After winning double gold at NAGA, I started training 5-6 days a week. Maybe the (mild) success motivated me. Maybe I didn’t want the wins to be a fluke. Maybe I (finally) found something with a clear correlation between effort and success. Whatever stoked the fires in me, I consistently started attending evening classes on Tuesday through Saturday, usually for two hours at a time. I also convinced myself to drive 30-minutes to class during my lunches on Monday and Wednesday to attend noon classes, before driving 30 minutes back to work. Sitting in my cubicle, sweating and red-faced, I calculated and recalculated how to manage my employment hours.
This led to a nice training groove while accumulating about 10 hours a week of class attendance. In retrospect, this doesn’t sound like much. At the time, though, with three stripes dangling from my white belt, it felt like a lot. For a freshly minted 36 year old, the hours started adding up on my body. Leaving me feeling as if I were burning a candle from both ends. Maybe one or two others (blue belts like Matt and Ruth) attended more classes, many times doing two per day. Some others attended about as many classes (give or take). I couldn’t imagine somehow fitting in even more jiu-jitsu. Yet major holidays loomed and open mats started popping up almost every other week. With that, my hours crept up and up and up as my body somehow didn’t implode. In short, life moved pretty fast as my days blurred together in one sweaty, grappling mess.
Wake, work, train, sleep, repeat.
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2016 was our first winter in Georgia. After living in Alaska for most of my life, “Georgia winters” sounded like an oxymoron. In Georgia, I never needed more than a sweater to keep me warm. I surely never needed the Sorel boots I bought in Alaska or even a hat to cover my burgeoning cauliflower ear. The extent of this first winter amounted to turning the A/C in my Mini Cooper to the red area rather than the blue. I’m not even sure if I should call it a winter. So maybe the “holiday season” is more apt.
During this time, another part of my life (besides training) found a groove – socially. Rachelle and I started making friends. This was new to us. In Alaska, we spent a lot of time bouncing between family obligations and me playing soccer. On occasion, we’d hang with friends from high school or college. Otherwise, I bonded with work friends while on trips or conferences. In Seattle, we spent a lot of time together exploring Seattle through festivals, concerts, and the like. Finding adult friends was a bit new to us and we jumped in with both feet.
In Atlanta, I worked for a federal agency. Every single person in my section was approximately the same age (give or take 5 years). It felt natural to bond over shared 80s-baby histories or 90s nostalgia, a seeming passion for what we do for a living, and general proximity to each other. For these work friends, we decided to connect through No Shave November. Throughout the month, we grew mustaches and didn’t shave until the month ended. With a flip of the calendar, we brought our wives out for a group date in celebration of our horrible facial hair. In retrospect, I find this bonding hilarious. Years later, we barely (don’t) talk to each other, much less entertain the idea of growing anything together or gallivanting around Atlanta with hideous fuzzy worms growing on our upper lips. It’s funny how the world works.
In stark contrast, the friendships developed through jiu-jitsu grew from stronger roots. There’s something special about bonding through tribulations. There’s something magical about chasing something difficult together. There’s something amazing about finding like-minded and strong-willed people that are willing to voluntarily seek improvement in their lives. Which, frankly, jiu-jitsu does better than many, many work situations. Or maybe it’s just sweating on each other that did the trick. Either way, years later, I still have the BJJ friends I made in 2016 and don’t really talk to the work friends I made at the same time.
It’s funny how the world works.
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At Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu, I started training consistently with Matt Shand. If I was at an evening class, he was there. When I started attending noon classes, he was there. His dedication corresponded to amazing competition results. I remember a moment while warming up at a Monday noon class with maybe a handful of other students in attendance. Our eyes met across the mat and he nodded. A nod of understanding, of approval. We found another like ourselves – some breed of crazy, dedicated, and focused.
Grinding away day-after-day and jamming as many hours on the mat as possible, we discussed positions and techniques. We talked about competitions. He’d just ran through every white belt in every tournament he’d competed in and earning his blue belt on the podium at an IBJJF Open. To me, this was just about the pinnacle of what you can ask for as a white belt.
For my own accolades, I’d become only the third Buckhead Jiu-Jitsu student to win a double gold (surprising just about everyone…or by now we can admit everyone). Our friendship started growing as we sought each other out to drill moves between classes, sharing memes and videos on social media, and overall putting aside our introverted tendencies to become one of the few people I’d call a “best friend” (Nick and Ryan holding previous iterations of this title; Rachelle withstanding). Or maybe more apt would be BJJBFF.
After colluding to buy Christmas-themed spats and rash guards, we sported them in noon No-Gi class. After rolling, Matt hefted me on his shoulders and started our (now) traditional pose. I’ll admit, this first iteration left me unsure and a bit wobbly as I imagined toppling forward and face planting or else falling backwards and tumbling into a pile of broken limbs and concussions. Over time, though, I learned to relax and trust the Sloth’s crazy strong legs and after even more reps, slipping in a smile or two instead of nervous smirks. The whole pose originated from a spur of the moment thought (“Hey, jump on my shoulders and we’ll get a pic”), but mirrored robots from Pacific Rim with an amalgamation of two fighters breeding a stronger, more formidable entity (the Jaeger). The same essence can be seen in such animations as Transformers’ Combiners or Voltron. Thus we created the MegaSlothWolf.
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At Thanksgiving, when most people trek home to family, Rachelle and I glanced at the map of the United States and counted at least a hundred states between us and Alaska. The cost, time, and will to fly “home” to sit around a table of food, discussing nothing pertaining to our lives, and surrounded by the white noise of way too many voices and not enough ears didn’t exactly tease out our wallets. Instead, we decided to stay in Atlanta and enjoy the lack of traffic and the four days away from work.
A few jiu-jitsu friends also stayed in Atlanta. One couple didn’t have a trustworthy vehicle to drive through two states and into Illinois. The other couple didn’t understand the importance of celebrating Caucasian and Native American relations via gorging on turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes, all the while watching parades and football games. The six of us decided to meet at my place and spend a day together for an “American Thanksgiving.”
Rachelle, strangely, seemed thrilled to “cook” for six hungry tummies (8 if you count two dogs). The catch, though, hinged on purchasing most of the food through a local restaurant known for catering Thanksgiving dinners. It felt like some sitcom where Rachelle entrusted me to keep the secret of purchasing the food rather than slaving away in the kitchen, standing for hours on end in front of the stove and oven. As her accomplice, I shuffled the empty boxes into the laundry room while she warmed the food and arranged the living room. Our two dogs hovered near the oven or staring up with wide eyes and sucked in bellies.
Our guests arrived around noon. Cast aside footwear filled our tiny entryway while unopened bottles of wine covered our kitchen counters. We played music in the background and at one point the parade. No one paid much attention to the TV as we chatted about life, food, traditions, and of course jiu-jitsu. Once in a while, we discussed my still growing mustache, but I tried to shuffle that topic to the side. We filled plates. We emptied plates. We warmed up more food. We whipped up new dishes. Bottles of wine found their way into the recycling bin. We lounged on the couch with distended bellies that the dogs walked on with heavy paws.
The day grew short and I didn’t want it to end. These were the type of friends I always imagined making. Ones that weren’t a matter of convenience, but ones curious about each other and the world. Ones whose hearts grow from a similar place and see the potential for living. We promised to do it all over again, although it didn’t matter if we did. We enjoyed that day, making it special and perfect in our memories. To finish the quote again, “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
