Happy to be a white belt

In some form or another, I have been a practitioner, and often teacher, of martial arts off and on since I was 12 years old.

From traditional Taekwondo (I say traditional because the style I studied was pre-Olympic style…it was more like Korean kickboxing), a blended Taekwondo style called Sil-Jon Kwon Taekwondo (through Jim Mahan of Absolute Self-Defense and Fitness) Muay Thai Kickboxing (through Master Vu Tran of Trans Martial Arts), stick and knife basics (again through Jim Mahan) and various grappling and ground fighting basics (again through Jim Mahan), as well as combatives work (with Tony Blauer of Blauer Tactical and Personal Defense Readiness).

In addition, I’ve had the immense pleasure of working sporadically with a myriad of other wonderful instructors and teachers.

Its been a goal for a while to officially take up the study of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.  Funny thing about goals, you have to actually start them to start realizing them.

So, I finally did it.  Last Friday and this morning (Monday) were my first 2 official lessons as a student at GroundDwellers (the same school my oldest daughter earned her blue belt), with my good friend Eddie Avelar.

2 sessions in, its as humbling as I knew it would be, but I’m thrilled to start a journey as a white belt all over again.  Let’s roll!