I have been frequenting the morning classes pretty regularly now. So far my “new years resolution”, is for the most part on track. I’m entirely digging the Wednesday morning breakfast club. I owe being able to attend the morning classes to my significant other who puts the kids in school and takes care of the morning duties, which frees me up to go. I’ve also made it a habit of attending the Tuesday and Thursday Gi and No-Gi classes. It’s been a bit of a struggle to make it to work on time but being a few minutes late has been worth it in my opinion. I arrive to work totally ready to kick ass and pumped even though I have a sedentary desk job. I really want to make it to morning classes. It allows me attend 3 classes at minimum and I get great reps in at No-Gi. I have toyed with my different routes to work as 8 am is a bustling hour around Long Island MMA. Luckily, it’s conveniently also located equidistant between the main arterial paths of circulation on Long Island (L.I.E and SSP). This morning I found the way to work that gets me just 5 minutes late with out breaking any laws. Thankfully, my boss doesn’t get to angry with this. Another trade off of being able to frequent the morning classes, which my lady finds as a huge perk is I able to spend time in the evenings at home with my family. My job is stressful to say the least and often requires me to either stay late or bring work home with me. When I first returned back to LIMMA I was just trying to attend the evening classes. All to often I got stuck at work or needed to meet a deadline and just couldn’t make it. The worst was a few times I would get out just in time to rush to a class and I would notice it was 15 minutes into it and I would just turn around because I didn’t want to be disrespectful walking into class super late. When you want something you make the proper accommodation to meet your goals. Right now I am focused on increasing my bjj knowledge and getting my physical shape back on track. I am finding my groove and discovering what it takes to balance all things possible.

-Pat Rivera