It's 2010!!!

Hello everybody and welcome to 2010! I want to apologize for not being active on my blog the last couple of months, of course I could say that I have been busy and this and that, but I should of made time to talk to you. I hope you all are as excited for this year as I am. 2010 not only starts a new decade, but it starts a new phase in my life as well. This year will be the first year where I am full time owner and operator of Lovato's School of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, in Oklahoma City. My father has worked extremely hard running our academy for a long time and I am happy to be able to give him some rest and help take our school to the next level. Of course this is going to give me a lot of extra responsibilities, but I have a super supportive fiance and a great group of students, so I am up for the challenge.

Speaking of great group of students, at the end of the year, I took a team of my guys out to Vegas for Grapplers Quest and I am super proud of how well they did. We had 10 guys (2 brown belts, 2 purple belts, 5 blue belts, and 1 white belt) and we won 11 golds, 2 silvers, and 2 bronzes. We won the intermediate and advanced absolute divisions and the only reason why we had 2 silver medals is because we closed out two divisions. We were on fire that day and I will never forget it. The team results are starting to come in and I am very happy to say that we were the No-Gi Adult Team Champions. I am still waiting on the Gi and Overall Team standings, but I have a good feeling about those as well. You can read more about our team victory here.

I have set many goals for myself this year. Along with continuing to improve our academy and level of our students, I am very determined to win my 2nd black belt world title this year. Also, after the Mundials, I am planning on making my MMA competition debut sometime in the fall! On top of all that, I am getting married this year! Needless to say, this is going to be a HUGE year for me. I think it is very important to set goals and live day by day trying to reach those goals. Remember that "What the mind can conceive, it can achieve" so aim high and believe in yourself. Visualize yourself accomplishing those goals and think about how good it will feel once you do. If it is something you truly desire, then this will have a powerful effect over you, almost giving you goosebumps. Identify what you will need to do to be able to accomplish this goal and then go after it, don't wait. Have faith in yourself and be persistent, many times your greatest accomplishments are one step away from your greatest failures, so never give up! I highly recommend the book, "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, to help you accomplish your goals. It is a very powerful book.

Here is a new technique that I shot on New Years Eve. Hope you guys like it.