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I posted this over on Reddit, I thought I'd throw it up here as well:
After 20 years in the martial arts and ~16 on and off in BJJ, I was awarded my black belt on Monday by my coach Mario ‘Busy’ Correa. It’s a pretty proud and surprisingly emotional day for me, and in keeping with custom I thought I’d do a brief write up of how I got here.
I started martial arts in the late 90s (‘97 or ‘98, not sure) with TKD and Hapkido. I was in high school, and basically, I just always thought martial arts were cool. I loved kung fu and ninja movies, and I’d rented every UFC my local video store had many times over. I practiced the Korean styles until I got to Indiana University in 2000. At the time Indiana had one of the largest martial arts programs in the country, and you could take all sorts of classes for credit. Judo was one of the first ones I took, and as soon as I got into it I realized that the no-resistance, no-sparring stuff I’d been doing was virtually useless. I still ended up getting my black belt in Hapkido more or less on inertia, but after my first year of school I was all in on grappling. I competed a lot in Judo, won some regional tournaments (and AAU junior nationals, which allowed competitors up to 20 years of age), and at my best placed 7th in the nation at collegiate nationals in 2005. Alongside all the Judo I took up BJJ in 2002 just to supplement my ground game. I spent a ton of time on both until 2005 when a serious back injury sidelined me for what ended up being 4 years.
I probably should have spent more time in college studying than practicing martial arts, but it was a good distraction from the other thing I had to deal with constantly: a severe case of Crohn’s disease. For anyone who doesn’t know, Crohn’s is an inflammatory bowel disease that can be debilitatingly painful and makes it virtually impossible to be more than 100 ft from a toilet at any time without risking incontinence. It’s a terrible illness, and I think it would have led me into self-pity and depression (something I had been historically prone to) were it not for training. Ultimately, I just trained through it, but the herniated discs ended up being something I couldn’t grit out. I took a break to heal right as I finished school, and the few times I did try to come back I promptly reinjured myself until I finally just gave up. I was starting my career, I’d met the woman who would end up becoming my wife, and it just seemed like it would be better to concentrate on other things. I still thought about martial arts a great deal, but even that faded some with time.
In 2008 I ended up getting my entire large intestine removed as it was rapidly becoming cancerous due to the Crohn’s. Had a colostomy bag for 5 of the worst months of my life, but in early 2009 I was able to get that removed and I’ve basically been asymptomatic ever since. Once my health improved I started working out again regularly, and I really wasn’t having any back pain so I tentatively started back to training, at first just by coaching Judo but eventually by restarting BJJ. In 2010 I went back to IU to get my MBA and soon I was training and competing again regularly under the Razzano Academy banner (small school, but best atmosphere for training you could ever ask for as long as you have a high tolerance for locker room humor). As school wrapped up I got a great job offer in Denver, got promoted to blue with three stripes directly from white, and headed west.
Once in CO I made a list of a few gyms to visit, the first one being Busy BJJ. It was close to my house, the coach had got his BB in Brazil, I figured it would be a good place to start. When I first rolled with Busy I outweighed him by about 50 lbs and he swept me from closed guard without using his hands. He was by far the best person I’d ever rolled with, and with the exception of world champions like Andre Galvao and Gordon Ryan that remains the case to this day. I started training with him and never looked back. I got my purple soon after I arrived on the strength of a tournament where I took gold submitting all my opponents, and throughout purple and brown I trained and competed a ton winning quite a few regional tournaments and going 1-1 as a pro with Fight 2 Win. Getting better got harder at purple, but I was lucky that Busy gave me a key to the gym and I was able find training partners willing to come in and drill and positional spar hard on the regular. That was really the key to continuing to get better over the last 5 years: lots of self-directed small group training with other advanced people focused on improving. I think that sort of training is necessary if you come from a small school that isn’t so competition oriented.
The last year or so I’ve spent as much time on striking as I have on grappling as I still have aspirations of fighting MMA once or twice before retiring from serious competition, but the mat is always my home and I’m really looking forward to getting more into coaching, especially as my 4 year old son is *almost* old enough to step on the tatami himself. So that’s it, it was a long time coming but I’m glad I found a way to make it happen.
After 20 years in the martial arts and ~16 on and off in BJJ, I was awarded my black belt on Monday by my coach Mario ‘Busy’ Correa. It’s a pretty proud and surprisingly emotional day for me, and in keeping with custom I thought I’d do a brief write up of how I got here.
I started martial arts in the late 90s (‘97 or ‘98, not sure) with TKD and Hapkido. I was in high school, and basically, I just always thought martial arts were cool. I loved kung fu and ninja movies, and I’d rented every UFC my local video store had many times over. I practiced the Korean styles until I got to Indiana University in 2000. At the time Indiana had one of the largest martial arts programs in the country, and you could take all sorts of classes for credit. Judo was one of the first ones I took, and as soon as I got into it I realized that the no-resistance, no-sparring stuff I’d been doing was virtually useless. I still ended up getting my black belt in Hapkido more or less on inertia, but after my first year of school I was all in on grappling. I competed a lot in Judo, won some regional tournaments (and AAU junior nationals, which allowed competitors up to 20 years of age), and at my best placed 7th in the nation at collegiate nationals in 2005. Alongside all the Judo I took up BJJ in 2002 just to supplement my ground game. I spent a ton of time on both until 2005 when a serious back injury sidelined me for what ended up being 4 years.
I probably should have spent more time in college studying than practicing martial arts, but it was a good distraction from the other thing I had to deal with constantly: a severe case of Crohn’s disease. For anyone who doesn’t know, Crohn’s is an inflammatory bowel disease that can be debilitatingly painful and makes it virtually impossible to be more than 100 ft from a toilet at any time without risking incontinence. It’s a terrible illness, and I think it would have led me into self-pity and depression (something I had been historically prone to) were it not for training. Ultimately, I just trained through it, but the herniated discs ended up being something I couldn’t grit out. I took a break to heal right as I finished school, and the few times I did try to come back I promptly reinjured myself until I finally just gave up. I was starting my career, I’d met the woman who would end up becoming my wife, and it just seemed like it would be better to concentrate on other things. I still thought about martial arts a great deal, but even that faded some with time.
In 2008 I ended up getting my entire large intestine removed as it was rapidly becoming cancerous due to the Crohn’s. Had a colostomy bag for 5 of the worst months of my life, but in early 2009 I was able to get that removed and I’ve basically been asymptomatic ever since. Once my health improved I started working out again regularly, and I really wasn’t having any back pain so I tentatively started back to training, at first just by coaching Judo but eventually by restarting BJJ. In 2010 I went back to IU to get my MBA and soon I was training and competing again regularly under the Razzano Academy banner (small school, but best atmosphere for training you could ever ask for as long as you have a high tolerance for locker room humor). As school wrapped up I got a great job offer in Denver, got promoted to blue with three stripes directly from white, and headed west.
Once in CO I made a list of a few gyms to visit, the first one being Busy BJJ. It was close to my house, the coach had got his BB in Brazil, I figured it would be a good place to start. When I first rolled with Busy I outweighed him by about 50 lbs and he swept me from closed guard without using his hands. He was by far the best person I’d ever rolled with, and with the exception of world champions like Andre Galvao and Gordon Ryan that remains the case to this day. I started training with him and never looked back. I got my purple soon after I arrived on the strength of a tournament where I took gold submitting all my opponents, and throughout purple and brown I trained and competed a ton winning quite a few regional tournaments and going 1-1 as a pro with Fight 2 Win. Getting better got harder at purple, but I was lucky that Busy gave me a key to the gym and I was able find training partners willing to come in and drill and positional spar hard on the regular. That was really the key to continuing to get better over the last 5 years: lots of self-directed small group training with other advanced people focused on improving. I think that sort of training is necessary if you come from a small school that isn’t so competition oriented.
The last year or so I’ve spent as much time on striking as I have on grappling as I still have aspirations of fighting MMA once or twice before retiring from serious competition, but the mat is always my home and I’m really looking forward to getting more into coaching, especially as my 4 year old son is *almost* old enough to step on the tatami himself. So that’s it, it was a long time coming but I’m glad I found a way to make it happen.
