The Fever!

Jorge Pereira and Rickson Gracie

        Hi guys!! I hope you are all well, healthy and happy. I'm super stoked and excited as the LMT family continues to grow. We have added a bunch of new team members. Some are fighters and some are not and that's what I love about it. I love this team and how far they have come. That being said I think that the ones that want to fight and be successful on the highest levels must dedicate their lives or as my Jiu Jitsu sensei Jorge Pereira says, they must have the "fever".
        After training Friday night in which I rolled with sensei for the better part of an hour having some success but being submitted more often than not, we all sat around and listened to Master Pereira give his regular after class lessons. I in particular tend to get into the stories of his time training with Rickson and preparing for the Vale tudo wars that made him a legend. I believe that the Jiu Jitsu lives in these stories and it gives soul to the art. On this day though he was making a comparison. Maybe to force us to train more, or maybe he was just being nostalgic but he was comparing his time training Jiu Jitsu to the Jiu Jitsu being trained now. Obviously the times were different and the place was definitely different (not by much living in Miami), but different. He began to speak about how they trained sometimes three times in a day. "We would train in the morning, then go to surf, then back to train. We would talk about the girls, and the university, then back to train".. All of these stories are told in a un-americanized Brazilian accent that lends itself completely to the moment.

The LMT team

        He then said a statement that I took personally. Not that it was directed towards me but it stuck with me. He said,"The difference between training Jiu Jitsu then and the way we train now is the Fever", "you have to have the fever for the fight. If you want to be great at Jiu Jitsu, then you must dedicate your life. People train now like for a hobby".  Those are words that I get, I have done that with Muay Thai and it has done me well and provided for me. I don't know how much I can dedicate to my Jiu Jitsu studies with my schedule the way it is training my team for their futures but I will say that for a large majority of them, they have the fever for Muay Thai and it is inspiring.

        I am committed to having better Jiu Jitsu. I want to be on a championship level and however much I have to train to get there, I will get there. I have the fever for sure. I encourage you to do what so many have said and that's to fall in Love with your art. Fall in love with yourself. Fall in Love with your best friend(Taylor). Let that fever guide you to the highest levels achievable where you can feel accomplished by something other than beating the hardest level on "Candy crush".