I checked back into my threads in Sherdog.com and on reddit.com/r/bjj this evening and was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of new replies!

Today's additions to the planning are the following:

Belgium	Leuven	Brasa Leuven
Sweden	Malmo	Fightzone
Netherlands	Maastrict	GB Maastrict
Wales		Pedro Bessa BJJ
Ireland	Dublin	Straight Blast Gym

I've had some interesting replies to the threads on the two websites. Some of which have ranged from "Why Latvia? Why Wales" to "You know that Wales is a part of the UK?" Yes, I get that Wale is a part of the UK, but it's not a part of England. Much like Scotland. If you were to tell my grandmother that she was from England, she would have most likely struck you and told you some interesting obscenities. I'm just going to train and hang out with like minded cool people!

I've been out of training for about two weeks now. I feel it with every passing day. To people that don't train BJJ, I use my dog (a German Shepherd Dog) for an analogy for training. "Anyone who owns a German Shepherd knows that you need to train the dog, and you need to exercise the dog. I love my dog dearly, but she can get on my nerves if I don't give her some training time daily and some time at the dog park on a regular basis. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is my training and my dog park. I get restless, anxious, angry, all the bad stuff that comes with being a human without any direction or purpose."

If you're wondering why I've been out of training it's due to ringworm. We have a repeat offender in my gym, which I'm not sure who it is, but I've been infected with it twice this year so far. Our gym washes the mats with bleach daily. The majority of folks wash their gis and themselves regularly (it's hard to not notice when they are smashing you from side control). But it only takes one or two bad apples to mess everything up. The ring worm is almost gone, and I'm looking to be back training on Monday.

There is a competition coming up on December 14th that I was hoping to compete in, and still most likely will. However, I don't feel ready. I'm still a "fresh" blue belt and I've not had much training time over the past couple of weeks. That bothers me. I like to win, who doesn't? My cardio is going to be off, as will my timing. But you know what? I'm still going to do it and whatever happens, happens.