I'm sitting in Maryland right now. I've been here for a week and I leave tomorrow. The reason I'm here actually changed the day I competed at Worlds. And I didn't decide if I was going to still use the plane ticket until a couple days before departure. It's funny how things turn out.

I competed at Worlds and I don't think I ever posted here what my results were. I placed second. I accomplished a lot of things that day including overcoming my nerves, which weren't really an issue even at Pan Ams. I went in there confident, knowing that I have the experience, skill and talent to be the best on the mat that day. Unfortunately, I met a girl from Team Lloyd Irvin in the final and she ended up coming out on top, literally, with an advantage from the double guard pull and nothing else. I was defending my guard the whole time so even if it did boil down to ref's decision, she still would have won. Not me.

People probably think I'm crazy for posting so many personal things about my life on a public blog. But I really don't care. The day I competed I also got dumped. It came as a shock despite knowing I was in the worst type of relationship ever and it was never supported by anyone who cares for me. Either way, it was still hard to deal with. My ticket to DC was to go stay with my bf and do really awesome things like roadtrip and see Canada and Niagara Falls. It would have been great. Instead, I ended up coming to stay with my amazing friend, Kenny, 20 minutes away from the asshole that tried to ruin my trip in the first place. I'm so grateful my trip turned out this way instead of going as originally planned. It would have only dug my head deeper into my ass. If you know me in person, you know who that dude is and I don't want to talk about him because he doesn't deserve my time or yours. But know that he's not malicious, he doesn't have the intent to hurt people, he just doesn't care. There's a difference.

I'm about to head off to 50/50 to train with Kenny and Jen Flannery and Seph Smith and Gianni Grippo and of course, Ryan Hall. I can't even count how many times I laugh in their presence. The training is great and I think they've thanked me more for coming than I've thanked them. I gotta fix that.

Sign up for my zine, I've got great things coming. I really suck at audio interviews and I wanted to release my interview with the amazing Keenan Cornelius buttttt the quality sucks. So I'm trying to salvage it, I promise the content is worth waiting for, just be patient.

www.pullingguardzine.com or you can opt in to the right!