Josh, his brother CJ, and myself have all known one another from the North Carolina Jiu-Jitsu and MMA scene for a number of years now.
We've fought MMA for the same organization (World Combat Federation) and currently ref and often compete for the same organization (US Grappling).
Josh is one of the nicest guys I've met in Jiu-Jitsu (as is his brother) which is saying a lot.
At any rate, here's our superfight from the Toro Cup 2 a few months back.
My hat off to Josh who caught me forcing the stack pass.
It was scheduled for 15 min's submission only, then a 5 minutes point or submission match if necessary.
I had zero intention of going for 15-20 minutes and Josh capitalized on my impatience.
My hat off to him.
Win or learn.
Watch it HERE: the embedding on Youtube is being difficult for unknown technical reasons.
It was a long year and a half and was nearing the point of burnout following this event without realizing it.
I trained hard, felt sharp and was excited to redeem myself after a poor showing at the first installment of the Toro Cup.
Without realizing it, I'd reached a point of diminishing returns in terms of training and grinding. I did a few more tournaments after this event but finally took about 2 months off from competing, came back, and won the adult absolute, the first purple belt division I'd won since getting my purple belt. There is a box full of 2nd and 3rd place medals at purple belt, and a memories of leaving tournaments not advancing past the first round in either weight or absolute.
It took my girlfriend talking to me on the phone one night to be point out that I needed a break.
Sometimes we're so deep in fervor and the pursuit we're blind to the evidence of our eyes and ears and that's what had happened. The only answer I would consider was "more mat time" or "more grinding" but I no longer enjoyed training or even being in the gym. That coupled with performances that didn't meet my own personal expectation were a recipe for frustration and both physical/mental burnout.
Purple belt has forced me to completely revamp how dedicated I am to training and now as I'm 32, I've begun to accept that diet, rest, flexibility/stretching, and recovery are all every bit if not more important than hard training.
The time away and some weeks where I would not train for more than a day or two at a time helped me let go of a lot of frustration and baggage that was impacting my performance.
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