A little update

[Rodja]

I did not sustain any injuries from my fight last week other than a few bumps and bruises. I haven't trained this week at all, although I did swing by the dojo yesterday to watch some technique, and I am having to re-evaluate how I am going to weave MMA into my life with grad school and teaching in the Fall.

One thing that I know I have to do is to re-dedicate myself to the mat. I've spent so much time and energy working on my striking that my BJJ game has stagnated...badly. We have a few new guys up at the dojo, so this is the perfect time to re-expand my game. I will definitely be able to train at least 2x/week, but I am not sure if I will be able to consistently make it more frequently than that.

[Emerge]

How did the fight go?

[jas123]

You'll figure out how to balance things after a few months I'm sure. It's overwhelming at first, then it gets very manageable.

[dynomite]

Rodja, you train up in Dallas right?

[bla55]

Rodja, couple of questions:

1) I see you have a brazilian flag on your profile; are you really brazilian? (this one is just out of curiosity)

2) You say you'll dedicate to BJJ trainning, have you ever considered going to an actual BJJ dojo with specialized senseis rather than an MMA gym? This may sound weird, but, the reason I ask this is because I've had several friends that were not so good with their ground game, and then they went to a dojo where the GI was mandatory, where the teacher only knew BJJ, and where everyone else there was there ONLY to learn BJJ, and not as a secondary goal (behind fighting MMA as a 1st) and they had some GREAT success.

The reason why, as I figure, is that once you fight against a guy wearing a GI, or you too fight wearing it, you learn how to defend yourself even better, because you have so many more things to worry about, and your moves become so much harder (as long as you focus on the ones you'd actually use on the cage,) not to mention that without strikes the grapple goes on for so much longer, that it actually really benefits A LOT the MMA fighter.

Back in the day I trained with the Gracies in Rio, Brazil (Reylson's dojo,) and there would be the occasional appearence from one of the other brothers, who were foccusing on MMA, and yet, they'd still use the Kimono, and just focus on stuff they could use.

Just a suggestion, maybe that can be a little extra edge for you, and who knows, help you improve your game.