Intro

My name is Daniel Strauss but my friends call me The Raspberry Ape.

Earlier this year I qualified for the ADCC championships (if you dont know what that is I would kindly request that you leave my blog please). And as part of my training I will be traveling from my gym in Mill Hill, north London under Nick Brooks to New York to train with the man himself, Renzo Gracie. I will be staying there for 3 weeks, returning to the UK a week before the comp.

Ive decided to keep a blog of my journey to:

A.) Keep anyone and everyone who is interested updated on what im doing (so I dont have to talk to anyone personally, its efficient (no much unlike Jiu jitsu)).

B.) Because there is a possibility that apart from training I will have nothing of interest to do, thus leaving me with a possibly large amount of free time, and this will give me something to fill it with.

I must however warn readers that it is possible that:

A.) I dont have anything interesting to say, thus making reading my blog a waste of time.

B.) Im having so much of a good time that I have no time to write this blog.

(and the most likely) C.) I cant be arsed/forget to write this blog regularly.

But none the less I shall try my hardest (I will consider it a test) to write regularly and to do enough interesting things that I have something worth writing about. I shall also try and get some pics up of all the awesome people I shall be throwing down with daily and some of the places I visit.

Currently it is 10:30 and I am leaving tomorrow at 9:30am. Needless to say I have not begun packing yet. And im thinking I can get a few rounds of Modern Warfare 2 in before I really need to think about packing.

Before I leave tomorrow I would quickly like to thank the people who have made this trip possible: Nick Brooks and Andrew Marshall. Who are not only my coaches but have paid for my flights to NY. David Onuma. Roger Gracie for sorting me out with a place to stay and training in NY. All the members of Mill Hill BJJ who have shown their support. My sponsors Scramble and Faixa Rua. And everyone else who has supported me thus far.

Thank you for reading.

Now to go a shoot some terrorists.

Ape out