When one puts in countless hours of mat time, unmeasurable amounts of sweat, miles of tape for fingers and various other Jiu Boo Boo’s, sacrificed relationships to train more, lost infinite hours of sleep thinking about techniques, racked up huge data charges on your phone bill watching YouTube videos of the latest counter to the latest move, fought your way through the toughest tournaments and competition around, lost friends because they don’t live and breath the art like you do, only then does one achieve what is up to now in life my highest honor…my first BJJ stripe.

Since starting my journey 6 months ago I’ve improved more as person than most people do in a life time. My discipline in taking care of my body is higher than it ever has been. For example, 6 months ago I would never have bothered to wear a brace on my knee or been sure to ice my lower back every night, but now that I have developed this incredible discipline I do these things everyday to make sure that my body is in optimal performance mode. Its like the grandmaster says, “you can’t have a happy life without a healthy body.”

In addition to taking care of the normal maintenance of the body I have also been eating better. I used to eat a bunch of fast food and pizza but luckily my academy is right next to a Subway so I can eat fresh after all the hard rolls! To supplement my meat and veggies that I get on the regular at the Subway I’ve also taken up eating fruit as a snack instead of chips or those delicious salty crickets I get at the market. The coolest part is that the Food 4 Less sells already cut up fruit in cans! So I save time on cutting up my fruit and it doesn’t go bad!

I’ve also experienced a crazy increase in confidence. Before I was really shy when I was out talking to girls but now I have no problem talking to them about all sorts of stuff like the new techniques I’m working on and how I think that there’s a place for both point and sub only tournaments. See ya later social anxiety! I’ve even started dating this girl online. She’s crazy smart and has this cool contracting job that lets her travel all over the world! Mainly she’s in places without great internet connection so we can’t really Skype but she can still chat and send pics and trust me she’s a fox!

I owe all of this to my time spent training Jits and can’t tell you how stoked I am on this. It shows you that if you dedicate your life to something that it can pay off and you can reap the rewards, the sweet precious eternal rewards! I want to thank all my training partners, all my coaches, all my victims lmao, and the future victims lmfao. I want to apologize for any nightmares I may have caused people on my journey to this milestone but know that you were a part of a series of stepping stones that propelled one to greatness. I have to go now, even though I could go on for hours, but alas I have letters to write to companies for sponsorships!!

I’ll be posting more journal entries like this to give my knowledge and help the community by giving advice on training and sharing cool stories and stuff so make sure to stay tuned!!

-Roll Jenkins