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A weekend of fresh Starts!

6/29/2014

What an exciting weekend at The AZ State Championship!
Just a Girl had 3 competitors, Hailee, Darby & Nina. The girls captured 1 Gold, 1 Silver & 1 Bronze. In addition to bringing home some bling, Hailee received her Grey/Black Belt on the podium! So proud of these girls! They always put their all into competition and are always such great sports!
My Son and my Fiance also competed this weekend, Tyson took Silver, losing in the finals to one of the toughest Purple Belts in AZ. Andrew, competing for the 1st time as a Black Belt, lost to a choke in the final seconds after being up on points the entire match. It was a tough & exciting match keeping crowd on their toes though out the whole 10 minutes! I'm really proud of them both, they always compete very well & are fun to watch.

Our booth did incredibly well this weekend, keeping us very busy. Thanks everyone for always being such a big support of Eminence Kimono and JAG!
The final highlight of the weekend was my Friend/Student/Training Partner Kaitlyn receiving her Blue Belt after taking Gold today. Kaitlyn has been training BJJ for almost 2 years now, she is very consistent & always does great in competition, this was well deserved! Great job Kaitlyn!!

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If you rest...You Rust!

6/9/2014

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Up until about a year ago I didn't really want to share my age publicly.
Maybe because I don't feel that old
or maybe because I didn't want to "look good for my age"
or I guess it could be because my fiancé is a little younger than I ;)
Tomorrow I will be 44 and I am ok with it!

I have started to feel really good about the things I have been able to accomplish these
past few years and not just for someone "my age".
I'm happy to be able to
make it through 5-7 BJJ classes a week, sometimes 2 in 1 day.

I'm proud of myself to have earned my
Purple Belt at 43 years old,
along side of
my 20 year old son.

I'm proud to have competed in several tournaments as an
adult (not Senior 2) including IBJJF Worlds this year,
I didn't win but, I also didn't
"break a hip".

I'm happy to say that I'm the Mom of 3 great kids
(one that is 26 years old and still likes having
me as her best friend)
and I'm a Grandma to the most awesome Grandson,
who will be 6 in 2 weeks.

And....I'm pretty lucky that this amazing
(and VERY good looking)
30 year old man
can't wait to
marry me this August!

People tell me all the time "age is just a number"
I agree for the most part.
But, I have to say
that after 3-4 nights in a row of training I feel
like I got hit by a truck and injuries seem to take
a lot longer to heal (and tend to happen more frequently)
and I do have a few more wrinkles then when I was 34 and
a few more grey hairs (but I don't
let anyone see that problem).
I do have some bonuses available to me in
the near future: senior living is a little
cheaper, discounts on food, movies etc.
and I'm hoping the excuse "I'm
old" will be excepted by my teammates at some point!
I have no intention of slowing down
even though sometimes my body tries to force me to,
I will fight it if I have to!
I have had plenty of though matches
and I'm up for the challenge!

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I used to think I was Wild and Crazy....

6/2/2014

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I used to think I was Wild and Crazy....then I competed in the Female Purple Belt Light/Feather division at the 2014 Worlds!
WOW!! What a week!
Going to Worlds is always eventful along with being stressful, exhausting but, always fun! This time was no different except for a few slightly different events!
We started off our trip with the 5 1/2 hour drive to CA, which was a ton of fun since I was water loading, this meant several stops along the way for "potty" breaks. After a long, painful trip we stopped off at our Lotus Club affiliate school, Team Oyama in Irvine to train a little, hang out with our extended BJJ family and check our weight.....our 1st eventful moment!! I was happy to see that I was only a little over weight and still had 2 days to go. Tyson, however....was 11lbs over! All of the sudden my anxiety focus was not on ME anymore! Our next 48 hours consisted of eating fruit and a few almonds and sweating our butts off! Tyson did make weight, barely and I was 3lbs under. What a relief!
My next awesome moment was when I ran into Lana Hunter (the girl I had pegged to win my weight class) and she said "Oh, you have the girl that beat me and won Worlds last year for your 1st match" this was an awesome piece of info to get the day before competing ;)
Unfortunately, Tyson and I didn't bring home the bling this year but, we both had a great experience and learned! I have no regrets and saw some of the most talented Purple Belt females I have ever seen! The competition was incredible and the one thing I really noticed ALL weekend long...BJJ girls are CRAZY, FIERCE and BAD A**! It was an honor to compete amongst them and I have come to the conclusion that I need a little work on my aggressive, crazy competitiveness!
Aside from competing, Andrew and I worked all 4 days as score keepers. We had a front row seat for the action, keeping score for The Miyao Brothers, Bruno Malfacine, Leandro Lo, Romulo Barral (one of my new favorites!) and more!! I also was the "Athlete Collector" on the Black Belt final day! I had the sweet job of making sure the Black Belts got to the podium after competing, this was not an easy job by the way, they did not want to go to the podium, they wanted to celebrate, take photos and jump into the crowd and most of them spoke only Portuguese, so this took a lot of "hands on" maneuvering and guiding, so I'm hoping some of their magic rubbed off on me, I did carry Michelle Nicolini's shoes and Buchecha's phone and headphones and got very close to jumping in on a group hug with Rodolfo and his coach!

I want to wish a big congratulations to Logan Jewell, my teammate, on
taking Bronze in the Purple Belt Heavy Weight division! This is a HUGE
accomplishment! Logan smashed through his 1st three opponents,
his 1st match ending with a score of 30-0 but, ending up losing in the semi
finals to another great competitor. My other teammate, Joe Gomez had a great
fight too!
I'm really proud of my teammates/friends
just for getting out there with the BEST in the World!

Thank you so much to my sponsors who made it possible for me to go to Worlds, have music to listen too, smell pretty, have awesome memories and be able to recover afterwards!
Oss Arizona
Kristensphotos
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for 15% off use code LESLIE15
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