entity of ourself. It is what makes us who we are so I didn't want to isolate or partition segments of my life, or myself. It's very gestalt. Actually, my memory pretty much sucks and sometimes I need to remember what I was doing during certain time periods and this helps fill in some gaps. So here's to the next phase of my life and the Return of the Blog!

Thank you for the amazing support everyone has shown for these seminars! Just added 2 new sessions... Thursday, Nov 29 and Friday, Nov 30 5:30PM - 8:30PM (especially for people who work on the weekend) Saturday, Dec 1 9AM - 4PM Registration will open soon!

the Art of Competition Seminar this Saturday!

Reserve your space for “the Art of Competition” Seminar now!!!

Spaces for this seminar are very limited and filling up. Email teachme2compete@gmail.com or theartofcompetition@gmail.com to register and reserve your spot! This seminar is open to anyone (men and women) who is looking to compete for the first time, get better at competing or just get better at BJJ/grappling!

Competition Seminar - October 20, 2012

I am so excited to be putting on the my first seminar on Competition!

It’s been a long time for me...struggling the last few years to make sense of the last 12 years of my life and work and trying to figure out a way to share what I have learned and experienced in that time with you...because I think it can help you too! Anyone that has read my blog at some point, anyone who has trained and wanted to get better, anyone that has struggled in the sport, anyone who has struggled with competition or even in thinking about competition. This is the beginning of more to come... Attendance is very limited for this event.

Survive, Emerge...Flourish

It’s been a really long time since I actually posted any actual thoughts on this blog. I was just listening to a friend tell me about how she was feeling about her jiu-jitsu and her current struggle and I remembered an early blog post I had written that I thought would be perfect for her to see. I found it and then read a couple of other posts I had written in...(gulp!) 2006!!! I wondered “How did I get to where am I today?" and then I wondered “Uh...Where AM I today?” So maybe I might have some thoughts to share with the “Blog-OH!-sphere" again...or maybe I won’t. No promises, but today, I’m ramblin...er...I mean...blogging. Where does the time go and where does life take us? I just read some posts from 2007. It was the year of my ADCC, the year of my divorce, the year that changed my life in so many ways, good bad and otherwise. Actually, that last part is a value judgment and there’s really no need for that because it is past and history and “It is what it is.” There’s no judgment needed. I felt a wave of emotional nostalgia as I remember the feeling of my world being a snow globe getting shaken up. I remembered the term “A new normal” and how we have to constantly adjust to what happens to us in life. Usually it’s more the traumatic things that we are more aware of and how we respond, react and just keep plodding down the road of life with the new battle wounds and scars that become a part of what makes up who we are. When I was about 20 in art school, I made a video documenting every scar on my body, it’s size and what it was from. It was my attempt to literalize the metaphorical. 25 years later...there are too many scars, both literal AND metaphorical, to document. Too many come and gone and faded and forgotten. Too calloused - maybe that’s a bad word choice - maybe “developed resilience” is better...resilient to the constant assault of life. Victorious in the daily struggle to survive, emerge and flourish.

Day 80

Today: do 80 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25+26+27+28+29+30+31+32+33+34+35+36+37+38+39+40+41+42+43+44+45+46+47+48+49+50+51+52+53+54+55+56+57+58+59+60+61+62+63+64+65+66+67+68+69+70+71+72+73+74+75+76+77+78+79+80 = 3240

Day 68

Today: do 68 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25+26+27+28+29+30+31+32+33+34+35+36+37+38+39+40+41+42+43+44+45+46+47+48+49+50+51+52+53+54+55+56+57+58+59+60+61+62+63+64+65+66+67+68 = 2346

Day 38

Today: do 38 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25+26+27+28+29+30+31+32+33+34+35+36+37+38 = 741

Day 35

Today: do 35 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25+26+27+28+29+30+31+32+33+34+35 = 630

Day 25

Today: do 25 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20+21+22+23+24+25 = 325
or
25(25+1)/2=325

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! We are a quarter of the way there! Feeling great! Keep it up! Rah rah rah...

Day 20

Today: do 20 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20 = 210

Big 20!

Day 17

Today: do 17 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17 = 153

Anyone still out there? Don't fall behind!!!

Day 11

Today: do 11 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11 = 66

Get 'em done and enjoy the day!

Day 3

Today: do 3 burpees.
Current total: 1+2+3 = 6

Carmageddon...sort of a let down so far, huh?

I(t) Live(s)!!! - Day 1

Today is Day 1 of the Burpee Challenge!
Day 1 - Do 1 burpee.
Day 2 - Do 2 burpees.
Day 3 - Do 3 burpees...
You see the pattern, Brainiacs?
We are going to 100! See ya on the other side!

Of course I didn't make this up! As far as I know, it's a Crossfit thing.
How did this happen??? Today Dennis tells me about the workout and how some of his friends are doing it. I've heard about it before, but never did it. So I tell him I'll join him and we can bug each other and make sure we do it. So, I tell a few others and they want to join in...then the Fight Team...then other people at the gym...so now it's grown into a whole "thing"!


Oh, did I say??? HAVE FUN!

Coast to Coast

Val Worthington (http://bjjvisionquest2006.blogspot.com/) and I just got back from doing a Charity Benefit Seminar at TKC in Woodland Hills, CA (where I recently started a grappling and fitness program), taking a red-eye to New Jersey and then doing a Charity Benefit Seminar with Emily Kwok at Princeton BJJ (where Emily recently started a BJJ program with Art). We will be donating proceeds to Safe Passage (www.safepassagelives.com) and The Breast Cancer Resource Center (www.ywcaprinceton.org).
Stay tuned here and at www.womensgrappling.org for upcoming camps, events and fundraisers...maybe coming to a place near YOU!

Also check out Eddie Goldman's interview with us about the seminars...http://nhbnews.blogspot.com/

Reminded again...

that at any moment, your life can change forever. Take every day, every moment for what it is. You will never have it again. It's hard to remember but life gives you little (and big) reminders. Don't take anything or anyone for granted.

House to House

Women's Grappling Camp is over. Another amazing group of women...old friends, new friends...so much learning for everyone...on the mat, in the head, in the heart and mind, in the world. Always getting challenged in some way and somehow intensified and condensed into one week. What a deal! Starting out with the cup of stress overflowing with tears to the trust and acceptance of surrender and floating and feeling the rolling of the waves letting the course of the world play out. And now from the House of Laundry (no clothes dryer in Canada so everything got hung out to dry) back to the House of Ferment.

Can't wait to get back to the House of Ferment and see what has happened. I should have a whole lot of Kombucha tea (or vinegar) waiting for me and some cold and sleepy Kefir bacteriods. Hopefully they haven't died of hypothermia in the refrigerator.