Training in a 3rd world country

This Morning marks my first 8 days in Peru. So far I have had dental work done, obtained a stomach illness, feared for my life in a couple taxis and a Peruvian bus, eaten food from a sketchy restaurant, negotiated the price of ice cream, learned how to have a small conversation in Spanish, and learned how to cross the street, south america style.

So anyways, the other day was my first day training. It was umm, a little, different than the norm in America. I remained humble even tough everything the teacher was instructing was incorrect...

Here's how the session started off:

After the instructor had us do 100 continuous push ups, he made us run on one foot, 10 times around the gym and then switch. This puts so much strain on the meta carpels that when you place your other foot on the ground you immediately gets that sensation that you jumped 20 ft. barefooted into the sand... but I was there to be a student, not a teacher, so I did as he instructed, haha. I just had to laugh a little bit while I was doing it.

The "brown belt" teacher, then went onto to teach arm drags from the gaurd, dare I say in a way that would never work! haha Anyhow, it was nice that they let me have a free class to try it out, so I never lost any money in this experience.

Now, I was the only student there that did not speak spanish. It was a weird happening as I first entered the room. It was almost as if everyone was looking at me with envy, disgust, and jealousy. I guess since I was American, the students and the teachers alike wanted to see my fail or something. This did not happen of course, and I wasn't there to destroy anyone at Jiu-Jitsu anyways.. haha

All I could do was be as nice and humble as possible, to try and relax the vibe in the air I was getting. Call me crazy? Apparently not, after I grappled the teacher, he put me against the muay thai teacher who is a cage fighter. He must have really wanted to beat me or thought he was in a fight for the chamionship belt. Within 3 seconds my lip was split open and I was swallowing a lot of blood, haha! I laughed and cleaned in up until in kind of stopped. We went again and he just balled up like a turtle so I couldn't submit him. After 5 minutes of that I just tapped from bordem haha, it was kind of annoying that he was not even attacking or anything, he was just tucking his arms in and making it impossible to submit him no-gi from the gaurd.

My overall experience? Kind of disappointed that anyone can open a jiu-jitsu gym out here. According to the academy, the teacher was a brazilian brown belt world champion. I don't see how that was ever possible. Maybe he entered as a white belt and won, but hey, I'm just saying.

Today I am training at the sniper academy in Mira Flores. Hopefully the speak Jiu-Jitsu there!

This is a picture of us before getting of the airplane after our 9 hour flight