It's a long way to the top: Very often people ask me how my students progress so quickly to headline major professional grappling tournaments after a relatively short period of time in the sport. My answer always runs along these lines – people only take notice of athletes once they get to the big shows – what they don't realize is that all these athletes started small and did their time in local shows that no one pays attention to, developing their skills, their ability to control performance anxiety, their capacity to take their game and apply it upon someone they have never grappled previously etc. This developmental phase is crucial to anyone with big aspirations in the sport. Great athletes are not created fully grown and mature – their athletic life mirrors their actual life – they start off weak and totally dependent on others for help and sustenance, but in time grow in capability and confidence to become independent and strong. Nobody remembers the innumerable small local tournaments that Garry Tonon, Eddie Cummings and Gordon Ryan trekked to on their own volition and dollar, gaining critical experience that would prove invaluable later at the big shows. Don't rush this phase – once it's gone, it does not come back. Learn and grow here, always with your mind on your distant goals, but learning here and now to build the foundation upon which something great can be built. Here, Frank Adam Rosenthal takes his rapidly developing gym game to the local tournament scene and controls a variation of the juji gatame armlock position very nicely on route to the winners podium in one of many small, but very significant steps that must be made and profited from before the big leaps are made.
