Today was my 100th day on the road. Looking back, it is weird to think that I have traveled for so long. In some way it feels like it has been a short trip and in other ways like I have been going for years.

One thing is for sure though, the trip has exceeded all my expectations. I have been to 35 places so far and met a ridiculous amount of fantastic people. Still over a month to go and I can’t wait to see what it will bring.

I have become extremely comfortable and confident in traveling. Moving around, meeting people, talking to strangers and figuring things out in far away countries has all become second nature. In some strange way, I don’t feel like I am away from home. Where ever I am at a given point, feels like where I want to be.

More training in Vegas tomorrow, rest Friday, worlds Saturday and Sunday, then on to the big South American adventure!

I left San Francisco early this morning after two good days there. It was a short flight to Vegas, where my friend Martin picked me up and we drove directly from the airport to Drysdale’s gym for a few hours of high intensity no-gi training. Robert was teaching a class on the guillotine which is something I have been working a lot on on this trip, so it was very cool to get some input there from one of the best in the world.

I had some good rounds of sparring. I feel a little tired and also didn’t want to go too hard at this time, but it was still very good. Lots of high level guys there.

Now we are resting a little bit before going to Xtreme Couture for evening training. I may or may not skip it, since I don’t want to risk training too hard only three days before competing at the Worlds in LA. I’ll see when I get there.

I had the pleasure of not having to fly or go anywhere today, so I had a good night of sleep then just relaxed a little bit. I spent the afternoon making lasagna before it was time for training.

I had a lot of options for where to train during my short visit here, but one of them was more interesting than the others. I got an email from Tom, who had apparently been sitting next to me in the flight from Atlanta to San Francisco the other day, and noticed that I was looking at my blog on my iPad. He seemed to remember reading something about BJJ globetrotter at some point and looked it up. He trains near by where I was staying and invited me to come train, so that’s what I did tonight. Proof that BJJ is everywhere, even next to me in the airplanes :)

The gym was One World Jiu Jitsu Academy in Union City, CA. It was a small class with a handful of good guys with who I went some nice, relaxed rounds of sparring with. Very friendly people and a nice looking gym too. Lots of room!

Thanks to Tom for stalking me in the airplane, then inviting me to come by for training, that was awesome! :)

Location:Kingston Ave,Oakland,United States

Have had a relaxed day in San Francisco today, checking out the place a little bit. Since New York, I have travelled at a very high pace, trained a lot and in general pushed myself a little too much. So resting today and doing nothing was really nice and needed. I am competing at the Worlds on Saturday and don’t want to be too hard to myself before that.

I am staying with my friend from Denmark, Søren, and his wife Kristin. The trip here yesterday was horrible. I catched the bus at 6:00 in the morning from Playa Hermosa to the airport. A few hours later, I found out that it didn’t go to the airport, but to some random city in Costa Rica’s middle of nowhere. I managed to find another bus there to the airport, totaling my bus time that morning to a good five hours. The first flight to Atlanta was ok, but the flight from there to San Francisco was tough. My seat didn’t recline, but the one in front of me sure did. There was no room for me to sleep in a comfortable position and the herniated disc in my back hurt really bad. It was five hours of pain all the way to SF :-/

Hope to find some training here tomorrow. Wednesday morning, I am flying to Las Vegas to stay and train with Martin Kampmann for a few days before going to Los Angeles for the worlds, kindly sponsored by BJJ Legends Magazine. Yet another week of high pace, hardcore travelling :)

Location:Kingston Ave,Oakland,United States

Arrived in Oakland, California last night, visiting my old friend from Denmark, Søren. Today, I probably need to rest, but if I can find a place to train tomorrow, I’ll go. Recommendations are appreciated, let me know! :)

Location:Kingston Ave,Oakland,United States

I was going to take the bus back to San Jose tonight, sleep there and have lots of time to get to the airport in the morning. The last bus was supposed to leave at 5:00 pm, which was right when we had time to lay the mats out on the beach and roll. That meant, that I couldn’t join the training because I had to catch the bus. This bus just never came. I waited at the bus stop for 75 minutes with no luck. This means, that I have to get the bus at 6 am tomorrow morning in order to make it to the airport in time.

It totally sucked to wait that long for nothing and miss the training, but I could do nothing but trying to make the most of it. It meant that I got to go with the guys to a bar to watch UFC, so it wasn’t all bad.

Tomorrow afternoon, I am flying to Oakland in California to visit my friend Søren and his wife for a few days. He is an old friend of mine from back home and I haven’t seen him for a long time, so it will be good to catch up.

Surfing today was GREAT. I had one of the best sessions of my (short) career, feeling really confident out there and catching lots of amazing waves. What a great day in the water!

I felt pretty overtrained yesterday. Every muscle in my body was sore and I had a sling fever. Nevertheless, I decided to go and roll a little bit with the guys at AA. Before I went to Costa Rica, I few people independently of eachother told me, that this gym had a very high level. I didn’t really think much about it before I came here and saw it myself. Really high level, technical and tough guys there, I highly recommend training with them if you have the chance.

I got tapped a few hundred times and felt great afterwards. It was nice to warm up my body a little bit after being so tired all day.

Photographing cities always posses quite a challenge in finding the interesting details between a constant bombardment of impressions. There is no beautiful landscape presenting itself with a panoramic sky and lots of interesting colors and details, ready to be captured in the first attempt – a city demands ones concentration and patience. It usually also involves a good amount of footwork to find the right shots, why I normally like to do city photography on a bicycle. Today, I had to do with my sandals.

I have been feeling slightly overtrained today, so I decided to skip afternoon training and just relax instead. I went for a walk around town this afternoon and caught a few shots.

Tonight is a no-gi class and directly after that, I jump in the car with some of the guys from the gym and drive to the beach for the weekend, where we will train on the beach and go surfing.

Location:Avenida 4,San Pedro,Costa Rica

Location:Calle Central,San Pedro,Costa Rica

This burger had all the nice gear. It looked great in it’s fancy gi with all the cool patches. I had good game too, but there was just something about it that rubbed me the wrong way. I rated it blue belt four stripes.

It was a tough trip to Costa Rica, since I had to get up ridiculously early to catch my flight at 6:00 am. I only had about three hours of sleep plus a little bit in the plane. I got a nap when I got here, but combined with the hard training last night and traveling in general, I have been really low on energy today.

I went to Athletic Advance tonight to train and it was great. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you kind of know the drill. Knew noone on beforehand, it was awesome, cool guys, good training, nice place, etc. etc. etc. It almost feels stupid how easy it has become for me to travel random places and find experiences like this using BJJ as engine. I caught myself laughing a little bit at it, as I walked home in the rain after training tonight. Anything seems possible at this point.

I enjoy Latin America a lot. It is cool to see something different and I am listening to “learn spanish” podcast every day to catch up with daily communication. Like surfing, it is cool to try and learn a new skill from bottom up and language is always a great basic tool to have in your gameplan, I think. For the last 10-11 years, I have basically only tried to learn BJJ and nothing else, so I am excited about learning something new :D

On another note, something really great has happened for my trip. I finally got shorts with pockets. After traveling over three months in fightshorts with no pockets, these new bad boys are like sent from heaven. Who invented this genius device? There seems to be no limit to what they can hold! I am psyched about pockets apparently.

(P.S.: I was too zombie to take any interesting photos today + it was raining, but I promise to do some good ones soon ;))

Location:Avenida 4,San Pedro,Costa Rica

The way I ended here in DR was, that I was looking at google maps, trying to figure out, what places were close to where Mike and Rebecca’s boat would be. I checked the surrounding islands and saw that DR was close. I googled for BJJ and the rest is history.

I know I am beating the same drum, but how amazing is it, that I can point at any spot on a map, buy a ticket, go there all alone and end up in this situation, where I am sad to leave, because I made so many good friends in just four days. Dominican Republic turned out to be a place of beautiful people, beautiful places and beautiful Jiu Jitsu.

I have stayed two nights in Santo Domingo, the capital, to where we took the bus for five hours. Abraham, a huge brown belt, offered me to stay in his house and we had a great time. I am looking forward to meet him again next week in L.A. and see him compete.

We went training tonight and I had some very tough and great rolls with a bunch of brown and black belts. Really good night of training.

Now, I will get three hours of sleep before heading to the airport and flying to Costa Rica, to see what awaits me there! (another place, I found by looking at a map)

I decided to stay in middle weight, even though I will probably be outpowered by most competitors in that division at this time. Cutting weight while traveling is very difficult, so I’ll just relax, review a lot of burgers and compete at my current weight.

I am of course pretty terribly prepared for this competition, but it is important to me to at least step on the mat and give myself the challenge of competing at the (second-)highest level in the world.

Hope to meet a lot of my friends from the trip there too!

My neighbor Glen drove to me Playa Encuentro this morning on his super awesome old school moped. The waves were surprisingly good and we had a great time in the water, catching many waves. To finish it off in style, the last wave I decided to go for, took me all the way to the beach, it was perfect :)

I joined the class at the gym last night. It was Papo, the brown belt instructor who I rolled with earlier in the day, and a big group of local boys, all white belts. They were very physically strong from kitesurfing, fishing and working in the fields and their body mechanics were impressive. They gave me a serious run for my money, not often I experience that with beginners. This place has unlimited potential, I am looking forward to follow these guys in the years to come.

Location:5,Cabarete,Dominican Republic

I just weighed myself this evening. 172 pounds without the gi. Should I try to cut down to middleweight or just don’t worry about it and compete in middle?

I couldn’t decide wether or not to spend all that money on competing in the Worlds next week, but BJJ Legends magazine generously offered to sponsor me so it would be possible. I am looking at flight tickets today and will sign up as soon as I make a decision on the weight class. Maybe I will weigh myself tomorrow morning and see what it says.

On one hand, I would prefer to compete in lightweight because I haven’t done much physical training on the trip and I know everyone is cutting. On the other hand, my preparations have been terrible in terms of trying to perform well at the tournament (amazing in terms of having fun and traveling though ;)) so maybe the weight class is of less importance.

I had a great training session with Papo and Joe this morning in the skate ramp gym. Very technical guys, who give me some seriously good sparring sessions. We trained for an hour or so before getting some lunch.

After, I took a motorbike to Encuentro beach, where all the surfing is. Unfortunately, there were no waves today, so I had to drop that project. I am finding myself getting restless because I haven’t been surfing since Hawaii. I really miss it, so hope there will be some waves tomorrow morning. I could kitesurf, but there is so much to learn and so much equipment. I have fallen in love with the simplicity of just having a board and nothing else. Tomorrow it is!

Now, I will try and find some flight tickets for next destination (still to be determined), then roll again tonight.

I was honestly a little sceptic, that yesterday would be Judgment Day where all the true believers would be zapped to heaven, but it turned out to be true.

I came to Cabarete late last night in the dark and arrived directly at a big afterparty for a BJJ tournament. Don’t remember much that happened, but I think I met Jesus in a bar on the beach later, and when I woke up this morning and saw this place in daylight, I realized that all the religious ramblings were true and I had actually gone to heaven!

I don’t believe in God, but I guess he believes in me, because he designed heaven just as I imagined it. Outdoor BJJ gym with great guys on a perfect surf beach with a bar. And wifi. See you guys here if you are not going to hell or something.

Thanks Fred for a great time here, next stop Dominican Republic!