The Blog of Robert Van Valkenburgh
Being a senior-year high-school dropout, I will always be grateful for community college because it allowed me to restart my education with a clean slate, opening the door for me to enter University without my high school records being held against me. With GED in hand (something a judge required me to earn as part [...]
I originally wrote this post on March 8, 2015 after attending my first seminar with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Henry Akins. I'm re-posting it now because Henry Akins is scheduled to teach a seminar at my dojo's affiliate headquarters in Columbia, MD on April 6-7, 2019. What follows were my thoughts after my first seminar [...]
For many years, I worked for a large, corporate coffee company. I held every position from Barista to Store Manager to Coffee Equipment Service Technician, until being laid off in 2010 along with all of the other Service Techs. By the time I was laid off, I had about twelve years of service with this [...]
If you have an idea, if you feel inspired by something, first put it on paper. If it’s written down, you will either forget about it, in which case it was not meant to be acted on (yet), or you will keep going back to it and tweaking it until it comes to life. Sharpen [...]
I recently suffered an injury while rolling (sparring) during an early morning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu open mat session at my school. It was a muscle sprain, nothing permanent or serious. It got me thinking though. My goal with martial art training is longevity, to have a physical-mental practice that I can continue with for a long [...]
To all of my friends: Whenever I see your posts speaking out against another person’s race, gender, nationality, class, social status, sexual identity, citizenship status, political affiliation, etc., I ask myself, “When will he or she come after me, my friends, or my family because I’m/we’re different?” I grew up with bullies, bigots, and racists, [...]
When I was a teenager, I was sent to a Scared Straight program and was made to visit a prison for a day. If nothing else, the experience of being looked at, talked to, and treated like prey gave me empathy for the weak and outnumbered. From the time I was very young, I was [...]
