2021 was a pretty good year. My goals this year were to compete in two major IBJJF tournaments and three local tournaments, get my purple belt, transition to making a living doing Jiu Jitsu and finish every match on my opponents back. I was able to accomplish a few of these; I competed in 5 tournaments, two of them being major ones (worlds and nationals), I transitioned to being a full time Jiu Jitsu coach, I finished a few matches on my opponents back but not all of them unfortunately. 

Worlds was my last tournament of 2021. My expectations for myself were very high. I lost my first match and was really disapointed with myself. My two biggest mistakes in that match were pulling guard after getting frustrated with not being able to quickly get a takedown and going for a choke instead of sprawling on my opponents single leg. I’ve also learned that I can do way better preparing for tournaments. I think my biggest lesson from competing this year is how far behind my guard is and that I badly need to improve it. Naturally, I’ll be working hard on that in 2022. Right now I’m working on categorizing my goals for next year and getting a little more detailed on how I will accomplish my goals for 2022.

Teaching BJJ this year was awsome and I have learned a lot. The most important thing I learned is the importance of an organized curriculum. Having that organized curriculum gives a clear path from belt to belt and stripe to stripe. This year also taught me the value of getting stripes for the kids, I always knew it was important but I didn’t really understand what it meant and why it was important until now. Teaching has forced me to think more about techniques that I already know so that I also know how to explain and teach them which has made my Jiu Jitsu better. Something as simple as the scissor sweep that I would never think about since I can just do it becomes something I have to study and learn why it works and what can make it fail so that I can explain those details to seven year olds. I love teaching the kids class and am grateful I get to do it. I can’t wait to see how much better everybody gets in 2022.

Coach Danny