M M P B J J: Gracie Humaita HQ, Seaworld and sightseeing stuff!

Finally got around to write another blog post. We've spent 10 days in San Diego now and most of the time has basically passed with training, eating, resting, training and sleeping with a few stops at different tourist attractions.

The training at Gracie Humaita HQ in San Diego has been absolutely amazing and I've just learned so many things and getting updates to all the positions I usually use as I've just been getting my ass kicked left and right. Overall the training has been done by Professor Regis Lebre, black belt under Royler Gracie, and Zak Maxwell who's a black belt under Regis and by Joao "Johnny" Faria who's a black belt under Jorge Patino “Macaco”, and they are all three awesome competitors with a long list of gold medals and I just learned so much training with Regis, Johnny and Zak and they have given me tons of details and additions to the positions I usually use that I can take with me back home and work on, and especially Zak has been really great at breaking down some of the positions and helping me add some details to my guard and my guard passing, it's been a really humble experience training with Regis, Johnny and Zak.

Besides getting my ass kicked, it feels really good to get some new advanced positions to work with and hopefully I'll be able to put some it to work at the Las Vegas Open.

I've gotten a whole new look at how to use my guard and I just can't wait to try all the new stuff and to teach it to all the guys and girls back in Copenhagen and in Århus.

Sabine and I have spent a lot of time writing down all the techniques so nothing will be forgotten, and on a side note there has also been plenty of girls for Sabine to train with and she was even invited to a girls open mat this past Sunday where I was degraded to being a taxi driver and from what I can understand it was a great training session... I wasn't really allowed inside, not that I asked either :-)

So overall it's been a great experience and I have been treated extremely good and I'm really happy I decided to train at Gracie Humaita HQ and train under Regis, Johnny and Zak and getting to know a lot of their students, and I want to give a special thanks to some of the guys and girls there like Diego, Matt, Jimmy (Jimbo), Matt, Arnett, Javier and Tracey who've all made the training there even more special.

It's not the best picture, but here from left to right is
Zak Maxwell, Sabine, myself and Regis Lebre

Last Thursday we went to visit Seaworld and got to see some cool and funny shows like The Otter and Sea Lion show, the Blue Horizon Dolphin Show and the Cirque de Del Mar acrobatics show. We spend the whole day walking around in the park and enjoying the shows and after we had enough of Seaworld we were lucky enough to catch the sunset at Mission Beach which was pretty awesome and very beautiful to say the least, it's really rare I get to see a sunset so it was, for me at least, a very special event, next time I want to be there a little earlier to follow the sun all the way down. After the stop at the beach we went to a cinema to see Batman - The Dark Knight Rises which was a cool movie. Overall it was just a really good day and I spend it together with my girlfriend Sabine and it will forever be in my memory, thank you!

A small video from the Blue Horizon Dolphin show at Seaworld

Sabine and I enjoying sunset at Mission Beach <3

Last Sunday we went to downtown San Diego and walked around the skyscrapers and saw some cool and old submarines, the amazing and huge USS Midway Aircraft Carrier and other older US navy ships at the bay area. I hope to get the chance to visit the aircraft carrier again since its a museum and you have to chance to see tho whole carrier. It looked huge from afar so I can't even start to think about how big it must be to walk on it and see it from inside.
From downtown we went to Coronado Island which is a cool "little" island in the bay of San Diego with some amazing beaches and a beautiful view to the San Diego skyline. I also hope I get the chance to go here again so I see the skyline at nighttime, looking at the postcards you can buy it's a awesome sight.

Old US Navy ship and submarine

San Diego Skyline from Coronado

Downtown San Diego. USA!

Now we also went to Mount Soledad which is a huge mountain in San Diego that has a 360 degree view of San Diego, and on top of the mountain there is a huge cross surrounded by pictures of fallen soldiers. just makes me hate war even more seeing all the happy faces and knowing they were killed by war. Anyways, from the mountain we went straight to Torrey Pines State Reserve Park which is a huge park with very small hiking trails to different view points around the park with amazing landscape views of the coastal line of Del Mar, La Jolla and the areas around San Diego and California. Of curse there was also pine trees which was kinda cool I guess, as far as i understood it was being preserved because the american people would camp in the area and use the tree for fires and the trees was starting to become extinct. I have some cool pictures from the area that you can see below.