{"id":4569,"date":"2019-03-02T17:50:48","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T23:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=4569"},"modified":"2019-03-02T17:50:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T23:50:48","slug":"ronin-diaries-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/?p=4569","title":{"rendered":"Ronin Diaries 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently visited 3 clubs.<\/p>\n

In downtown LA I went to a small place run by a husband and wife. The husband is black belt Carlos Gomez who has put together a small but pleasant dojo on the 5th floor of a warehouse building.<\/p>\n

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I stayed for two consecutive classes and got to meet a bunch of his students: mostly white belts, a couple blue belts and his wife who is a purple belt. I rolled with Carlos for about 12 minutes and threw nearly every trick and passing sequence I could at him. He had lovely answers to all of my attacks and defenses. It was a fun roll. The white belts I rolled with were tough and good sports. Some of them were easier to submit than others. One was giving me a fair amount of problems.<\/p>\n

After class I talked to Carlos about my mission to explore LA’s jiu jitsu scene, the complications at my old gym, and how I was looking for a place to study leg locks in detail. He explained to me the difficulty of passing on leg lock knowledge to a gym of beginners. I could understand his position, but slightly disagreed in my mind. I definitely have seen the safety of passing on leg lock knowledge to white belts. It just needs to be done with the proper precautions. Regardless, Carlos caught me in a heel-hook set up that I never saw before.<\/p>\n

I’m also trying to lose about 20lbs of animator fat I’ve accumulated over the past 6 months. Ugh. I’ve been intermittent fasting for 3 weeks. It’s not so bad actually, but the lbs are coming off pretty slow. I fucking love cookies and donuts.<\/p>\n

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I drove about 40 minutes down to somewhere in the OC to where former Villains bros host a bi-weekly open mat. I wanted to make sure I was keeping a connection with some of the guys who might otherwise drop off my radar.<\/p>\n

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The guy who runs it is David Yi who I used to refer to as my “kryptonite” because he would fuck me up so hard.<\/p>\n

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The purple belt next to David was a dude from AOJ which is one of the most famous schools in the country. He was pretty monstrous. His intensity was kind of through the roof. I struggle sometimes with knowing when to match that energy vs trying to stay calm. When do I try shifting into a higher gear and when do I hold fast to a serene and technical game? It’s hard to know. I know a guy named Cole Franson who I watched compete for 25 minutes straight like a cold blooded robot. On the exterior he seemed like he could go forever and couldn’t give a shit, while the other guy was getting worked up and frazzled. It was really impressive. I guess I admire the ability to go into a detached serial killer like mindset while competing. Does that sound weird?<\/p>\n

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So I visited 5 Star Martial Arts in Koreatown. The head instructor there is Sean Williams who came up with John Danaher. For those who don’t know, John Danaher is a famous coach in NYC who comes across like a\u00a0 New Zealand Bond villain with terrible ideas about fashion.<\/p>\n

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Anyway I was so impressed by the instruction and the students at 5 Star that I signed up on a month to month basis. The place is packed with purple, brown and black belts. It’s been excellent. I’ve been going 3-4 times a week. Here’s an unexciting picture.<\/p>\n

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I’ve also been keeping in touch with my previous coach Jason, just to see how he’s doing. It seems like he’s kinda chilling and resetting his mind. But I’m meeting up with him tomorrow I think just to hang and talk about what we plan on doing for the next year or so.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently visited 3 clubs. In downtown LA I went to a small place run by a husband and wife. The husband is black belt Carlos Gomez who has put together a small but pleasant dojo on the 5th floor of a warehouse building. I stayed for two consecutive classes and got to meet a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4569"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4586,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4569\/revisions\/4586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jessemoynihan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}