Well I just finished reading through the entire 126 pages of the thread. Between this thread and the one in the G&E one I've pretty much decided to go to Brazil after I'm done with college. It is 18 months away so I have plenty of time to save. Though I am hoping that the dollar achieves it's former glory.
I look forward to reading about more of your adventures. Good luck with the DVD.
Well I just finished reading through the entire 126 pages of the thread. Between this thread and the one in the G&E one I've pretty much decided to go to Brazil after I'm done with college. It is 18 months away so I have plenty of time to save. Though I am hoping that the dollar achieves it's former glory.
I look forward to reading about more of your adventures. Good luck with the DVD.
Max out your last student loan and go for it man. Paying back loans sucks but the $50 a month you have to pay will be worth it 1000xs over.
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Max out your last student loan and go for it man. Paying back loans sucks but the $50 a month you have to pay will be worth it 1000xs over.
That sounds like a solid plan. Connection Rio seems like the way to go. It seems like the experience is priceless. I'm not much of a partying guy so I'd be able to focus and train. The women would be the only possible distraction...
Hello everyone and thank you for your continued support. It is that time of the week and I am sure that you all want to know about the adventures both on and off the mat.
I am happy to report that things have somewhat settled down and I have a little time to breathe. I've still been training and meeting up with people that I missed over the 6 months that I was in Brazil. I'm doing my absolute best to get around to everyone and visit as many schools as possible.
Since getting back I've visited Alliance of Charlotte, Jeff Jimo's school in Gastonia, Joe Hurst's Gracie Barra school, East Coast Fighter, a team Revolution rep in Charlotte and Steve Hall's school. I've come to the conclusion that it would probably be a good idea to write about one of the schools each week to let you know about the training level in my area. I also want everyone to see where and with who I am training.
So this week I'm going to talk about Steve Halls school. Steve is a Royce Gracie black belt and he currently has one school in Concord (although they are opening another school shortly). I have a couple of friends that train with Steve Hall and everyone has said great things about his school I thought I would give it a go and train there personally!
As always training at new school comes with all of the worries about what the instructor will be like, how the students will treat you and if they will paint a giant bullseye on your back trying to show you how great the school is. I am happy to report that there were no problems at all training at this school. The only problem that I encountered in the whole experience was actually finding the school itself but this was due to the fact that my GPS sent me into an abandoned parking lot, which made me think "wow these guys are bad ass they train in the streets!". But I called Steve and he was more than helpful getting me to his school and even though I was 5-10 minutes late he jumped right up and greeted me at the door when I came in.
After quickly changing I got on the mat ready to train. The class had around 20-25 guys on the mat and was then divided into two groups for technique. The beginners were on one side of the mat and the intermediates on the other. The technique was well taught with great detail and involved some great transitions.
After finishing up the technique we did guard pass drill and I had some personal roll time with both Steve and his students. No one tried to kill me and I have to say the whole experience was very classy. I was able to get in a great work out and learn a few things. In addition I was recognized again for my blog. It still amazes me that people read about my travels and training.
Before leaving I took a picture of Steve and I after our rolling session. Every school that I visit I will include a picture(s) and post for you viewing pleasure. I am slightly bummed out that I did not get a picture of me and the guy who reads the blog (I feel like an ass becuase I forgot his name) but I would also like to include those pictures in the blog too. So if i make an appearance at your school please remind me to get a picture with you!
Other training has been going well and I've been basically injury free. My back is holding up wonderfully and except for a little instability in my shoulder that my chiropractor is looking at I'm feeling much better. I still wear my rib binder but it is more preventative right now. I can do almost all of the moves that I want to so my best guess is that within the next 3 weeks I wont be able to use it as an excuse anymore.
Upon returning home I met Megan and we have been enjoying some time together. She is what I refer to as a "Derby Chick", mainly because she plays Roller Derby. I'm not sure if you know what this is but I thought this was a fake sport where people acted out physical violence kind of like WWF. You can imagine my surprise when I learned it's an actual sport that combines two of my favorite things....scantly clad women and good ole American violence.
I attended my first Derby bout and was practically memorized as I watched my every fantasy play out. I can only imagine what I looked like while spectating...at one point I think I forgot to breathe and nearly passed out. If you have not had a chance to go view one of these bouts I would suggest that you buy a ticket and check it out!!! those are some "alternative women" (do you know how hard it is to pick censored word to describe that group of women?). Here is a picture of a Megan in a bout a couple of months ago
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If violence wasn't your last resort you probably didn't resort to enough of it
After being in Brazil for the last 6 months and admiring the beauty of the country I have returned home to realize that there are some pretty amazing things that happen in my area. It is starting to get colder now and fall is in in full swing. I've taken the time to really enjoy the scenery and visited one of our local parks.
After taking some pictures with my new camera I realized that Brazil never experiences the change in leaves like we do here in the South East USA. Megan and I set out to take some pictures in the park and as you can see from the picture with Megan the leaves are changing. Maybe someone in from Brazil can tell me if you have anything like this.
I am not exactly sure what my fascination is with statues but for some reason I love to get my picture taken with them. I think it might be the fact that they never take bad photos...you never have to worry about them blinking or refusing to smile...I dont know but here is a picture of me with some famous guy.
Sometimes I like to do spontaneous nice things for people and often it can lead to a comical series of events...
Recently on the way back from getting my hair cut I decided that I would pull over rather quickly and pick some flowers off the side of the road for Megan. This in itself doesn't sound that comical but I need to be honest and include that these "flowers" were actually closer to weeds...but I didn't know this until after I re-entered the car panting and trying to catch my breath.
You might be asking yourself right now "why was he out of breath?" and that would be a reasonable question seeing that I train every day and would classify myself as an athlete. The answer to this question is simple "I almost died picking those damn flowers".
The whole scenario was going well. I checked my mirrors as I rapidly pulled over making sure that I wasn't going to get in a car accident and when I hopped out of the car Megan was asking "what are you doing". At this point everything is peachy, I'm thinking how many cool points I'm going to sore for these "flowers".
These flowers are located on the side of the road, in front of someones house. They are wild flowers (or weeds, but I choose to think flowers at this point) and clearly they were not planted by anyone. The house was set back a ways off the street but you couldn't see what it looked like because of some bushes/small trees that were built as a type of privacy fence. The flowers were located approximately 3-5 feet in front of these privacy bushes.
Now that you understand the layout of the yard imagine Mr. Jeremy Arel approaching the flowers at a light jogging pace.
As I approach the flowers I hear a dog barking on the other side of the bushes down by the house. I was not concerned becuase he sounded a way off and I was sure that the dog was on a chain (mistake number one). The first group of flowers that I looked at did not appear to be as nice as I had thought so took the time to look over the other flowers in the immediate area (mistake number two). As I set my sights on one set of flowers the barking grew louder and then turned into a growl/snarl.
I was standing about a foot away from the bushes when the fully grown German Shepard came through the bushes trying to bite my hand off. I had the biggest adrenaline dump of my life, something akin to being shot at in Iraq and everything slipped into slow motion.
I snatched the flowers in my fist a the same time as I planted my right foot and pivoted to run for the car. This dog was past the "barking stage" and had entered "bite you in the f***ing leg stage". As I felt him trying to get a hold of my leg I ran like an olympic calibir sprinter and was rounding the back of my car with the dog right behind me.
I'm not sure if it was the fact that Megan was screaming from the front seat (I say screaming but it was in fact laughing at the top of her lungs) that distracted the dog but as I considered running into the highway in the hopes that the dog would be hit by a car it turned it's head just long enough for me to open my door and throw myself into the car.
I dont know what happened to that dog and frankly I don't care. I was still shaking from the mixture of fright (from an unexpected dog coming through the bushes) and adrenaline.
Megan picked up the flowers that I threw at her when I opened the door and I saw that the flowers included the whole root system. There was still a large clump of dirt attached to the roots and upon further review I realized that I had sprayed dirt all over the inside of my car....so what's the moral of this story?
Nice guys get attacked by dogs, laughed at by girls and dispense dirt all over their clothes/car.
On that note I'll bring this blog to a close. I appreciate everyone reading about my adventures and I will continue to keep you posted on what is going on.
As a bonus for today, in the spirit of my crazy dog story I have included a rather interesting submission. I had video tapped this prior to going to Brazil but I had a lot of great success with it while I was down there. I taped more than one black belt with this move (mainly becuase they had never seen it) and it is from my no gi dvd. Watch it and tell me what you think.
Thanks for reading!
The Gerbil
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If violence wasn't your last resort you probably didn't resort to enough of it
Nice post!!! Hopefully I get to meet you sometime if you come to PA area to train. I always read your post. I find very funny because remindes of my husband. First time we went to Brazil and stayed at my parents house he will tell me about the difference between the countries. Little things that you guys observe and find weird that we don't have like in the USA. Shower heads, no hot water in the faucets, a lot of homeless dogs in the streets, the many chains in the gates before you can get in the house... they are so many that I forget....
I really love Autumn in the USA is so beautiful. When you stop to look the scenery and see all the different kind of trees and the colors changes. It is so nice. I never experienced that in Brazil. Maybe in the south of Brazil that may happen, but I don't think it is anything like you can see here in the east USA. It is amazing and beautiful.
Good luck!!! Keep it up the good work!!!!
