When I joined Jaguars Jiu-Jitsu eight months ago, I didn’t expect I was going to enjoy learning to fight very much. I was very, very wrong.

I’m a geeky kid, 19 years old, 5’11, 140 pounds. Never so much as been in a single fight my entire life. My favorite hobbies are acting, chess, and WoW. I decided I needed to get some exercise, maybe even learn some self defense, so I Googled for a nearby studio, and this place came up. Fancy I’d give it a try.

My first time, I was very skeptical. The place was completely empty except Kenny and me, and it didn’t look like any dojo I’d ever heard of. He wanted to teach me some style called Jiu-Jitsu I never heard of before in my life either.

However, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. My first day we spent two hours fighting and practicing the triangle, rear naked choke, and closed guard. I sucked like hell, but I completely loved it because I knew I was learning something useful that would actually come in handy if I were to ever get in a real street fight.

Within a couple months I had gained about ten pounds in muscle, started going to the gym, and even took out some big Pankration guys at my college to prove a point. Just last month I took bronze at Desert Challenge.

I plan to continue working with Kenny as my trainer for the forseeable future. His calm, calculating manner he uses during a fight is one in a million, and no way I can find someone like that again.