After three days on the Zero to Cruising catamaran, it is time for me to leave and get back to land. We are currently anchored by Beef Island, from where I will soon fly to Puerto Rico. I am staying there for one night, before moving on to Cabarete in the Dominican Republic.

I don’t know anyone in Puerto Rico, don’t know where to go or sleep, but I assume it will all work out by itself when I land, like it always does.

Big thanks to Mike and Rebecca for inviting me to stay on their boat, it has been a great experience to see how it is to live on one. I didn’t get to train much, other than Mike tapping me out with a flying triangle on the beachbar dancefloor the first night, but nevertheless, I have really enjoyed my time at sea.

Aaaaarrrr!!

This burger trained in a really cool gym. It was not the average gym with nothing on the walls but a photo of Helio, no this was decorated with all sorts of sweet pirate stuff.

Despite being a bit of a rebel (one might even call it a sort of pirate), it had a seriously good game. It caught me by surprise by pulling out a so far unseen “Chili con carne topgame”, that worked surprisingly well and was difficult to escape once ended there. It managed to pin me for several minutes, before I finally reversed position and submitted it.

I ranked it purple belt with two stripes – a very serious contender in the amazing around-the-world burger project!

This burger had a solid, solid base. Impressive fundamentals and a lot of competition experience, coming from a country with a long tradition of burger-jitsu.

I really enjoyed rolling with it, and it gave me a hard time, but it had one thing in it’s game I didn’t like. The slice of inverted ham guard. Kind of a cocky move to pull off and it was it was showing off with it. High level player, but the overconfident cockiness of playing ham-guard kept it from being promoted to more than a purple belt.

Having learned from no instructors but only trained with a few friends with same lack of experience, this burger had some holes in it’s game. Physically pretty strong, but lack of fundamentals and a very unpolished technical repertoire, could only get it a white belt with three stripes.

Mike and Rebecca are old BJJ friends of mine. I visited them in Canada in 2005 to train, and we have kept in touch since. One day, they decided to sell everything they owned, including their gym, buy a boat and go sailing. From having zero knowledge or experience with sailing, they learned everything from bottom up and have sailed almost a year now, all the way from Canada to the Caribbean.

It was really difficult to catch them on the way, because they never really know where they are going to be at any given time. Fortunately, I timed it just right and managed to get a flight to a nearby island of where they were located.

I arrived yesterday evening and with only three hours of sleep and no food since lunch, we decided to go out to a full moon party on a beach. The rum seemed to be extra effective with no sleep or food, which resulted in massive hangover today. I basically had to lay down inside the boat for a good four hours, while sailing in hard wind and waves, without being able to move. It was horrible, some of the worst hangovers I have had in a long time.

Spent today chilling on the boat, chilling in the water and chilling on the beach. Me and Rebecca did a workout with their TRX on the trampoline. I was pretty amazed that I managed to finish that in my condition.

Right now it is nine in the evening and I am lying outside on the trampoline, listening to the sounds of the jungle on the island we are anchored at, and looking at the stars. I must be that competitor at the Worlds in two weeks, that has had the number one coolest preparations for that tournament lol

I got an email from Derek a looong time ago when I first launched this blog and was looking for places to go. When I got to Richmond and was looking for a way to get down to the Caribbean, I saw that flights through Orlando was a good deal compared to go directly. Despite a super tight schedule this week, I managed to fly in sunday evening and visit for just about a day and a half. There were many other places and people in Florida I would have liked to have visited, but unfortunately it was not possible this time :-/

Derek has taken great, great care of me here during my short visit. I have slept in a fantastic bed (I have slept on a lot of couches and floors on the trip :D) and had a great time. In this one short day, I have slept till noon, answered tons of emails, driven a bicycle around the area, seen an alligator, eaten an alligator, trained in Gracie Barra Orlando, eaten a huge burger and then worked out in Derek’s awesome garage gym.

The training today was really good, I felt MUCH better than in Arlington, no wonder LOL Many good rolls with good guys and everyone were really friendly.

Now it is time for five hours of sleep before I head down to St. John to visit Mike and Rebecca on their boat!

Location:Crystal Oak Dr,DeLand,United States

I got this burger recommended by a reader of my blog. It was training in a secret spot hidden inside the Parker Meridien hotel on Manhattan. A fancy hotel with an expensive looking lobby, hiding behind a curtain and secret entrance a sleazy, noisy and dirty burger gym.

The burger was selling itself well. It had a great story about how it fought it’s way out of poverty in the burger favelas and now ran a gym in a fancy hotel in New York. unfortunately, it didn’t really live up to the hype in my eyes. It was like going to a seminar with a big shot world champion and only learning self defense techniques against rape choke and grab-my-wrist attacks.

It had a great base and good balance. It only had a few techniques though and they were not really impressive. The mat fee was also really high, $8 for a single roll. And I had to stand in line for 30 minutes while trying to warm up.

A good opponent for me, but not world class as it pretended to be.

Blue belt three stripes!

As you may have read on my blog, some friendly people are trying to help the kids in Moldova get some BJJ started there. I did a fundraiser seminar in New York the other day and raised some money for them, but they also need some gi’s and stuff.

Jason Vasquez emailed me and said he had two Keiko Raca gis he didn’t use anymore, that he wanted to donate to the kids. He just shipped them this weekend and I am sure they will be used well!

If you have not yet read about my experiences in Moldova, you can do it here :)

If you wanna read about the project – and maybe want to donate a gi – you can do so on Georgette Oden’s blog.

Coming almost directly from the busy streets of Manhattan, I suddenly found myself in an interesting change of scene yesterday, as I took the bus to Richmond, Virginia and met up with Robert and Amanda. Robert took me around Romania, Moldova and Transnistria, when I was in Eastern Europe, so when I had the opportunity to meet up with them here in the US, I didn’t want to miss that.

We drove a good hour out of town to a little campsite by the river, where I met the whole family. It was an authentic camping experience with tons of seafood (for dinner, breakfast and lunch), beers, hamburger barbecue, country music, bonfire, marshmallows, sleeping in tents, driving pocket rocket motorbike and playing dominoes.

I wish I could stay with them longer, but I have to keep moving on. Camping in Virginia was very a short but very cool experience to have in my trip. Thanks to the family for inviting me – probably don’t need food for the next few days with all the stuff they fed me there :D

I stayed with Elyse in Arlington. She was very kind to pick me up by the bus, take me to training and let me sleep on her couch. All she wanted in return was a photo of her in her Scramble hoodie, a project she had failed to complete for months since she got it. The conditions and preparation taken into consideration, I think it turned out pretty good.

The bus ride to Washington DC was a good five hours. There was supposed to be wifi in the bus, but it didn’t work, so I basically looked out the window for five hours, just waiting for the hangovers from hell bustrip to end.

Right off the bus, I went to Ryan Hall’s 50/50 gym. The bus was 45 minutes late, so I didn’t get to do much of the technique part of the class. It was looking very interesting though, Ryan had lots of details on taking the back from a scramble position, super interesting.

With only four hours of sleep, a hangover, five hours sitting in a bus and a body that probably has been pushed a little too much recently, sparring was horrible today. I felt the worst I have felt in a very long time. I rolled first round with Ryan and he would normally make me feel like a white belt, but today he made me feel like I had never even heard of BJJ in my life. It was pure survival on my side, struggling to breathe and stay in the game.

Showing up to class in a shape like today, I can only blame myself that it would be tough. I wanted to get on the mat regardless, and I was happy I did. It was a healthy reminder from my body, that I should not expect any love from it, if I treat it like shit.

Tomorrow, I am leaving for Richmond, Virginia to meet up with Robert and Amanda, who I visited in Romania. There is training at noon which I will try to make, but might be a little difficult when I am also trying to make it to Richmond in time.

Today, I left New York with the bus to Washington DC. Last night, I met up with Daniel, the scottish guy I went roadtripping with for a week in Taiwan. I originally planned to leave the city thursday, but since he came, I stayed for another day to meet up.

It was good to visit New York again. I have been there six or seven times before, so there wasn’t many new experiences for me, but just meeting up with old friends was cool. My girlfriend came to visit me too for the week, which was really nice.

I have decided, that New York should be the last spot, where I am lazy with my pace of travel. I have spent almost a week in each of the last five or so places I have been to, and I miss the high pace traveling I did the first month and a half of the trip. My plan for the upcoming weeks is pretty ambitious, but I think I can pull it off. Planning to buy lots of tickets soon, check back soon for update on my crazy itinerary ;)

Tonights fundraising seminar in Ronin Athletics got us a total of $285 for the kids in Moldova. They will really benefit from this money, bringing them someone to teach, new shelves for their equipment and a tournament in the summer :)

Thanks to everyone who chipped in!!

I originally decided to skip Marcelo’s gym because it was a little over my budget. However, several people offered to help me out with the mat fee, including the academy itself. They emailed me and said I was welcome to stop by, which was really awesome of them.

I have been studying Marcelo’s game for many, many years. I don’t often watch or follow BJJ competitions, but I always seem to study Marcelo’s match to try and figure out what he is doing.

The result of this was an interesting experience at the gym the other night. It was like grappling with clones of myself, they did exactly what I had been working on for years, just much better haha. All my signature moves were being pulled off on me, it was really weird. Sometimes I stopped in the middle of a roll, laughing because I knew exactly what happened but still couldn’t defend it :)

I also got to roll a round with Marcelo, which of course was quite an experience. Writing about it in the book, too much for here :)

Nice gym, cool people, very clean and world class instruction and sparring. Highly recommended!

Location:W 23rd St,,United States

If you have been following my blog, you might have read about my experience with the kids in the village of Burlacu, the official middle of nowhere in Moldova.

Read the blogpost about my experiences in Moldova here

They only have a few old gi’s and a non-heated sports hall with some old mats. They do have a passion for grappling though, and we are going to help them continue to do this sport. Some helpful people from Romania are going to go there to teach and set up a small tournament for them. They will also build a shelter for their equipment.

For that, we need a little bit of money, less than $150, but more will also help of course.

I am doing a fundraiser seminar in Ronin Athletics on thursday at 8:00 pm. It will be with the gi, but no-gi can participate too. Price is $5 or whatever you want to donate for the kids. All the money will go directly to the project in Moldova.

If you are in New York and want to support the kids, please show up on thursday. Everyone is welcome and all help is appreciated!!

Straight after training at Renzo’s, I went to see my old friends in Ronin Athletics. It was the first gym I visited in New York back in 2004 when I got here first time, and I have come back to train with the guys many times since. Last time was 2008 though, so it’s been a little while. It was great to see my friend Christian Montes again, he has done such a good job of building up the gym. When I came first, they were only four people there.

I rolled a bit with the guys, then taught a short class on sweeps before I had to go.

A while back, I got an email from Jeff Knight, who trains at Renzo’s place. It is a gym I’ve always wanted to visit, but it was a little over my budget for this trip. Fortunately, the guys there were super nice to invite me as a guest during my stay here in New York, so I went there for an afternoon class with John Danaher. The gym is beautiful and three floors, it is huge!

A friday afternoon class at 1pm would probably draw a handful of guys in my own gym at home. This one had so many, I couldn’t even count it, it was amazing. Tons of good guys and lots of black belts there. The only downside to being so many was, that it was difficult to find room to roll, and people were bumping into eachother all the time.

I happened to be there for a black belt promotion, which is something very special and rare in this sport.

I hope I can find time to go back there for more training, but with my super tight schedule it might be difficult :,(

P.S.: I am still working on, what facial expression says “call me” most. Didn’t quite get it with Renzo this time.

Location:E 23rd St,,United States

I was looking for a new gym to visit sunday, but my plans didn’t really work out, so I went to Clockwork again for an open mat session. A handful of guys were there, my host Kyle included, and we had some good rolls for an hour or so. Nice gym, I like it! :)

The Danish newspaper “Ekstra Bladet” has published an article about my trip today. It is in Danish, so most of you probably can’t understand it though :) Basically, the headline is that I pay for a trip around the world by getting beat up LOL

Check it out on http://ekstrabladet.dk/ferie/udland/article1551164.ece.

I needed a break from training yesterday. The jetlag and all the training had been hard on my body, so I thought I would take a rest day and do something else. We went to a baseball game instead. Have never seen baseball before so it was cool to do that for the first time.

Trying to plan where to go train the rest of my stay here, there are do many options, wish I could do them all! Definitely going to Renzo’s Monday afternoon and probably Matt Serra’s on Tuesday. Looks like I will go to clockwork again this afternoon and trying to find out when to train at Ronin too. Wanna go to Marcelo’s really bad, but the $40 mat fee is a little over my budget :-/

Location:E 23rd St,,United States