This past Wednesday I had the chance to train with BJJ black belt Alexey Cruz down in Portland Maine. He teaches out of the Choi Institute of Martial Arts and Science. Alexey is a 3rd degree Jiu Jitsu black belt under De La Riva. He also is the one who puts on the Freestyle Grappling Open Tournaments every year. I was super excited to get a chance to train with him and his guys. I think we had a total of 6 people from The Foundry make the almost 2 hour drive. Call it a Foundry field trip if you will. Alexey showed some sweet half guard stuff, mostly passing it, but also a few submissions thrown in. I rolled with 3 of his blue belts, all of them were really skilled and seemed like all around nice guys. At first I was playing super defensive, feeling like if I went for submissions it would not be respectful. I’m not sure where that feeling came from, but I think my logic was, well this is their house and I am just a guest. No one likes to tap to a guest. After a few mins though this feeling passed and it was really awesome to roll with new people. I think we will be making more trips down there to visit from time to time and I am looking forward to it. Do any of you make trips to visit others schools regularly? If so do you see a jump in your game?