Today was the 2nd most overdue black belt promotion that I know! Alex Serdyukov was an original Apex team member and got his brown belt the day I got my purple belt — December 13, 2006. Almost 11 years ago! He was a champion in the WEC back in 2005 and has beaten my ass MANY times during the Apex days, lol. He was promoted by another Apex original — Jason Bukich. I could not be happier about him finally being promoted and being yet another black belt that came from Apex!

October 26, 2016 - Brazilian Jiu Jitsu promotions

We had 9 promotions.

Blue: Gabriela Ochoa, Long Tran, Patrick Fernandez, Hector Ruiz & Jesse Herrera

Purple: Ryan Medina, Josh Jones & Bryson Gutches

Brown: Brett Cooper

Congratulations to everyone that got promoted. Some of these were wayyy overdue!

Photos by Gabriela Ochoa.

And one more just for me! ;)

Took me 12 years to get my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt ;P I turned it down 4 years ago because I wanted my black belt to be from the team I consider family. Getting today from Tracy Hess made waiting completely worth it.

For anyone reading this, there are a bunch of people I want to thank for getting me here:

Rob Spencer, Jeremy Williams (RIP), Rick Estrada, Russ Miura, Adam Lynn, Tracy Hess, Rani Yahya, Bao Quach, Juliano Prado, JJ Ambrose, Rick Catindig, Ryan Gregg & William Kessler.

May 13, 2015 Subfighter MMA belt promotions.

Part 2

May 13, 2015 Subfighter MMA belt promotions.

Part 1