Training on Vacation

Last week Ryan and I went to Corolla, NC in the Outer Banks for our first week long vacation together since we started dating (almost 4 years ago). Oh sure we've taken week long trips before for the Worlds and Pan Ams and everything but this was the first trip that wasn't focused around a major competition. We could relax and eat anything in sight! (Well, I can always eat anything in sight and be under weight, but I can't relax too much when Ryan is dieting because he gets irritable, haha!)

Ryan's dad's family piled about 15 people into the house we stayed in. And conveniently enough, my dad's family was in a house 7 miles down the road the same week but they had 35 people staying in their house! The houses are ginormous...but not THAT ginormous.

Ryan and I swam in the ocean, challenged other beach goers to volleyball games, went back and forth between the hot tub and the pool and watched lots and lots of movies. Of course we also found time to drive 30 minutes down to Nags Head to train at the only BJJ gym around. We made the trip down 3 times during the week. Two times though we missed class but they were nice enough to let us on the mats and train with each other for an hour and a half. I can't remember the last time I trained with Ryan that much because there are always so many other people vying for his help, it was fun!

The last night we were there we finally walked into an actual class and there was another black belt there from Boston. The instructor at Knuckle Up was out of town so Ryan taught a few techniques and then we all rolled for a while. All the guys were really big but were very nice and trained hard without killing me which is always nice, lol!



We ended up driving from the Outer Banks 4 hours over to Henderson, NC for the US Grappling tournament being held there. I was bummed that no advanced women showed up to fight but Seph had a superfight against a local brown belt that he won and Ryan ended up getting a match against a black belt who was there to referee. Two of our guys came down with Seph and between the two of them they won like 7 divisions. With only two people contributing to team points, we placed third overall, lol!