Here's a good, in-depth interview with brown belt Valerie "Valhalla" Worthington of Prancing and Sucking. The interview is courtesy of the good people at Kombat Clinic, who have interviewed a few other women in jiu jitsu (or judo) of late, including Helen Currie from the U.K.
KC: I always ask this next set of questions to our interviewees. Who were your inspirations when you first started training was it you instructor and peers or did you look at other figures within the BJJ community? Have these inspirational figures changed much over the years you have been training and competing?
VW: I spent so much of my early training years not knowing a lot about the bigger BJJ world; I didn’t compete much, and when I did it was only locally. So the people I looked up to were the students and instructors around me, who were there every day, training consistently and generously giving of their time to help the newbie. Those people not only taught me how to do jiu jitsu; they also taught me how to be a gracious training partner and a better person.
