Day 1

Hey folks well I’m back from my vacation from San Jose and boy did I have a great time. Such a fun and great experience that I had down there or since it’s up north, I should be saying “UP” there. Anyway you can probably guess what this blog is going to be about right. Overall the reason why I took this trip was because I was getting a little stressed out with LA life, plus it was an early birthday gift to myself. I choose San Jose because it was a nice little town & it was affordable. So here is what happened on my San Jose experience.

Upon arriving in San Jose I check into my hotel. Now most of the hotels I’ve been to were crummy run-down pieces of shit. But man this Hotel was the BUSINESS!!!!! ; Flat screen TV, king size bed, decked out bathroom, & a clear view of the city. For once in my life I feel important –haha-. As much as I wanted to stay in my hotel, I had to leave the room because of course, I was on vacation. So I decided to tour the city.

To make a long story short touring the city was pretty cool. Everything seemed to be in close proximity of one another from the food spots, to the museums, to even the famous San Jose State University.So it was a lot of stuff to see. But in the end I ended up getting lost somewhere in the city while it was pouring down raining –lol- Luckily for me downtown San Jose is a small town so I was able to get back to my hotel safe & sound with my pizza still hot. After a brief rest, I took a small trip to San Jose University where I went to go check out The San Jose State University Judo Team. It was very interesting to see these Judo Champs in practice. Too bad I couldn’t stay longer to see them practice more.

After a long day of exploring, getting lost in the rain, eating some delicious food it was finally time to get my train on. While I was there I visited Heroes Martial Arts Academy ran by Ralph Gracie black belt & co-founder of the famous OTM brand Alan “Gumby” Marques”. A lot of peeps have told me good things about this academy & his style of teaching fitted right into my game which is the main reason I choose to visit the academy plus it was right across the street from my hotel.Anyway upon arriving there Gumby and the crew made me feel right at home which is very rare at most gyms you go to nowadays.

The 1st class that was taught was the Judo class which was taught by San Jose University Judo team Black Belt Shozo Fukada (who was a laid back and funny dude). It was very cool & a good experience to get a different perception of how to apply judo throws ( being that I’ve only studied Judo under 1 instructor for 4 years).After throwing people & getting thrown by people it was no rest it was on to the BJJ class which was ran by Gumby himself.

To give a brief description of his class is like it starts of with a light warm-up exercise, then he has use do positional guard training (which is I believe is Ralph Gracie training type trademark), then going over technique, & of course sparring. The rolls I had at the academy were a lot of fun.I got a chance to roll with a lot of Gumby’s blue belts students (all different weight classes) who are all very good & to top it all off my last roll was with the quiet but nice Ralph Gracie black belt Justin “The Machine” Holder who has the sickest spider/ dela riva guard I’ve ever seen for a guy his size.

After nearly 3 hours of straight training I rapped up the night with a nice salmon fish plate while watching a movie on ShowTime. This ended my 1st day in San Jose.