Every day is my weekend!

I gave my notice to the US Government a few weeks ago and as of last Monday I am now officially a full-time Jiu-JItsu bum! Well, except for the fact that I am also coaching JV Field Hockey for a local high school. We practice for 2 hours every day Mon-Fri, except when we have games. Unfortunately, this means I'm still not training on the full-time BJJ bum schedule but at least I was able to train hard when I did go to practice last week instead of being too tired after working all day then coaching field hockey.

I was also busy last week with some final preparations for my sister's wedding this past weekend. We had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on Friday night and the wedding on Saturday. My sister and her fiance didn't have a lot of money to spare so the wedding was in my parents' backyard and all my aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins chipped in to help in various ways. The yard came out nice and the ceremony was beautiful. Plus it was fun to see everyone again. I miss seeing all my niece's and nephews especially.

Here are a few pics!

The Bridal Party



This is my crazy family, lol!!



The back/top view of my hair



Me in the procession

Fifty/50 women's program adds 3rd day of training

Our 18th student took her first class today. Woohoo!!

Ryan and I are excited to announce that we will add a THIRD class per week for our women's program starting in October!!

When we started the program in January 2009, we usually had one or two students showing up to one class per week. In the end of October last year we added our second day and averaged about 4 students per class. And now going into 3 classes per week we are averaging about 8 women a class and the most we've had in one class at a time is 11! I am so happy with the growth in the program to date but I can't wait until the day that we have a single class with 20 women - all Fifty/50 students. That will be the day when I know our efforts have come to fruition.

Ladies, sign up soon because starting in October we are reducing the discount that women currently have when they join Fifty/50 since we are no longer a small minority. (Would you believe that once in a while Fifty/50 even has regular basics classes with more women than men in them?)

LUV IT! =)

Up to 17 Female Students!!!

Quickly approaching 20% of our currently active and paying students are female!!

So I'm curious, is there another academy anywhere with 17 (18 counting me) women training BJJ in any single academy location???

I know there are big teams with women training primarily at different locations, schools that open their women's training sessions to ladies from other academies, etc. But are we the biggest women's BJJ team on the East Coast? In the USA? The World?? Or just in the state of Virginia? :) Please chime in if you KNOW your academy has more than 18 women currently training full-time in one spot!

I am so amazed at how quickly this sport is growing for the females. Hopefully, one day we too will compete in divisions upwards of 50 people at the Worlds! Keep up the hard work, ladies! And continue spreading the word to your female friends about how awesome jiu-jitsu is!!!