I have about two months left of my trip and is trying to figure out where to go. I like it here in the US, but I have been here several timed before, and it is not much different from the world I already know.

It is important to me on this trip to push myself to visit places, that I don’t know anything about. Places, that are different from what I have seen before.

I haven’t travelled much south of the United States. In fact, I have only been to Jamanica, Cuba and Mexico, so this is an area I would really like to spend some time in.

Brazil is an obvious destination for my trip, but where else can I go?

If you train anywhere in Latin America, or know someone who does, please feel free to contact me on graugart@gmail.com asap. Size of gym, level or location does not matter, I am interested in training or teaching any place I can. All I need is a gym, couch or floor to sleep on :)

The burger from Hawaii was competing out of “Teddy’s” gym. It had great base, many years of experience and a solid game based on fundamentals. Nothing fancy, but it worked.

I ranked it a purple belt!

Arrived in New York last night. Staying with Kyle, a reader of my blog, who lives in Manhattan and trains in Clockwork BJJ. They had a class today at noon that I went to. Really impressed by the amount of people on the mats at that time on a weekday, there must have been 40 or so. Friendly people and lots of good guys to roll with, I had many good rounds despite being quite jetlagged today.

I am trying to plan my time here in NY. There are so many places to train, I will try and make it to as many as possible. Planning to stay here for about a week, after that I plan to really get up in gear and visit as many places as I can for the last two months of my trip. Or at least before the world goes under the 21st.

Check out the feature about my trip in latest issue of Jiu Jitsu Style magazine. Subscriptions are available both in print and for iPad!

I almost decided not to go to Hawaii, since the tickets where so expensive because of the Japanese holiday. I am really glad I decided to go anyways.

I bought the ticket two days before getting there, and I knew no one before I came. A week later, I am honored to consider many Hawaiians to be my good friends and I have so many good and valuable experiences with me in the backpack from there.

Yet another world far, far away from home, that proved to possess everything I could wish for. I hope I will be back there one day.

Today was my last day in Hawaii. Last night, I moved to Ryan’s place. I met him the first day at HMC and he offered me to stay in his apartment right by Waikiki beach.

When I woke up in the morning, I went surfing for an hour, before going to train a little bit with Steve and Victor. After that, I went back in the water for two hours, making sure I got as much as possible out of my last few hours here.

Today’s surfing went good and bad. I broke my own personal record for longest ride, that one today felt like forever. Paddling back out took ages :D I also got some other firsts, such as pissing off a local hawaiian (unintentional of course, probably broke some etiquette lol), cut my open toe on the reef (bad!), saw a huge sea turtle come up for air right next to me, and falling off the board landing balls first on the edge of it. A day of adventure!

In thirty minutes, I am off to the airport for a looong flight to New York.

Location:Kamoku St,Honolulu,United States

When I woke up this morning, I had a visit from an old friend: Overtraining. Every muscle in my body felt sore and was screaming to me for rest. I have been ignoring my body’s signals for a while, but today I made the decision to listen a little bit, so I skipped all physical activity for the day and just relaxed.

I had so far spent all my time in Waikiki, staying with Steve and had a great time. Staying in the same place is so easy when I have no plans, so I thought I had to push myself to do something different as well. I had met up with Andrew, a half danish guy, surfer black belt and BJJ white belt, who invited me to come over to Kokokahi for a day and check it out. I took the bus there in the evening and spent the night there, during a CRAZY thunderstorm. In the morning, we drove to the north shore, where he was working for a few hours, while I just checked out the area. Went swimming a little bit and walked around too. Very nice, quiet and relaxed compared to busy Honolulu. I also visited a small surfboard factory, very cool to see how they made them.

This evening, I moved again, this time to Ryan’s place. I met him first day in HMC, the place I trained with a ridiculous jet lag, and he invited me to come stay with him. So this is where I will spend my last night in Hawaii, before flying to New York tomorrow! I am flying in the evening though, so there should be time to rent a board and also to roll a little bit before heading to the airport ;)

I was really tired in my body when I woke up today. In Japan, I trained like crazy and told myself, that I would rest in Hawaii. That didn’t happen. I feel like I am right on the edge of overtraining, but I keep telling myself “juuust a little bit more” and today I ended surfing for almost two hours. My shoulders and upper back are DEAD from all the paddling. It really takes some time to condition those muscles for this workout, I need to do some more swimming when I get home I think.

It was not the best conditions today. A little much wind and inconsistent waves. I caught a few, but just sitting out there relaxing, talking and learning a completely new skill is exciting enough for me. I feel like a white belt again, eager to learn something new and improve in every single class :) Rylan had a super nice little HD fisheye camera with a suction cup to attach to the surfboard, and I got some fun shots out of it. Lots of video of me falling and getting beat up by huge waves :D

This evening, I moved to the other side of the island to stay with Andrew, who is half Danish. Don’t know what we’ll do tomorrow, but my best guess is that it will involve surfing and/or rolling.

Location:Kaneohe Bay Dr,Kaneohe,United States

I got a mail on facebook from Rylan Lizares, who runs a gym here in Honolulu called Gracie Technics. He asked me if I wanted to drop by for some training, and of course I cannot say no to that :)

He picked me up early and we went surfing for a few hours before going to the gym. I managed to do my first turtle dive under a big wave. I know it is like a white belt hitting his first sweep, but I was still pretty proud :D not many good waves, but I caught a few. Still learning a lot every time I am out there.

Training was an open mat session with a handful of guys. Rylan has a very, very good game, I was really impressed. Wish I could train more in all these good gyms, but I have to move on, it is the nature of my trip :-/

I have been pushing my body pretty hard lately and I can feel it. I am really sore everywhere, especially shoulders and upper back from all that paddling on the surfboards. Not complaining though! :):)

Location:Waialae Ave,Honolulu,United States

Victor was kind to pick me up this morning and take me to an open mat session at the Relson Gracie gym. A small group of guys were there and it was a nice little training. I went some good rounds with some very good guys. They did cardio workout with gasmasks on, that was pretty crazy :D don’t know if I will take that idea home haha

After, I went with Steve and his girlfriend to the Kahalu to watch UFC and have a BBQ with some of Steve’s friends. It was cool to watch it live there and the food was great too :)

Tomorrow, more surfing and BJJ is scheduled!!

I thought it would be a good idea to rest my body a little bit today, so I skipped BJJ training. Instead, I walked up Koko Head with Victor, a friend of Jonathan from Kauai Kimonos. He told me it was about 1000 steps, but not that half of them was at a 45 degree angle :D It was a seriously hard climb to the top, but cool view when we got there.

Later, I went surfing with Steve and his girlfriend at Waikiki beach. Beautiful spot. A little bit crowded, but clean water and nice, long waves. With a little coaching from surfing black belt Steve, I learned a lot. In my first attempt, I caught a wave for a looooong ride, definitely personal record. It was awesome! Standing up correctly and balancing on the board comes pretty natural to me now, can’t wait to get in the water again tomorrow.

Today I was hanging out on the beach most of the day, just relaxing and getting things planned out for this visit. I also got a ticket for New York on Wednesday, so will stay here for a week total.

Went to train with Steve today, the guy I am staying with. They got a small group training on a few mats in an open air pavilion. Super nice little place, lots of fresh air and I actually got a tan from rolling there :D Good group, they were quite skilled despite only being four people basically.

Tomorrow, I will hike 1000 steps to top of Koko head, then surf for a few hours before training somewhere in one of the many of gyms here.

Arrived in Hawaii yesterday morning. Lea, a reader of my blog, was kind to pick me up and take me around town a bit. I only slept two hours in the flight and was badly jet lagged, so I was struggling to stay awake. Sitting at the beach, I was zoning out and almost fell asleep. In a moment of weakness and madness, I decided to go train in the afternoon at one of the local gyms, HMC. I was basically a zombie, but somehow managed to complete an entire class and rolled about five rounds. it was actually nice to move around a bit and forget about being sleepy. Rolling with the instructor, Leandro Nyza, I was – like everyone training BJJ repeatedly will – reminded, that no matter how much you train, there is always someone out there, who will completely kill you in sparring and make you look like a useless beginner. Gotta love it.

One of Lea’s friends, Steven, had offered that I could stay in his house. I fell asleep at 9:30 and slept for 12.5 hours. Today I feel better, getting pretty experienced at handling jet lag :) Right now I am sitting at Waikiki beach just relaxing. There is some training going on at 4:30 I think I’ll attend.

There seems to be many gyms on Oahu, so I might have my hands full here. I had considered going to maybe on or two other islands too, but maybe this is enough for one week. I’ll look at some tickets today and see what I can find out. Other than that, plan is to rent a board and spend most of the day surfing. The waves here look really good for a beginner like me :)

Everyone here are really friendly and helpful, can’t wait to see what this week will bring of exciting experiences!

…when I can play Street Fighter II all the way, oh yeah E. Honda you are going down!!

I was wearing my “Pray for Japan” t-shirt yesterday, when walking around the city. On the back, it says “Never give up” in Japanese. I don’t know how many times, people on the street and in the train have stopped to thank me or take my picture. They don’t speak much english here, so when someone – almost with a tear in their eye – is trying their best to pronouce the words “thank you for coming” to a stranger on the street, it just reassures me, that making the decision to come to Japan, was the only right thing to do.

I too, was worried about coming here. But when I decided to do it and saw things with my own eyes, it was obvious, that there is nothing to fear. The only thing not normal in Tokyo, is that there are virtually no tourists and the city is darker than normal due to power saving. No one is afraid of radiation and the daily earthquakes are so subtle, that I didn’t feel a single one of them in a full week. I had actually been looking forward to be in an earthquake (natural disasters are one of my hobbies), but I always missed them. Yesterday in the gym, I was literally sitting completely still on the mat, talking to one of the girls in class, when she said “Did you feel that earthquake just now?”. I didn’t feel a thing! Then after, I get emails from friends at home watching the news asking if I am alright, because they heard there was another earthquake in Tokyo. I don’t believe in earthquakes anymore.

Japan has really swept my feet away, Judo-style. I am so extremely glad I came. Please, if you consider coming, do it. I promise you will not regret it.

Yesterday, I felt exhausted, dehydrated, overtrained, underslept and hung over. I almost fell asleep at 18:00 but said to myself that it was my last day and I had to go do some training.

There was a class at Paraestra I really wanted to join and I also had an invitation to Axis, but both were pretty far away and I had no energy to go anywhere really. Sakuraba’s gym (with the strange name of “Laughter 7”) were only a three minute walk from where I was staying, so I decided to go there to check it out. It was a nice, small gym. Looked very clean. About 5 people were doing a grappling class and I asked if I could join in. Unfortunately, Sakuraba himself wasn’t there and the mat fee was way above my budget for a single training, so I decided to walk back to AACC to see if anyone was rolling there after the striking class. Being as exhausted as I was, I am amazed that I managed to do half an hour of high intensity sparring with some of the pro fighters.

My body felt burned out, my knee injury hurt really bad, my face was bruised, but still, I felt better than ever. Training in Japan has been amazing, I hope to make it back one day and do more of it.

I have a ticket for Hawaii tomorrow, arriving Thursday morning in Honolulu. I have no idea where to sleep, train or go, but I have gotten pretty confident along my trip, in the fact that things will magically work out by themselves and I should just lean back and enjoy the ride, so that’s what I intend to do :)

Location:１丁目,Ota,Japan

What an amazing day of training I had today. First, I went with Aaron, an american reader of my blog who emailed me, to the afternoon class at Paraestra. The team has many gyms around town and the afternoon class is where the instructors from those usually meet for sparring. It was a small class, but almost everyone were black or brown belt. I had some amazing rounds of sparring, those guys are really, really good.

After a few hours, I had to leave to go to AACC for no-gi class with Abe-San, who I am staying with. He is a true master of wrestling, catch wrestling, MMA and BJJ, with a quite different style than what I am used to. It is very interesting to train with him and I suck in all the information I can get out of it. He caught me with a ridiculous number of leg locks and strange holds as we rolled. I was also watching the girls train, they have a very impressive team in AACC. Fans might recognize a few familiar faces in between in the photo.

I must say, that I am starting to feel really confident in my game. Rolling with all these different people around the world has improved my defense. I am being attacked with so many different styles that I am not used to and I can feel it is really improving my game.

Tuesday is my last full day in Tokyo before I leave for Hawaii. I need to do some sightseeing and also figure out where to train. I live really close to Sakuraba’s gym so might go there?