Wow.

Tough day of training. The gi session at my gym was just plain awesome. I got word from Tony Passos that he was going to be able to come down and train around 1 PM, so I met Tony, his student Firas (blue belt) and his friend Vicente Junior.

Vicente was incredible - about 135 pounds of technical De la Riva black belt knowledge. Vicente was light as a feather as he passed my guard, took my back, swept me, etc, but he also totally let me work. The guy is clearly on another level. I found out later that he placed 3rd in the Mundial (might have been the CBJJE Mundial) at black belt, losing only in the semi-finals to pluma legend Bibiano Fernandez, and he also just won his match at the NY Open last Saturday:




I got to roll with Vicente several times, and each time it was really fun. Rolling with Tony was a lot of fun as well. Tony is quite good. Finally, Mike Crawford was back in to train, and I got in at least a couple rounds with him.

Having four black belts on the mat for a Wednesday afternoon class isn't something you see in every city. I feel very fortunate to have my gym in the position it's in.

Seph Smith also made the trek down, and I got to train with Seph several times as well. Seph can really be good when he's on.

Tommy, Devin, Antoni, Lo, Scotty, Jose (the owner of the gym) and a handful of others rounded out a very full mat. Whew!


Muay Thai was my second wind. We got into a hook punch to the floating ribs, which was new for me, and drilled a lot. Cornell was merciful with the endurance round today.

No-gi jiu jitsu class - Vince, Big Mark, Parker, Brian Maltby, Chris Lombard, and several other students worked on the butterfly half guard to footlock transition I showed, did some situational sparring, then rolled with me and with each other until almost 10 PM.

LOOOOONG day. Whew!