So I'm back.  There was a bit of a lapse from posting for two main reasons.  First off, I was on holiday (from 10/8-10/15) in Ireland where I visited family, friends and did some sight seeing, so I was pretty busy.  Secondly, I didn't want to bring my laptop and risk have something happen to it.  I did (I swear!) try to use my Galaxy Note 3 but it seems the "configuration mode" of Squarespace doesn't work on mobiles.  As I had mentioned in a prior post, I had planned on training at least twice while in Ireland.  So the idea was to go one evening while in Dublin and one evening while in Sligo.  

The first training session was going to be at East Coast Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Monkstown.  This is a Ribeiro academy run by Black Belt, Darragh O Conaill.  On Thursday after touring and walking around the city of Dublin all day I managed to find my way to the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport, unlike the NYC subway this was super clean and fast ) and made my way to the academy.  Annoyingly, the directions I had said the academy was close to the train-stop but after a full day of walking and touring, 1.5 miles uphill took a lot out of me and made me a few minutes late.  I walked into the building and spoke to one of the students at the desk and told him why I was there.  He grabbed Darragh who introduced himself and then showed me where to change.  Class was typical, some light running, shrimping, front and rear rolls then some warm-up drills which I was familiar with.  The 1st MOTD was a back take, starting in side control the opponent turns toward you so you put the elbow to the ribs and back step over his head to the opposite side and windshield wiper your leg under his and take the back.  The 2nd and 3rd MOTD all built off that.  After this we did some round robin sparring.  The guys were pretty good and I was definitely tired but it was fun.  Finally I got to roll with Darragh, who predictably beat me badly lol.  He tapped me a few times during our roll.  Compared to Brian, he was lighter and put less pressure on me which made me think I could escape and try to attack but it was a set-up.  As soon as I tried to bridge or stand he would catch me with a quick tap or sweep.  When class was over after about an hour and a half, we chatted for a bit and I got a few pics which I will post on the images page.  

Tomorrow I will post about my other training session at the Alliance academy in Sligo.