A weekend of Grappeling and a new found Motivation!!

[ACLakey]

As some of you know I train in Submission Grappling, what we do at the gym is mostly BJJ, Wrestling, Sambo and Judo. This past weekend we had a great opportunity to have Nicolas Gregoriades and Alex Aftandilians from the Jiu-Jitsu Brotherhood come to our small town and train!!! Below is a short bio of Nic.

http://www.bjjheroes.com/bjj-fighter...as-gregoriades

It was truly a great experience and one heck of a workout. We trained for four hours on each day and I have to tell you last night at our regular training we were whooped! The last hour or so Nic and Alex would roll with all of us and coach us as we went. If nobody had ever had an opportunity to train and or roll with a world class Jiu Jitsu player or Olympic level wrestler it is a humbling experience.....this stuff looks much easier on TV. :-)

I have rolled with Alex in the past when I weighed 370lb and afterwords we rolled this weekend his praise in my improvement was very rewarding. These guys were great and their words of encouragement have really fueled me to push on and drop that last 40lb to my goal that has been frustrating me the past month!

Here are a few pictures of me rolling with Nic G....an honor for me.








We all knew how this would end!!




Tap or nap!



I can't put into words the encouragement and motivation I have now. These guys are great and for Nic to take time out of a personal vacation from England to drive to rural So. Oregon to train with us was special. We had a great conversation Saturday night at dinner which has just what I needed...even though I didn't know at the time I needed it. I am looking forward to his return, he challenged me to reach my goals and I am reinvigorated!

[gusstrand]

Very cool Andrew!

I fell off of the Judo/BJJ wagon a couple years ago with a(nother) concussion and dislocated thumb. My GP told me then that it's possible that 43 year old guys might consider different sports...

This totally makes me want to dust off the old arm bar, so to speak! Man, he has you in a textbook RNC - Love your caption. Like you've probably done as well, I've tapped a moment too late and had to be woken up... LOL... good times.

Go get 'em!

[mems]

Aloha, BJ Penn was a student of mine and played soccer for me his freshman year. Mems.

[ACLakey]

Small world.

Gus, Judo is a little rough but BJJ is not so brutal...find a good group to train with that does not have the "I must win to have a good day" ego and you will enjoy. The guys I train with respect the fact that some days I feel like slow rolling and working on position and control. Good times.