Things have been going good lately. I was recently admitted to graduate school for speech-language pathology in San Marcos! I was also admitted to a school in Portland, but decided to stay in Texas.
I've been under immense stress and pressure over the last year and a half taking prerequisite courses and applying to graduate schools. Admission to SLP graduate school is highly competitive and difficult, and I'm very happy that all my hard work paid off.
I've still been training hard and during this whole time BJJ was the one place I could go to forget all my stress and worries.
I did my first competition here in the States a couple of months ago. I placed first at the IBJJF Houston Open Master's I division. Nobody was in my division, so I moved up to featherweight.
I had two matches and won both by leglock!!
This was my first time competing at an IBJJF tournament, and also my first time competing in the Master's division. In Korea and France nobody really told me what was going on when we would go to tournaments. It would drive me crazy. Overall, I would say it was a good experience, and I felt like the tournament was run very well.
This was my first tournament at brown belt and was very important. At times confidence has been a major issue for me. It felt amazing to win and prove to myself that I belong at my level. In the process I also learned some things about my game that I need to work on.
Another cool thing was "Franjinha" came down to Texas to compete in the tournament and support the Paragon guys here in Texas. He's come to Austin before, and I've had the chance to sit down and talk to him. He's a really nice dude. Easy to talk to and down to Earth.
