I am living a life I previously joked about having.

Much like most people, I learned a lot about Jiu-Jitsu by reading Graciemag. At my first gym we had it at the desk and I used it to figure out who was who in the sport, especially after realizing over time how important my first instructor, Romulo Barral, was to the community. I began taking notice of who else was the "Michael Jordan of Jiu-Jitsu."

Luanna Alzuguir was one of those people. I can't even count how many times I had seen her face before I really knew who she was. Turn the first page of a Gracie Magazine and most likely she'll be there in a Koral ad.

My first gi was a Koral gi. I was given a large judo gi when I took my intro class and learned about Jiu-Jitsu Pro Gear not long after I started training. When I took a trip down south, I saw the Koral navy MKM gi and wanted it bad but didn't have the money for it. So I bought a white Koral light gi instead. I eventually bought my dream gi and it was my competition gi for as long as it would last, holding up for a loooot of training sessions, through multiple patches, a switching of teams and at least 6 competitions that I can remember.

Not long after I started this blog I created Pulling Guard Zine out of necessity. I needed to talk about more than just personal issues on my blog, I needed to take the information I was getting from Romulo and put it to use. So I interviewed him in my first issue along with my friend Beneil Dariush. That was my first issue. As I noticed how easy it was to network within the Jiu-Jitsu community and how often these black belt world champions would answer messages on facebook, I branched out. For my second issue I contacted Luanna Alzuguir for an interview. She accepted and through a friend who translated, she became my first interviewee who wasn't already a friend.

While I was training and competing as a blue belt, I worked a full-time job. I sat in a cubicle and took phone calls to sell travel packages to rude travel agents who were ironically almost always named Deborah. I kept sane by putting up constant reminders of my life outside of those cubicle walls. I put up medals and made my desktop background pictures from competing and Jiu-Jitsu logos. And I ripped out pages from Graciemag issues to use as posters. At one point, it was Luanna in a Koral ad, even.

After a gap of time where I worked my ass off in training, in hustling for writing gigs, in building my site, in networking through the Jiu-Jitsu community, in finding jobs to fuel my lifestyle, in my college classes, I got to a point where I saw some results. I won some tournaments and I got some sponsors. I got some gigs for covering press at bigger events and my pictures and articles were getting noticed. I had such pockets of depression and disappointment and then I had pockets of success that were sometimes just random. A person like Tom Callos would find me on facebook and help me out with a paid writing gig. A guy from Brazil would offer me a paid gig to write articles for his website. I'd meet people who owned Jiu-Jitsu companies, have meetings with them and IBJJF where my opinions were heard and maybe, just maybe they mattered. My skills were being utilized.

Then I got a call about Graciemag wanting to interview me for a position. And I was exchanging emails with the CEO discussing options, hourly rates and a date for an interview. I got the email confirming my interview date one day during training. When class was over I discussed with my teammates about what was going on and how I was getting to work for Graciemag. And then I got in the shower and cried really hard as if I was sad but I wasn't sad, I was almost relieved. It was a weird feeling but intense whatever it was.

Back when I was first starting out with interviewing and writing, my training partners would sarcastically say, "oh you're gonna work for Graciemag, huh?" and it seemed like such a far fetched idea. But now I am a large part of the team here and I work every single day posting content. And I went to Abu Dhabi because of it. Abu Dhabi!

And by networking and getting my foot in the door, I'm getting a sponsorship with Koral, my favorite gi company. It's a form of support that, while I'm not a black belt world champion, is suitable for my needs at this point as a competitive purple belt.

This week I've been training with Luanna on my mats at Cobrinha BJJ. We roll and she treats me like a peer, giving me advice and letting me know when I do something right when I roll with her. For the time being she is my training partner and we're helping each other prepare for worlds and she's helping me more than she realizes. It is a dream.

If someone told me I'd have Rubens Cobrinha Charles as a professor, training with the best black belts in the world including my idols, getting support from my favorite gi company, working for Graciemag as a traveling writer, reporter, journalist, videographer and photographer and dating Gianni Grippo, I'd laugh. I'd laugh hard and I'd say, "yeah, okay. cool story, bro."

It's a sappy self-reflecting moment for me and you're probably mocking me as you read this but nothing can change the fact that I reached goals that I didn't even set because I never imagined they'd be realistic. At least not within this time frame. I think I can set some solid goals from now on knowing that I'm on a real good path already. I'll start with purple belt world champion.