Month: August 2012

Jitz 8/30/2012

Like I said in my last post, I got my second stripe last week, which means I can do a whole lot more classes at the gym than I could before. Tuesday night, for the first time ever, I did back to back classes. I did a fundamentals class followed up by an intermediate class. I don’t remember the last time I was so physically exhausted. I haven’t really been legitimately sore from Jitz since I started earlier this year, and I’ve been very sore for the past two days. Crazy how hard it was.

In the same vein as that, I’m planning on doing back to back classes again tonight. I’m enthusiastic because while I was very sore at the beginning of jitz and some other new things I tried in life, I didn’t give up at jitz and it got easier and I got better. I’m sure this will take me to the next level if I keep putting in work.

Besides that, I’ve had a great first week at work. I’m really happy to be here. Plus, I have a 4-day weekend starting tomorrow. 🙂

Another Day, Another Job, Another Stripe

The last 2 weeks I’ve been focusing on getting my ducks in a row to make my transition out of my current client work and into my new job a smooth as possible, while also relaxing and taking time to focus on what makes me more whole. That means lots of jiu jitsu. I got my second stripe last week, which means I can now go to all classes and train live with anyone at the academy. That’s huge for me. So psyched.

Tomorrow I start at the new job. Kinda nervous, but also just anxious to mix it up and get in there and affect some change. Can’t wait.

BJJ Practice 8/17/2012

It’s Friday, Friday, doin’ Jitz on Fridayyyyyy.

And hitting half guard sweeps like a boss! Well, make that one half guard sweep like a sloppy one stripe white belt.

We wrapped up the week of half guard passing with learning one new half guard pass variation from Coach Shae and a weird, but effective Americana using the opponent’s lapel.

Then we trained for the rest of the class and switched partners a lot.

I suck at guard passing. I freeze up when I’m in someone’s guard and forget what to do. I hate it! Need to learn more passes and drill them.

However, I did sweep someone from half guard. I remember someone giving me advice telling me to keep my opponents hips pinned from the top and never going too far one way from center. My partner did that on top of me and I was able to sweep him from the bottom. Pretty stoked about it.

August Flipped Everything On Its Head

Within one week, two awesome life events occurred in my life, both of which I’ve nervously awaited for quite some time. I’ll be careful to list and describe them in order of importance and meaning 😉

Firstly, I moved in with my girlfriend last week. We’ve been dating for about 2.5 years and back in 2010 I made an insanely abrupt and crazy decision to skip out on a one-way ticket to South Korea and move to Boulder to give us a shot. Here we are, still giving it a shot and it’s been, without a doubt, the best time of my life. With and without her, I’ve grown more as a man, a partner, a person than I have in my entire life. She pulls the best out of me like no one else and as most people who know her and I remind me, I am way out of my league and lucky as hell 🙂

I’ve never lived with a significant other before. I guess I’ve considered living with ex-girlfriends before, but nothing remotely came of it. Maybe it’s my maturity, or maybe it’s the both of us together, but this clicks and makes sense. She’s even letting me have a hand in decorating the place (her place originally, now ours). So, onward and upward with that. Bye bye bachelorhood, it’s been fun. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go do laundry for 2 now.

Secondly…

That  other life event I mentioned. I’ve subsisted on consulting work since December of last year. I was lucky to have a lot of great clients over that course of time and enjoyed the flexibility and independence that start-your-own-business-advocates rave about. I also became a bit isolated and frustrated with the touch-and-go nature of my work and sought to remedy that somehow. I wasn’t sure if it was going to look like getting a full-time job, taking on something part-time, learning a new skill (I tried learning Ruby on Rails with limited success) or a mix of those three.

What happened instead was that I got hired by one of the most award wining advertising agencies in America, Crispin Porter and Bogusky. Yeah, that was a “holy fucking shit” moment for me. I kid you not when I say I’ve sent them at least 5-10 job applications a year since I graduated college in 2006. It was one of those dream job scenarios that I’d keep applying to until I got an interview. That interview finally came in 2012, 6 years later.   So, last Friday, before leaving for a completely offline retreat with my girlfriend’s company in Rocky Mountain National Park, I officially was hired. You should have seen my face.

I’ll be the Community Manager for the Microsoft Bing account. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be part of this team. They get me, I get them and I cannot wait to work my ass off for/with them to create social community greatness. It’s going to be a trip!

There we are. The first week of August was a crazy and amazing one. I don’t have much else to say except that I am truly ready for where I’m at. I’m ready to be the best person I can be and perform in all aspects of my life to my greatest potential. I’m so psyched.

BJJ Practice 8/14/2012

Welp, it’s been over a week since I’ve gone to BJJ practice, but more on why that is later.

I made it out for the 7AM class today. Felt physically off, probably due to my layoff of about a week. After warmups, we did a ton of handless armbar to triangle transition drills, then half-guard passes. I’ve been privately drilling the armbar/triangle on my own and it’s paying off a little bit.

Hoping to make it to class a few more times this week and get my ass back in gear.

The Paradox

“It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously — and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.”

— Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

BJJ Practice 8/2/2012

Made it to the morning class and boy was I sore. Not sure if the Triangle is just a physically demanding submission or if I was fatigued for other reasons. Either way, I’m glad we had a really long warmup to loosen my muscles. We did live training for about half an hour which rocked. I get swept from closed guard quite a bit and the guys gave me a few tips on that. I need to drill so much more!