Skip to main content

About Me

My photo
my many faces
My name is Romeo Barnes. I'm an author and a BJJ black belt with cerebral palsy. This blog is about my life balancing existence in two worlds. My latest book, My World is now available Amazon.com. Glad you're here, enjoy the journey.

Wheelife Show Shop

The wheelife show has been going on for 3 years now. After lots of planning, our merch store is now live. Purchase at the link below if interested. Support the revolution here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Physical Therapy sucks

Years ago, maybe 2010 I don't actually remember, I posted a short post here called "Why." That post was about why I prefer to fight able-bodied opponents as opposed to fighting opponents with disabilities. To sum the post up, I do it to prove a point. In that post I mentioned that Physical Therapy(which will be referenced as PT for this post) sucks. This post will explain why. Let me preface by saying PT isn't bad and is in fact a necessary medical service as it's great for pre-surgery, post-surgery, and injury situations. That doesn't change the fact that PT is grossly misused. That's because PTs attempt to make your body work "normally"; what they should do is enhance the way your body already functions. Let's assume you're a cerebral palsy patient who has never walked on your own power and you use a wheelchair for mobility. Instead of putting you in a walker or on crutches and "going walking" around the room. They should p...

Gay in BJJ

Truthfully, this would probably go over better as a YouTube video, but I figured that I haven't actually written on this blog in a while, so this is a good excuse to do just that. As the title states, I'm going to talk about being gay in the sport of BJJ. The thing that stopped me from posting this in the past was I didn't want to beat a dead horse. After all, this topic has been done talked about many times over in the BJJ community, but never from perspective(to my knowledge) of someone who was openly gay and active in the BJJ community. I'm that guy. So I will list questions I get both inside and outside the BJJ community as the answers are for the most part exactly the same. 1) What do I do if I suspect my training partner is gay? Answer: Ask him/her. It really is that easy. However, the manner in which this question is asked is really important. You know your training partner, so handle the situation accordingly(privately is always best regardless of the method o...

Turtle position guard or not?

One of the biggest and most debated topics in the BJJ community is the turtle position. There are two big arguements about this position. 1) Is it an actual guard? 2) If it gets used as a guard how do we score it in tournaments? In my opinion for a position to be considered a guard, it must fit three requirements: 1) It must start from a defensive standpoint. 2) You must be able to defend yourself AND launch attack. 3) It must have at least one(1) self-defense application. 4) You must have a way to control your opponent/enemy. So let's see if turtle is a legitimate guard. On your knees not being able to see your enemy sounds pretty defensive to me. Your hands and elbows can keep you from taking punches and knees flush and you have access to kneebars, toeholds, kimuras, armbars, wristlocks and a boatload of sweeps. So that's points one and two covered. On to point 3 and 4 Self-defense application: When you turtle on the street you roll away immediately and sit to full guard or ...