Today marks 15 years as a student of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
To say that this is not the way I would have expected to celebrate a decade and a half in jiu-jitsu is a massive understatement. But here we are: with a global pandemic that has gyms only partially open and even then only for those with the nerve to risk infection by joining their fellow potential virus-carriers indoors.
Combining my knee injury - coming up on the first anniversary of that if I remember correctly - with this lockdown, I've trained jiu-jitsu approximately 12 times since September 1, 2019. Ordinarily, including the lockdown, I would have notched 39 sessions; September - February is business travel season for me (or "was"). In terms of sparring minutes, which is how I want to track training once I am able to get back on the mat, I got in a total of 208 minutes over that September 2019 - present time frame. Ideally, that would have been more than 675 minutes.
To think back in March at how willing I was to sacrifice the summer if only we could be back to something approaching normality by now! Hard not to feel more than a little annoyance at those who have made this circumstance harder, rather than easier, with their immaturity, willful ignorance, and selfishness.
I'd hoped to be back on the mat in time to celebrate my 15th anniversary in jiu-jitsu. Now, I feel like it's going to be longer, maybe much longer, and there's not a lot to celebrate in that.
