Tell us about a time you felt awkward on your martial arts journey. For me it was when women suddenly started training at Rickson’s academy after years of men only.

What’s something Rickson said that took you awhile to understand but made a huge impact when you finally did? Mine was “the defense is always shorter than the offense.” Once I understood this my defense became so much better and I started to re-evaluate the steps in my offense. Literally a game changer 💯

Have you been injured from training or fighting? Where was your worst injury? What part of your body bothers you the most with pain or dysfunction? What have you done to fix it?

This week in training, imagine your partners might try to access a weapon and pay attention to their hands at all times. Roll like normal but keep your attention partially on imagining what would you do if they started to try to pull a knife from a pocket or reach for a glass bottle nearby. You don’t always have to physically train these pieces, sometimes it enough to build awareness. If you have the tools, tell your partners to surprise you with a hidden training weapon sometime this week. Don’t panic. 😱

Who is the smoothest person you’ve rolled with and what made them feel that way? Mine was Mica Galvao and Henry Akins. Two different styles!! With Mica I always felt late, and with Henry (though it was positional) I felt like I couldn’t even get things going. Great experiences that I learned a lot from!