Manuela B. is first up for the Devotion crew at IBJJF PAN Championships today in Orlando.

She’s on weight - just has to manage the nerves until 6pm when she heads to mat 5 to chase gold.

For Flograppling subs:

Manuela B. is on mat 5

Right now saying 5:26pm

Let’s get this party started.

A tough first day and first time on the big stage for Manuela.

Take the positives, learn from and move past the negatives-and we move on to the weekend and the rest of the crew.

On the plus side, she got to drink a couple of margaritas tonight.

Next up is some training with good friends in FL, and then Big Dog Josh W. goes on Saturday!

The aftermath of an absolutely insane open mat at White House Jiu-Jitsu.

White House is where a lot of the well-known killers train while in FL for PAN Championships.

The mat tonight was littered with more than a dozen black belts and highly ranked competitors from all over the world.

A true testing ground.

Schedule for our remaining ULTRAS

(mat numbers and times will be posted day of for those interested in streaming)

Josh W. - Saturday
Matthias W. - Sunday

(Pool day today may not be in the cards thanks to the rain)

Josh W. up at 4:26PM MAT 1

ULTRA HEAVYWEIGHTS INCOMING 🦍

Josh wins his second consecutive PAN Championship gold medal 🥇

Zero pts scored against him.

Hail the victor.

Matthias W.
12:52 PM EST
MAT 1

Matt loses in the second round.

It’s tough being the standard-bearer.

The pressure to not only compete, but win at the highest levels every single year is more than many people can bear.

Traveling all over the country constantly placing yourself in that vice of stress, nerves, weight cutting, training etc is taxing.

When you’ve risen to these challenges to claim gold as often as our standard-bearer has, we can forget how hard The Way can be.

We start to expect the wins, and even worse start to take them for granted.


Hail Matthias.

TLDR/he lost, let’s hit the pool and get some beers. 🍻

The whole gang back together on the home mats in Virginia.

No place I’d rather be
(although the Florida weather was really nice ☀️)

When I got to the gym this morning, I had a few extra minutes and I spent some time thinking about this quote from the great Chris Haueter.

“You’ll be somewhere in 10 years…why not be a black belt too?”

I don’t know where I’ll be, but if I’m still breathing, I’ll be a black belt.

Go train today so you will be too.

This was a fun weekend.

Many people are saying we should do it again:)

(Date, reg info, etc, etc. all coming in the weeks ahead)