Insight has been going strong for almost 6 months, and we’ve already outgrown our first space! The new year brought the need for a new, bigger space (in the same building)  so we can fit more grapplers comfortably on the mats. We also decided it was time to have our official grand opening. On January 17th, 2015 we did just that. With the support of Mario Esfiha, our brethren from his school (and several others), and our own  group of great students, we celebrated the grand opening with some great rolls and a couple of promotions.

Head instructor, Alex Henley, has both of his kids enrolled in the kids program at Insight. His 13 year old son Grayson has been training in BJJ for over 4 years, but was not up for promotion at this time. However, his 10 year old daughter, Genevieve, has been training for a year and was promoted to the rank of gray belt w/ white stripe!

Also, since our doors opened, we welcomed 3 stripe white belt, Gabriel Hansell, as one of our BJJ brothers. After nearly 6 months of very hard training, Gabriel earned his promotion to blue belt! Special thanks to our other instructor, Jackson Word, and Gabriel’s first instructor, Allen Lohr, who traveled all the way from California to be here for this occasion.

Just like anything you may do in your life – whether it’s being exceptional at your job, being a good parent, running marathons or jiu jitsu – consistency is the key. Even if you have more potential than the average person, you can’t tap into that potential without commitment and consistency. I’m not saying it has to rule your life (though it does tend to take-over more than we expect once we really commit) but devoting yourself and making BJJ a priority is crucial to one’s advancement in the art and in the state of mind needed to be successful. Your measure of success may be different that mine. One person’s measure may be weight-loss while another person may measure success by how many medals they’ve won. That part is less important… whatever drives you to be your best is okay… but the common denominator is consistency.

If you have chosen jiu jitsu as your path to a happier, healthier life, don’t cheat yourself by only giving it a little bit of effort. Make this a priority so you can get the most out of your journey. If you find yourself looking for reasons not to come to class, try to push through that… I believe that you will soon be looking for reasons to COME to class.