And I would (and did) walk 100 miles
Well, there’s no other way to say this, and as hard as it is, this isn’t about me. This is kind of a big deal, no way around it. JEN HAS WALKED HER FIRST 100 MILES!
It bears repeating, maybe not in all caps. Jennifer Lynn Barrus Raydon, first of her name, Queen of the Trail, not only walked 100 miles, but she did it pretty early in the morning. And, she looked better doing it than these guys,
If you’re not impressed, you’re high on codeine.
Or whatever this guy is on. Which is way stronger than any heroin based cough syrup.
She’s now knocking out 15, 20 miles a day, and way ahead of where we’d thought she’d be. I’ve had to change by camp plan to accommodate her. Awesome sauce.
What I’ve been up to has been way less Bill Murray, and more, I don’t know, Carrot Top? Maybe Gallagher. If you’re not into Jiu Jitsu, this is maybe the part where you go find some pictures of kittens falling down on ice or something, ‘cuz if I wasn’t into Jiu Jitsu, I’d be doing that. Remember that video of the Viking Kittens? Yeah, Internet rulez/
But I did train twice in a day! I moped a bit after dropping Jen off, and was able to hit up Ribeiro BJJ in Carlsbad. I mentioned this, but it was really cool how Joao showed me some stuff that I’d studied in the Jiu Jitsu University book (bible?), and made it real and showed me some cool details that make it work. I won’t say what it was, (back escape, shhh) since I want to use it. Awesome Sauce? SECRET sauce. 
Molho Secreto in bad Portuguese.
Variety is the spice of life, at least other peoples’, as my stomach gets funky if I eat too much of it, or miss watching reruns of Matlock, but I hit up Studio 540 for a session the next day. Very cool, bigger school, really fancy. They don’t have showers, they have some kind of spa in there. With, I kid you not, towels. For you to use.
The session was a lot of takedowns from 
I paired up with a guy who was older, thicker, and less handsome (maybe, hard to tell) than either Jeff Higgs or myself. Nice guy, didn’t go all Worlds on me, but he was heavy and I was totally thinking he was going to land on me and break all my ribs, or my legs, whatever. I was being a baby, he didn’t do anything wrong, but I was a bad partner. There, I said it, now we’re moving on.
It was a little weird because we drilled, but there wasn’t much rolling after. I’m used to about an hour class, and then fifteen minutes of rolling after, followed up by some of us sitting around, drilling new stuff, talking BJJ, talking crap to each other, dodging work. So I had some energy to burn, and instead of eating cookies and drinking liquor, I took the dogs out, and then hit Ribeiro with Joao again .
He had some gigantic army guy white belt in there, and a father/son on their first days. Cool. I had the chance to show my super purple belt skill by not crying when this 250 pound man was laying on me. I passed. They wouldn’t let me grapple the 16 year old kid, who in spite of being a boy and not a girl, I still think I could beat.
After that, I was ready for bed, but got a surprise message from my brothers’ old roomie Fast Eddy, how was in SD for business, and being a cautionary tale for why you don’t invest in franchises. At least not sandwich based ones. We had an awesome dinner, good convo, talked about being old and how his late teenage kids were not as bad as we were at that age. After that, I headed back to the trailer, where Joe, of PCT fame, was crashing on his way home.
There may be from time to time moments when I complain that my beautiful and accomplished wife snores. Please remind me that it is nothing compared to the horrible sounds that emanated from Joe as he slept on the convert bed in the trailer. Holy crap, that doesn’t sound healthy.
Thankfully Joe took pity on me and took an Uber to the airport at 4 a.m. rather than holding me to my promise of driving him. I was grateful that he’d hiked some with Jen, although I know he loved it the whole time, and wanted to do him a solid, but man, 4 a.m. is early.
I slept in, and caught a good recommendation to go train with the great Tim Sledd at Small Axe BJJ at ten. I was pretty excited, Tim is known as a great teacher, and they’re an Atos affiliate but don’t charge like $50 to drop in. Even training with Sonny Brings only costs you like $20.
Unfortunately, while Tim is a legend in teaching and BJJ, he neglected to mention that HE’D MOVED TO THE MIDWEST A YEAR AGO!
Oh, and the school closed sometime in March or April. Fuck. They website is up, the facebook page says nothing, they even still have a Google phone message, none of which mentions that the school is now an empty bay in an industrial park.
I was up that way, so I dropped in at Oceanside BJJ. http://oceansidejiujitsu.com/ In spite of being the only guy NOT in a white gi, I had a good time. Plus drop in was a reasonable $20. Again, class goes, the instruction is good, from a solid Ribeiro black belt. Nate Solis. Plus, he has a gym dog.
Really nice lapel feed under the head from cross sides, which I’ve been working on, but they take it to a deep knee on belly (Neon belly), which leads to a tight pin, and eventually a baseball bat choke. But no rolling during class.
Fortunately, their schedule isn’t tight, so a bunch of guys stay after and roll. I’ve been surprised that the moderate pace and aggression level here. I guess I thought that ever guy here, in a big BJJ city, would treat every roll like Worlds, and it’s just not true. These was definitely a competition school with serious guys, but they all rolled technical and with a learning focus.
After that, it was all about chilling out with the pooper dogs, plus Jen called me to tell me that not only did she make the 100 mile mark, she also had her first 20 mile day. So, like I said, all that choking stuff was super fun for me, but not as impressive as what she’s doing!
