Life takes us in many directions – but you can always come back to Jiu Jitsu: Many people appear to think that my Jiu Jitsu coaching began with the rise of the squad – in fact it began more than a decade before the squad first came to prominence. I was known mostly for coaching the link between Jiu Jitsu and MMA to great athletes like Georges St Pierre and Chris Weidman. Yet during that time I had many very fine Jiu Jitsu students as well. Most of them chose not to compete or just compete locally since grappling was not a lucrative sport in those days and most of the focus in the gym was on MMA preparation. One of those early students was Steve Williams. He was among my first black belts long before the squad. In time he moved away to Las Vegas to pursue a music career. Almost a decade later he returned to NYC and began training with the squad back in the basement where he learned his craft. Recently he entered some local competitions to see if his game could still hang with all the changes of Jiu Jitsu in recent years – this video captures some of the action. We all have different forces pulling on us in our lives – we never know which direction we will take – but through it all, you can always return to Jiu Jitsu. Your skills can get rusty, your body can get out of shape, but you can always come back and those skills you worked so hard on will come back quickly and once again shine like the edge of a knife. Great to see skills return and an old school black belt can still shine after all these years 😜