I am officially a Blue Belt!

I had been trying to prepare for the test for the past week and I'd gone over the techniques with Casey and Coe, trying to make sure I had everything looking nice and had a bunch of alternatives if Jacare complained. I left Athens at 9:15 and arrived in Atlanta at 10:45. Kinda sat around while one of the black belts, DJ, taught the beginner class. The front manager told me Jacare would be there shortly so I waited until he arrived at about noon. Coe arrived right before that and he tried to keep me relaxed. I ended up staying around for the whole class and paying the mat fee, but it's whatever. Warmed up, learned some new stuff that unfortunately I don't remember too well (too much else on my mind), then paired up with a blue-belted gentleman named Chris. He was just slightly bigger than me, maybe by 10lbs or so. He had *really* great top pressure and kept driving his shoulder into my neck and chest. I tried to keep him back using Z-guard but he passed me on a few occasions and I spent most of the round trying to get out of bad situations. He subbed me a couple times but my sub defense was pretty decent. I had a decent escape, too, off an attempted armbar. The second fellow's name was Austin. He was also a blue belt, but damn near the exact same size as me. I felt more confident but he ended up murking me. Passed my guard with ease, had super nice transitions and tons of subs. Consequently he had only been training for 1.5 years, but I guess that means a lot more considering he trains at Alliance HQ. Funny thing I realized when I left: the two people I rolled with had the same first and middle name as me (Kristopher Austin)...

Jacare pulled me off to the side around 2:00 and I snagged Coe to be my test partner, which was a lucky break. Another lucky break: Jacare only asked me a handful of techniques and not the whole test. I had to demonstrate the following:

- 1 double-leg takedown
- 1 hip throw
- 1 way to defend standing guillotine
- 1 knee-on-belly submission
- 1 side control submission
- 1 sweep from closed guard
- 1 sweep from open guard w/ a standing opponent
- 2 submissions from back mount
- 1 escape from back mount
- 1 side control escape
- 1 mount submission
- 1 way to defend the headlock on the ground

That's it. I was kind of shocked he didn't ask about passes and the variety of other things that are required, but I'm definitely not complaining. He caught me surprised with the open guard sweep, since I didn't think that was explicitly a requirement, but I proudly pulled a hook sweep out of my ass. Well, I think it was a modified hook sweep. But whatever, because it worked nicely.

After that, I posed for a picture with Jacare and ran the gauntlet to get whipped like a slave. A couple choice idiots were sure to whip the fuck out of me but overall it wasn't too bad. Got acquainted with several of the people there and told Jacare that I would be back at some point but it was "muito caro", which he replied to with "don't be a cheap bastard". LOL. I definitely need to get some training in up there, so I guess that means picking up extra shifts at work to cover the cost. Hoping to go at least once a month, though more than that would be nice.

I am glad everything is said and done. I am drained like a motherfucker. Worse than my finals drained me. Looking forward to a great night sleep and getting back into the groove after New Years. Happy Holidays.