Eddie Bravo seminar...cool, dude.

Yesterday, one of my assistant instructors and I drove up to Waxahachie, TX for a seminar by Eddie Bravo. If you're not familiar with Mr. Bravo, he is (according to Wikipedia) "an American practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu who holds a black belt under Jean-Jacques Machado. He is most famous for his win as a brown belt against Royler Gracie by triangle choke in the Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling championships the year 2003, and his unique style of no-gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, called 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu." BJJ Black Belt Paul Thomas was cool enough to bring Eddie down for a seminar back in 2004, and I really enjoyed the exposure to his system.

Since then, we've been working through his techniques at my school, so we welcomed a chance to work with Eddie and gain some additional insight into his system... we were not disappointed! Eddie is a funny, personable guy, who is so comfortable with his expertise in his system that he has no problem telling everyone "I'm only at about a purple belt level when attacking this arm. But this arm...different story." I like that. He's open, honest, and willing to help every single person in the seminar, whether they were inexperienced newbies or folks who had been training for years. It was well worth the drive and the money, to be sure. At some point, we might very well end up a 10th Planet affiliate...but that'll be a long way off. A long way. In the meantime, we'll keep training, add more competitions to our plan, and see what we can do.


After the seminar, I enjoyed catching up with my cousin, Robin, and her family. It's hard to believe how her boys have grown! Time flies. Next time, I'm bringing my fabulous wife and son so they can all run around together and cause trouble while I train with Eddie. ;-)

My Dad should be out of the hospital soon. The antibiotics seem to be helping, so he's feeling quite a bit better. Even so, I've already bought my plane ticket to go up and visit for a week. Thanks, Priceline! I've never loved William Shatner so much, until he got me a far-less-than-half-price ticket to South Bend, Indiana! I figure that it's better to go hang out with Dad now, while he's feeling better, rather than wait until there's an emergency and risk getting there too late. I'm looking forward to hanging out with the family, and annoying Dad with questions about his youth.

The weather is cooling down, and there's a taste of fall in the air. I love this time of year!! October, with Halloween, my birthday, our wedding anniversary, the Ren Fest, and memories of the Brazoria County Fair, is definitely my favorite month of the year. Any suggestions for a Halloween costume? Anyone?

Take care, folks. And tell someone that you love them. Who knows how many chances you might have to do so.