Full Circle

This morning I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 124lbs.  This gives me five pounds for my gi, belt, and rashguard, meaning I'm good to go for featherweight! I'm excited because I think this is the weight class I really belong in.  I can't say I've altered my diet too much other than cutting out snacks/junk food and replacing some of my carbs with vegetables. I feel much better and think I've even gained some strength. I'd never starve myself to go down a weight class or deprive myself of food, because in the long run it'll wreck my metabolism.  I've been experimenting with different recipes and I'm happy I'm not one of those people who has to miserably eat a salad for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Since I've been very busy studying for the GRE and applying to graduate school, I've held back on competing.  I also recently picked up a part-time internship, but since it's unpaid, I'm also on the hunt for something paid (tuition money anyone?).  That being said, I'm back at Jason Scully's school in NJ because I am no longer in the city every day and can't afford to pay to train there and don't have the time to go into the city on days I don't work solely to train.

Jason's school has a mixed-levels class that goes for about an hour and a half.  When I trained at Shaolin's, I took the 5:30pm and 7:30pm classes, giving me about 2.25 hours of training per day. Even though I'm only getting 1.5-2 hours of training per day in now, I feel like I'm improving. Improving a lot, in fact. I'm not running out of the door after class with wet hair so I can catch the 9:30 bus back home and wake up at 6am. Instead, I'm leaving the school and driving 20 minutes home, and the latest I'm home now is 9:30pm and I only have to wake up at 7:15am every other day.

This brings me to the title of this post. A year ago around this time, I was getting ready for my new job in NYC and signing up at Shaolin's.  Now I'm just getting started with my internship and once again joining a new(ish) gym. As busy as I was last year, I'm even more busy this year because there is more on the line (grad. school). I'll be working like crazy until the winter, and then hopefully I'll get to train even more in the spring!

Although it would be nice to stay at one jiu jitsu school for more than a year...