Another dash to London, another academy visit. I dropped by Fight Factory in London this time, another checkmat affiliate supervised by Luiz Ribeiro.

I was told to come in early but I haven’t mastered the art of timely moving around the city yet. After a few canceled metros and a re-route, i showed up 15 minutes late and to my surprise they were already done with warm-up and knee-deep into some half guard sweeping explanations.

i waited at the counter, listening to the technique. The explanation seemed like it would never end; after at least ten minutes, a brown belt eventually came up to me and inquired what i wanted. He then told Luiz about me who gave him the thumbs up. I changed in a hurry, joined the mat… and of course everybody was already paired up.

The same brown belt motioned me to go shake Luiz’s hand but as I came up to him, he started correcting a pair of white belts and that took ages again. When he was eventually done, he didn’t even shake my hand but just told me to pair up somewhere. Duh.

I can’t help but say this was extremely rude. Of course I was late, so I shut the fuck up about it, but man. The students however were all very nice and helpful. We practiced a serie of half guard sweeps and counters and lined up for the rolls. I got paired up with a white belt and 3 blue belts, all of whom were very pleasant to roll with. Technical, not overly aggressive or passive, just my type.

I left apologizing again for being late and asked if I had to pay anything, but Luiz (again mostly grunting instead of speaking) signified me it was fine. I’d probably need to check back there and not be late to see if it makes any difference, but I’m not sure I will.