These past 9 months of my life have been spent in a cubicle. I took off from school, I didn't go back after a semester like I had intended to and I remained a full-time employee for a wholesale travel company down the street taking calls and selling travel packages to snobby, lazy travel agents. About 2 months ago I was given the opportunity to change positions to be a part of the "custom" desk where, along with one other very seasoned individual, I would be getting quotes from our suppliers for items that were not already in our system. My daily tasks involve emails and that's pretty much it. I answer an email, forward it to a supplier, receive the quote after a day or two (or a week) and then I mark up the quote and give it to our agents to offer back to the travel agent. Yesterday I sent out a mere 7 emails, one of which was one word, and sat at my desk for 8 long hours. I applied for jobs, learned some HTML, fiddled with my wordpress website, edited some articles of mine and researched many many things on google such as anterior pelvic tilt and 100 best companies to work for in 2011.

Today I had the day off to see a chiropractor since my neck was tweaked at training and I needed some treatment so that I could properly check blind spots to the right of me again while driving. After, I figured I'd try to sit at a starbucks in order to tune out and finally get some work done on my zine. As I sat there, an old man came to sit near me on an opposite couch. He was quite aged with a near bare head decorated with dwindling white twines. His hands were shaky, and without a cap on his cup he spilled some of his drink on the floor without even noticing. As he sat down on the seat he seemed to have a little trouble and as his hand neared towards the coffee table holding my phone I was only worried about some more of his drink spilling onto my beloved possession. He finally got to his destination, bum firmly resting on its leather abode, and he looked peaceful. He had nowhere to be, or so it seemed. I stared at him wondering if he knew that in a matter of some odd years, he'd be dead. Maybe he stared at my feet just looking at my tattoos or maybe he was really pondering my young soul and how far he was from my stage in life. It was in that moment that I felt bad for him. Did he know? Did he realize that everything he had wanted to do in life had to have mostly been done already? I wanted to tell him, "hey, if you ever wanted to go skydiving, you better have done it already because there's no way in hell you'd be lively enough to accomplish that now!" Of course skydiving is just an adrenaline rush that most people consider a notch off their fun list but more to consider would be whether he had kids, got married, accomplished all his goals whatever they might be, became the man he had once aimed to be, surpassed the assholes he met that he never wanted to be. His time was running out.

My post isn't about this old man. This post is about the past year of my life and how much, at this very moment, I feel like that elder fellow coffee drinker. Given that I was working part time, or working elsewhere with better hours or had managed my money better, doesn't mean that I'd have published a book already, moved to Paris and found my soulmate. But I know that I would have gotten my zines done. Gotten my website well on its way. Competed more, traveled more, found more enjoyment in my life. Instead, I have damned myself to a hell full of middle aged fat people who have no dreams that exist beyond their monthly sales goals. Where the topic of conversation is their children. Where the excitement of their day is held in the hands of the rare nice travel agent who happened to make them laugh. I am not one of them. And it's not to say I am better or I am in the position to shit on their life but by all means, I will be better. I refuse to settle.

So I plan on quitting that job within the next two weeks and finding a retail or mindless part time job somewhere I don't feel stuck or sucked in. I start school next week and have never been so excited to start my life of improvement back up. I can't ever take back that year of my life. I now know what it feels like to have wasted time in a place where I don't belong that is truly bringing me down, telling me I can't. When I started working there I decorated my cubicle with some ripped out ad pages from a GracieMag and two of my medals to try and remind myself why I am there. When I moved cubicles to the department I'm in now, I added a photo of myself from Pan Ams and the brochure I received the day I walked into Cobrinha's academy but it does not do justice to remind me of my life outside of that restricted environment. In fact, the only thing it earns me is coworkers starting conversations regarding their 7 year old in tae kwon do and non-funny "jokes" involving me being a bodyguard if one should ever need it. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can regain my mojo.

I hope no one should ever feel that their work is unfinished. Death will come to us all and the feeling of a time bomb or an hour glass on its final ounce of grains should not be involved when it does. Whatever you're putting off, I hope you do it soon. Whatever I am fit to be, I hope I figure it out soon and run towards it full force. It really is the only way to live.

I think I’m finally on a good path. This past weekend I went to Las Vegas for the IBJJF Las Vegas International Open. I competed in this tournament last year and received my blue belt on the podium from Romulo and it was a really great experience. However, this time gave the previous a run for its money. I had a few goals I was planning to accomplish and each one that I achieved felt amazing.
 Drop from lightweight to featherweight
 Win featherweight division
 Win open weight.

I have always walked around at about 135. I lost weight when I started jiu jitsu but due to some muscle gain, I generally stayed the same weight. At this year’s Pan Ams I had to watch my weight/cut just to get to lightweight which is 141 with the gi. After starting to work with weights/being conscious of the crap I was putting in my mouth, I was down to around 132 recently so I decided to make the drop to featherweight. On three separate occasions, I rolled with girls who were feather or just lighter than me and they weren’t nearly as much of a threat to me than girls at my weight and up. It was a pretty significant note made in my head each time I was faced with these girls and so I finally got it in me to drop the sweets. I started dieting/working out more and more over about 2 1/2- 3 weeks but wasn’t noticing much difference. In fact, three days before my Vegas departure I was really worried and planned to be sitting in the sauna for hours. Once we were in Vegas and I took some exlax (I have never been so excited to poop before) I was on point. I ended up weighing in at 127.5. (Feather is 129 with the gi) and it was a shock. I didn’t feel too dehydrated or weak. I could have gone home then and there feeling satisfied with the completion of my weigh cut/loss. But of course, I had more goals to accomplish.

My first match was against Marisol Romero, a really tough 14 year old from Drysdale’s that I had gone against at Vegas Trials. No matter what happens, win or lose, she is stoked to be there and immediately congratulates/praises you—truly a grateful kid. I pulled guard, she attempted a pass and I slapped on a triangle and finished her with an armbar in 30 seconds. My teammates and myself all went “what just happened?” I was off to a great start. Second match I really felt the weight cut. I think I puked in my mouth a bit. It was against a GB girl that I’ve taken classes with in the past. I swept right away, had issues with being in her guard and she closed it up. I stood up a couple times, she went for an armbar and I flipped her over where she turtled. I could not get my other hook in nor the seatbelt even. She was tightened up like a shriveled something or other. Super frustrating. I ended up getting in side control or something. It was a blur. Time ran out and I was up by a couple points. Third match was against a girl that beat me in open weight at Vegas Trials. Really nice, awesome girl. We went at each other like mad women. She kept coming forward and driving her knee in like a knee slice pass but I she neglected to kill my feet on her biceps beforehand so I just kept throwing her over. Got some advantages for sweep attempts since I guess I wasn’t sitting up enough and she would stand up when I got her over. It was mostly just spider guard the whole time and then I finally came up and she got me in an omoplata and the match ended.. Mission #2 completed, featherweight champion.

After my teammate Karna won her lightweight division, in great fashion with an RNC, we were iffy about open. Most of the girls I had talked to were the same. It was like, “hey you doing the open!?” “ehhh, I guess” We signed up and waited for the announcement to start warming up a few hours later. My first match was against an awesome girl Erica that I’ve mentioned in my blog before. She was at my first tournament and I beat her at Vegas Trials. It’s always the same girls! Karna had already won her on points in her division and now it was my turn. She was really tough and strong but kept driving her hips forward in my spider guard and I took her over my head. She made a weird noise since she landed on her head and I asked if she was okay and she said yeah so the match continued. Match was basically me trying to keep side control and take the back. Second match was a girl I used to train with at GB, the sweetest girl. It felt like we were training at GB HQ again during our match, I won on points. After this, Karna had won two and was in the finals due to a by and all I had to do was win this next match and we could close it out. This match was with a girl from mediumweight and I played my guard, tried to get the back all awkward and it totally failed. Then after having her in closed guard I opened it and threw her on top of me into side control. I have no idea why. I still had my foot on her bicep so I recovered and slapped a triangle in. Pulled the head, got the tap and did a spaghetti arm dance. It felt awesome. I jumped on Karna and celebrated.

My trip has soooo many other details that aren’t worth mentioning. In fact, my play by play probably isn’t very exciting to read. But I am ecstatic that I am finally headed in the right direction. I’m staying at featherweight and will continue to work out/get strong/thin/healthy. I have a million things to work on for American Nationals next month. I am super sloppy and I am still relying on wiggling out of things. Obviously Cobrinha has helped me transcend thus far, so I can only get better and better from here. Once school starts I’ll have two days out of the week where I can go in early to the academy and drill drill drill.

As far as everything else, I have a Ryan Hall interview up on Budo and I even got in an article of my own on Graciemag where for once, I was the one being interviewed. Zine three will be out shortly I swear! And school starts in two weeks. Life is great.



http://www.graciemag.com/en/2011/08/the-women-take-to-the-mats-in-las-vegas/

http://www.budovideos.com/online/bjj-news/ryan-hall-on-training-with-everyone/