Alliance, Atos, & Exodus: Leaving the Team and the Historical Commonplace (Heresy!)

Read Alliance's history and keep this in mind any time someone gives you shit for leaving a team.
Granted, gym hopping every 6 months will earn you no long term friends in jiujitsu.
I left a gym after nearly 9 years of being a member. I represented them in 5 MMA bouts, Judo tournaments, and countless Jiu-Jitsu tournaments.
When the time came to leave, it was time to leave. Period. Anyone who wants to call you a traitor after 9 years of being somewhere is making some laughable assumptions at best or being disingenuous at worst. I must have missed the class on "how to be a traitor" when I was bleeding in a cage representing the gym 5 times,  or helping guys get ready for fights and paying dues to one gym for between 1/4 -1/3 of the years I've been on this earth.

That personal anecdote aside, let's look at the historical basis for all these Jiu-Jitsu stalwarts and loyalty do or die and see if it stands up to the truth test?

The term "creonte" refers to guys the gym was paying for them to train, compete, literally giving them a place to sleep et cetera, guys on "scholarship as it were."


This is America. As a paying customer, the market determines many things. 
As much as I ascribe to some of the old school mentality I was first taught in Judo with the bowing and the rest, a foolish adherence to misapplied ideals is every bit as destructive as maliciously applied selfishness. Study the history rather than blindly buy into blanket generalizations regarding someone who doesn't tow the line or rarionalize the status quo :

Alliance's colorful history with leaving the team, rejoining, et cetera: 
Pay special attention to the guys who left then teamed back up with old friends/allies to do what mattered most: get to the podium. 

Atos is also a nice hodge podge of guys who left high profile teams for the always undisclosed reasons that I'm sure on one side are portrayed one way and on the other side perceived another way.

Time Machine Friday: Mayweather Wants to Promote MMA

Dunning-Kruger Effect: they run a lot in boxing to train so it's tougher than MMA. There's no minority fighters in MMA, white guys couldn't hack boxing so we made up MMA.

Let the dude put on some events and pump some $ into the sport. I'm glad some fighters and corollary staff will pick up some of his $$ and pay their bills with it.
That being said, don't forget he's another "human cockfighting" believer about our sport.

I could name just in UFC that guys like Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez, Demetrious Johnson, Benson Henderson were all champs.
Calling MMA fans beer drinkers is like pointing out the Corono sponsoring ESPN Deportes Boxing events.
At any rate, the irony is so thick here, it's hard to breathe. I have to go teach takedowns and gripfighting tonight.

Blast From the Past: Garry Tonon vs AJ Agazarm Black Belt NoGi Pan Finals

I have something I hate to admit. Now that I'm rolling more NoGi, I'm having a hard time sitting through black belt Gi matches from the 2016 Pans (because I signed up for flograppling after rationalizing it as I've watched probably hundreds of hours if not more of jiu-jitsu/judo for free since I began grappling).
Watching even Leandro vs Romulo at the Pan Finals....I had to skip ahead at some points.
Man. Never thought those words would come out of my mouth.
That being said, here's Garry Tonon of a slick low single leg counter/escape/step out immediately to a truck position or something close to it for the back take and finishing the match quickly thereafter.

So I tried Bulletproof Coffee

Maybe it's because I take in about 32

Oz of coffee per day. Usually a grande in the morning and one in the afternoon. Maybe it's because I sometimes buy pourover coffee that my bar of being impressed by coffee is set higher. 

If I'm working all night downtown or up early on an hour or two of sleep to drive 3-5 hours to a tournament and ref/compete et cetera, I'll drink more than that and buy whatever coffee I can find on the road or brew my own strong brew. 

My honest opinion of the vaunted bulletproof coffee is that it's coffee you'll prefer if you don't like the taste of coffee and don't like to sip your coffee over a long period of time as the taste is smoother and the caffeine more packed into a smaller amount of liquid. 

The slight butter/coconut oil taste is pleasant and I am a huge fan of grass fed butter. But is it super amazing? I'm unconvinced. I have always semi dislikes the coconut oil after taste in anything but I'll take the bitter almost burned taste of coffee and smell over bulletproof coffee any day of the week. Likely, the acidity of bulletproof for your body's PH is much lower, but I take in enough juice, fruit, vegetables et cetera (and no longer consume any alcohol) that it doesn't matter. 

I mean, cold pressed juice is delicious, and yes I prefer it, but I'm unsold on the marketing for that and for this type of coffee. Beyond that, try it for yourself. I still like/prefer to brew my own coffee and add some kosher salt to it, a trick my department advisor from the district taught me back when I taught high school. 

Confirmed Black Belts for World Pro Next Weekend

I have flograppling so I'll get to watch. Been so busy with work and jiujitsu I've only watched a bit of the last Copa Podio since signing up for flograppling. Haven't had a day to binge watch any Gi events and my sparse spare time has been limited watching NoGi and researching the next big area of focus for my submission game (it's a secret). Hopefully I'll have some footage of it after the next US Grappling on the 23rd of this month in Greensboro. Until then, it's hush hush. 

Guam Doing Big Things

I've slowly noticed the trickle of Guamanian fighters in mostly Asian region promotions and now a few in the UFC and Bellator. I'll say this. Those dudes comes to fight. That being said, the jiujitsu scene must be growing at the effort and behest of some motivated people with another event like one I recall awhile back: 

Podcast Episode 11 Preview

We'll delve into the upcoming EBI 6 brackets, Maxhida's free pass from the MMA "media" on his banned substance issue, and expert failure as 1) the ever potential by product of success and 2) a reality in any domain where we unduly trust those in authority.