10 Years of BJJ - My Jiu-Jitsu Journey - Part 6 (I Don't Like It Anymore...)

(This is part 6 of this series. If you haven't seen part 5 it can be found here.)

So, everybody left...

In my last post, I mentioned that we moved to a new gym, and all of my training partners pretty much left. So now it was pretty much me and my brother, and if I'm honest that's the way it stayed up until April 2009 when I moved into the adult class.

So, we are now in this new gym. We didn't even stay there for that long, less than a year I think, I'm sure we moved again sometime in mid-2007 to Fforestfach. Anyway, not a lot actually happened during my time at the gym in Cwmbrwla, I'm not sure if I even competed during my time at that gym. But one things for sure, I didn't like that gym, and I was glad that we moved.

Now we are somewhere in the middle of 2007, and we move to Fforestfach, Swansea. Not where we currently are now, but around the corner in one of the middle units of the Celtic Trade Park. Again, we were not there for very long either, probably about 4-5 months, maybe even less. But it was around this time where I started not to like Jiu-Jitsu anymore. I mean I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it like I used to.

Probably, the reason for that was all of training partners has pretty much stopped training, and it was just me and my brother, and there was no sense of real competition. I mean there were lots of kids training, but they were all much younger and smaller than me and my brother. So you couldn't really test yourself against anyone, and there's only so long you can roll with your brother for.

I mean it’s hard to explain but I didn't want to stop doing Jiu-Jitsu, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much either. In a sense, it was part of my routine. So I just carried on doing it hoping I would enjoy it more, and this was just a phase. And to be honest I did start to enjoy it more, but nothing like I used to. It just kind of felt like I was going nowhere, I wasn't improving and in a sense I would never be 'good' at it like I wanted to be.

And really all it boiled down to is, I had no real sparring partners but my brother, and it really showed in competition. I mean when I competed in 2007 I just got wrecked! I mean I just got totally dominated in all of my fights. It almost felt like I had never done Jiu-Jitsu before in my life.

At this point, I just wanted to give up, and do something else with my life. Although in a sense Jiu-Jitsu was just a part of my life I couldn't live without. I kind of knew if I stopped doing Jiu-Jitsu after a while I would just go back to it anyway. So I just carried on going, even though by this point I really didn't want to.

Only a few months later we moved again! This time we moved to the same block as we are in today. But not where our gym is now, but the middle block, where the Fit for Life gym is today. It was about that time where the grading system for kids changed, and would have to be graded again. This meant we had to travel to Gracie Barra Birmingham and go through a grading by Braulio and Victor Estima.

The one thing Chris said was the regulations had changed, and if you made it to green belt before you turned 16, it meant you could automatically be promoted to blue belt when you turn 16. To be honest, I guess that kind of reignited a spark in me to keep on training and get to green belt. That would mean I would eventually be a blue belt, which to me at the time was a really big deal, as back in those days there were not that many blue belts, I would say less than ten. So the thought of someday potentially being a blue belt really motivated me to keep training, and do the best I possibly could.

But before all that, we first needed to take a trip to Acocks Green, Birmingham.

I hope you guys enjoyed!

Catch you later,

Giordano