My share's value has risen 10% in the last few days.... which now means it's only lost 15% of its value since I bought them :)

Damn the gold price!

This last few weeks has been a BJJ overload... not that I'm complaining!

It started with the competition in Melbourne, then the next day I had a seminar in Richmond that Rigan ran. The tuesday after I drove six hours with Nathan and Dayne to Geelong, where Rigan was taking a class at John Will's gym.

Five days later, last Saturday, I had a seminar in Perth at my club with Rigan. Kenson doesn't know how to use a camera so the photos of Rigan and me were never taken :( He did sign my copy of his book though which was great.

That night I went to dinner in Mt. Lawley with Rigan and some other rollers from my club. We got to hear first-hand stories about some new movie deals Rigan's involved with, as well as lots of historical stories about how Gracie Barra was started, what happened when we left for the States and where the rivalry between Machado and Gracie comes from. I learnt a lot about Rigan and was most surprised by his intelligence and morality.

I have complete respect for him as a BJJ master, but honestly expected that he'd be a bit of a muscle-head. The opposite is in fact true. John Will is always praising Rigan for his humanity and compassion, and I really got a feel for that side of Rigan over dinner. He was switched on, and hadn't let his fame go to his head.

He didn't drink which makes sense. Elite atheletes often don't. He has been involved in some low budget movies, but he doesn't have delusions of grandeour. He knows they're B-grade at best, but was saying how he didn't want to have nudity just to sell copies.

I likened it to having dinner with the Muhammad Ali of BJJ, which I don't think is an overstatement. This guy embodies all that I love about BJJ as a sport and as an art.

A: When he (co)owns a business.

I've found myself, again, spending a bunch of time writing project proposals. I've created a template that follows a format that I really like, but the downside is that I've painted myself into a corner of sorts, having set the standard previously.

I remember the project proposals that Peter would write when we worked at PACC were quite detailed, but in the wrong areas. He'd always outline the fields on the form and the matching database structure that supported it, and I always thought that was dumb. Clients don't care about that kind of thing, they want a "contact form" and expect it will have all the necessary details. Listing these fields for your developers shows you don't have confidence in them that they can work out what's needed on their own. Maybe that was the case? :)

Instead, in my project proposals, I focus on using text to describe how a software project will work and what you, as the client, can expect. I also spend a bit of time going over the history we have with the client (that is, how I got to be writing the proposal in the first place) and what The Frontier Group's experience is with similar projects. So far it's worked fairly well for us.

It also gets the client in the mindset that they're not making any technical decisions. That's my job. I tell you how it's going to be, with respect of course.

All these words reminds me of year 12 English Literature, but the difference is my essays back then weren't worth $12k each.

Note: I don't expect anyone to actually read all of this, and I'll add photos later :)

Friday

I flew in on Friday morning and we had a few hours sleep before getting breakfast. The midnight flight ended up killing us and Friday was spent chilling out. We visited the Melbourne Aquarium. There's a huge viewing room where we saw them feed some of the sharks which was cool. The Vancouver Aquarium was better I thought, but they both were fun and the "fish bowl" in Melbourne was good.

Friday night Andrew came out with us to get some pizza and pasta and we had an early night in preparation for the competition on Saturday.

Saturday

There were four mats set up and we got there just as the kids were finishing. Of the four of us competing, I was first up at 11:00AM. My first fight was against another Matthew and he looked a lot more menacing than me. We were both a bit nervous but I remembered what my friend Luke had said about nerves and I took and early control. He tried to take me down and my defence was good. We ended up on the mats with me in his guard. He tried to apply a cross lapel choke but I dug my chin down and blocked it. He thought it was on which gave me a chance to regain my composure. I postured up and broke his guard which I passed to side control. 3 points. I quickly mounted and held if for the four seconds needed. 4 points. Adam was cornering me and yelled out that I was 7 points up which felt great. Then, from the bottom, Matthew grabbed my right arm and bent it behind my back. I'd never seen this mount escape before and it was pretty freakin' crazy. I took the punishment and it turns out climbing forward and off mount was the right thing to do. We got up to our feet and toyed around for what seemed like another minute and the buzzer went off, indicating that the match was over. What? I'd won!

Kenson had his first fight shortly after, which he won via choke. I wasn't as lucky with my second fight. I faced off against Kim, a white-four. He got the takedown, passed my guard and got to knee ride. I hip escaped like mad and almost ended up leaving the mat. Just as the referee called "freeze" Kim was about to arm-bar me. We were restarted from knee ride in the centre and I did what I thought was the sportsmanly thing and gave him my arm again. He had it fair and square at the edge of the mat and it felt like the right thing to do. He dropped into a far arm bar from knee ride, which I expected. My elbow was tucked in but there wasn't any escaping this time.

Kenson won his second fight using an arm-bar from guard, which we'd practised a few times in the previous weeks. It was great watching him land that move in a competition. I would have love to see a throw get pulled off also :) Kenson's luck ran out with the third competitor he faced, and was submitted. The fighter that beat Kenson went on to win.

Dayne was up next and battled with an older blue belt who looked like he'd been around for a while. Dayne got beaten in the first fight and didn't advance any further while his competitor went on to take fourth in the division.

Nathan was in trouble early when a similar sized opponent took his back and started to sink in his hooks. A rear naked choke (with a hint of jaw crank) finished a very disappointed Nathan off in the first round. His opponent, Michael, went on to win also.

Out of the six people that were going to represent our club only five made it on the aeroplane, and four were able to compete. Those four fighters racked up only three wins, which was disappointing, but knowing that one of the wins was mine made it bearable.

We cruised back to the apartment and hung out for a while before I got ready to meet Andrew, Kristy, Rob and Danny for Rob's 21st birthday dinner. Andrew had pulled a few strings and secured a table for 6:00PM at "Number 8" on Southbank. It was a lot of fun to chat about Rob growing up and what we remember and I'm so glad Denise (Rob's mum) called me to let me know it was his birthday. Andrew and I bought Rob a voucher for Minotaur, a comic and alternative culture store in Melbourne.

After Dinner I went to Andrew's place for some absinthe and then back to the Crown Casino complex to meet up with the team. An hour of roulette and everyone was ready to head home to bed.

Sunday

I caught a taxi to Andrew and Niko's place and we then caught a tram into St. Kilda for breakfast. It was pretty relaxed and the food made a good start to the day.

We jumped back on the tram and it took us into Flinders St. and then I caught another tram into Richmond. I had a BJJ seminar with Rigan Machado, one of my jiu jitsu idols. We practised very basic techniques (arm-bar, triangle, oma-plata all from guard) but the detail was incredible. I learnt a new twist on the guard arm-bar that I think will help my game improve.

I caught a tram back into the CBD and bought some boardshorts before heading home and jumping in the spa with the boys. It wasn't as gay as it sounds.

Monday

We had and early start to the day, leaving about 5:30AM. Adam and Kelly caught a flight around that time and we started our trek to Falls Creek. Dayne drove the first leg and Nathan took us through the mountains. We arrived around 11:00AM and threw our gear down at the lodge. I met two of Nathan's cousins, Adam and Cam. Adam worked in the laundry so he'd kept some hire jackets and pants off to the side for us. Score!

We jumped on a ski lift and did about seven or eight runs. There was very little snow but it was still fun and everyone picked it up quickly. Nathan was going down the jumps on his second run.

The local dodgy pub served some good pizza and downstairs was some live music (a hippy with a guitar, who wasn't too bad) and a stack of people. Monday night was "Big Cup" night where you could fill any vessel that didn't have a spout, did have a handle and wasn't home made for $8. Some people had cups that would have held 2 litres easy. I had a few beers (no Big Cup for me) and was in bed by midnight.

Tuesday

The boys went back up the mountain for a few runs but I thought it would be better to get some work done. I hung out in a funky cafe and had some breakfast and worked on a project proposal. It was the first time in 5 days I'd been on my own for any time and I appreciated that.

At midday we started the trip to Geelong, which took a little over 6 hours. I drove us out of the mountains and we got some lunch at about 2:00PM. The drive flew by and we had a lot of interesting conversations including Nathan's religion and Dayne's experiences as as stripper. Nope, that's not a joke.

We rocked up to John Will's club at around 6:15PM and watched the end of the beginner's shoot class. Rigan Machado took the 7:00PM advanced class which was a real pleasure to watch. As I'm only a white-two I wasn't qualified to partake, though other whites were. I thought it was a little disrespectful, and John wasn't that keen on it, though he allowed it. I watched a few black belts train together and couldn't help but wondering how well Adam would go against them. Honestly, I think he'd have taken them to school, but we'll never know (until the Nationals next year of course :) The 8:00PM class was intermediate BJJ and I jumped on the mat for this. One of the students received their blue belt so the coach began running through the grading then and there. I thought that was a bit stupid, and probably the wrong time to do so, but it was his class and he runs things his way. We fumbled our way as a class through the first part of the grading (he used different names for some of the moves than what we're used to) before he called it off. We partnered up with someone from a different school and took turns showing each other our favourite moves. I thought this was a really good idea and it meant that we were seeding knowledge to take back to our home mats. I shared my new-found arm-bar (thanks Rigan) and learnt a triangle from butterfly guard. I never train the butterfly guard so it was a nice change. I also learnt a choke from knee ride which I'll try to incorporate into my game. Knee ride is a killer position when done properly, and I want to make more use of it. We then spent the last 20 minutes rolling with different people and I was very happy with how things went.

My first opponent was useless. A white-three who didn't have any controls or submissions at all. I dominated him strong from the start, then backed off to let him have a chance (which he didn't use) before trying out a few submissions. He wasn't happy when I locked in a lapel half-nelson choke from side mount. I think there was tears, honestly. Next up I smashed another white belt with an ezekial choke from mount and it wasn't until I rolled with a 6'5" kiwi that I met my match. He passed from guard to half guard where I locked him down. We did this a few times and were impressed with each others skills. I rolled with an Asian guy (who showed me the butterfly triangle) and that was all his game was. I spent that time talking with him about escapes from the butterfly guard. My last roll was with a white-three that I'd dominated in a warm up (from our knees, face to face, we had to get our opponent pinned - I won about a dozen attempts and didn't lose one). We were both exhausted so we went through some of our favourite moves instead of rolling. He had a convoluted sweet from hooking guard that never seemed to work on me - ohh well.

All in all the training session was great; very different to our club atmosphere, but fun none-the-less.

We went to KFC on the way home, all on a high after our training success. Nathan had tapped a purple belt twice and held his own against the brown belt coach.

The boys dropped me at Andrew and Niko's place and went on to the airport to sleep for a few hours before flying back to Perth.

Wednesday

I had a meeting with a new client that went really well. They're after a system that we've developed for a WA client who's in a similar business and their needs match what the product delivers so it should be an easy sale. I enjoyed the salesman role and turned on a bit of charm too :) These all-women offices don't stand a chance!

I met Niko around midday and we wandered into the city to grab some lunch with Rob. I had a good talk to Niko about him and Andrew and I hope that I was able to help them both with some problems they're having at the moment. Niko will be coming back to Perth shortly.

I did some shopping and took some time to enjoy Melbourne before heading back for a snooze and some Xbox before heading out with Andrew. I took Andrew out to dinner (Niko was working and two of Andrew's friends bailed on us) as a late birthday present. We had oysters for an entree and they were OK. They tasted like the sea :) Our steaks were thick and we couldn't eat them. It was fun spending some time just with him.

After dinner we walked into the CBD to meet Rob, Jason and Dea for some drinks at the Robot Bar. It is a small Japanese themed bar down a little alley off Elizabeth St. Rachael wasn't able to make it - she was working - and Kristy wasn't answering her 'phone so it was just the five of us. We talked about Melbourne and Dea showed us a (very) short film she's made which I actually thought was quite cool. Very geeky, which helps :)

We left just before midnight, said our goodbyes and caught the tram back to Andrew's place. I chatted more with Niko and Andrew about their relationship which I think (and hope) would have helped both of them. I'm so great.

Thursday

I grabbed some breakfast at Southbank and said goodbye to Andrew before catching a taxi to the airport. Now I'm sitting on the plane having finished my journal for the last week, eagerly awaiting seeing Maggie.

A few Melbournites have been asking what my schedule is while I'm in Victoria. Here's how it sits:

Day	Activity
Friday 15th	I touch down around 6:00AM and will no doubt be resting up in the morning. Probably hit Melbourne city to see Andrew at work around lunch time. Hanging out with the team Friday night; a few casual drinks I'd expect but nothing over the top. We've got a big day coming up.
Saturday 16th	The comp starts at 9:00AM for kids and 11:00AM for adults. White belt males will probably be around midday, I'm guessing. It's at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre, Albert Park and spectators are charged $15 entry. Full details on the flyer. That night we'll no doubt be going out, celebrating our massive wins :)
Sunday 17th	Recovering from a big day previously!
Monday 18th	Snowboarding all day, if there's snow.
Tuesday 19th	Come back down the mountain. Training at Dominance JJ in the evening.
Wednesday 20th	Meeting in the morning.
Thursday 21st	Fly home around 9:00AM.

I plan on seeing my brother, Rob and Kristy, and it'd be nice to catch up with Rach and Hairy Lee as well as The Tan Man and Dea.