best bjj gi

Victory without winning Emotions without words Physical intimacy without sex Feminine energy beyond  availability or absence . Attraction beyond beauty Achievement without grade and progress without promise  Male tenderness... Pain without animosity Understanding without speech  Education without books Connection without class Growth beyond a plan exhaustion without futility

Training BJJ has brought me into contact with a community that I was pretty sheltered from for a very long time--the fitness community. I won't lie...it hasn't really been a positive exposure. Of course, there's an emphasis on physical health, and that's important, but in all honesty, what I've seen is a culture that focuses on a very narrow aesthetic and encourages a level of personal self interest that reminds me too much of executive/acquisition culture. I'll admit that I could have been biased as an outsider, or just misunderstood what was being paraded in front of my face, however, considering the frequency with which I see the terms "hater" and accusations of jealousy or unattractiveness tossed about...I'm thinking I wasn't 100% wrong to question the motives of some of the voices I'd heard. I was reminded of this during the recent hullabaloo over the two new mom photos that have been flying 'round the 'net over the past few w...

The world can be saddening when you look at it. I don't mean death or famine or disease...those things bring about sadness, but their origins are, for the most part, natural. I got a real, but still somewhat detached reminder of this from my best friend who saw a man yesterday, shot and scared, in his last moments of life. "Gosh. We really live on a clock. And sadly humans are the ones often stopping that clock for other humans" she tweeted. Everything from war to racism to transphobia to verbal abuse, I genuinely believe, root themselves in stripping individuals, people, groups and cultures of their inherent, and easily apparent humanity. We all have a lot of words and ways to relate it, but the aggressors, at the end of the day lack empathy. Empathy...true empathy...not just feeling bad when you see a starving child or sharing a post about the wrongs of racism, is a layered thing. It means you not only see the feelings of others...you not only experience the feelings of...

A stoic and broad shouldered 6'5" (197 cm), you wouldn't expect that my father is more emotionally expressive than your average Southern American Black man. Sensitive though he may be, his feelings are largely filtered through the lens of sports. He, like most of his brothers and some nephews, was an athlete. At most my family boasts a CBA player but athletics are a big deal on that side...so many of the lessons he taught me, were related through the language of sports (even if I wasn't the one playing...because I SO didn't take well to athletics). My father is also an aging athlete. He's struggled with this since his 40s. Where he was once nimble and powerful, he now finds his body slow and less responsive. He still looks back fondly on his days on the basketball courts in high school and college. While he had never said it, I began to see how he missed the strength and agility of his old, young body. He expressed that to me outright once I started training B...

If BJJ had a flag, it would be flying at half mast right now. The Schultz/Maldonado trial is wrapping up . The fact that it happened is bad enough. The results that are coming down are sickening, but what I find most disheartening...and heartening honestly, is the reactions. BJJ has a tendency to lean toward the positive, which is awesome and amazing, but in all the camaraderie and focus on the happy things in life, some realities can be easy to forget. I was reminded today, watching a man, on Facebook, defend his actions...not lie...not say everyone was mistaken, but declare that those actions, which were at best, complete disregard (and possible active contempt) for a teammate...were innocent because they weren't found to be wrong in court. There are few things that give me chills like people who consider the law to be the ultimate moral authority. As sickening as that was to watch, right now, I'm bracing myself for watching the regular guys...very much the minority, but stil...

Since I was young, I've had beef with the concept of "business". I always envisioned people in shiny suits, exploiting the customer, worker, and society at large at every chance they got. (To be honest, my real-life experiences haven't completely disproved that perspective.) Somehow though, being the practical INTJ that I am, I managed to convince myself that an MBA might be a good idea. I enrolled myself in some intro classes that a local university was offering to students who hadn't yet taken the GMAT. All graduate level students in the college of business had to take them and I found myself sitting with accountants, CFOs, former stock brokers, entrepreneurs and kids fresh out of undergrad. On Fridays, I drove to the other end of the county to listen to talks from executives in various industries talk frankly about their lives and experiences in the business world. I fell in love with the whole thing and looked forward to the classes, even after long drives and...

I don't know about most people, but in the bulk of my adult life, I don't get exposure to true specialists...people who've devoted decades of their lives to learning their corner of the world. I think that comes from being disconnected from the arts since that's where you most frequently see the results of that kind of intense study. (The perils of a practical education) I was reminded of this today though, while listening to Stephan Kesting interviewing Roy Dean. Dean has been training in martial arts since he was 16 years old (Kesting has a pretty deep background himself as evidenced by his line of questioning) and I found myself stopping what I was doing, just to absorb exactly how fluidly he spoke of the history of Aikido and Iaido. The ease with which he answered Kesting's questions on relationships between wrestling, Judo, BJJ and other arts only come with an understanding, not only of the art, but of the history of how that art flows through the humans that p...