Journey to Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt w Shantelle Thompson Barkindji Warrior

Yarning from beautiful Kabi Kabi Country. About a quote I heard from a brother at the powerful We Al-Li training I'm here to do. 

Which is 'we all have free choice, however we are not free from tje consequences of those choices. Good and Bad. 

Here I yarn about refocusing my choices to serve my journey, rather than harm. 

Trigger Warning - mental health, suicide and other hard topics mentioned. And real, raw emotion shared. 

What does it mean to be a First Nations woman, mother, Indigipreneur, mature age athlete etc etc in 2023? 

What does it take? What does it take to be me this moment? I share a very vulnerable and raw yarn about the weight of being me in this season. Real emotions, real me and real storytelling... 

Journey with me into a moment in my world... Remember this is MY STORY, MY TRUTH & experience. It's here to be debated by you or required for me to justify.

What happens when our best intentions don't mean shit? Well for me my intentions and Dreaming have not met my reality. 

Here I share a candid update on where I am at in my Journey. 

Black Belt is more than Jiu Jitsu and this why I am choosing to step away from my practice of Jiu Jitsu for a time period. 

Because I had to accept the truth that I am trying to force my journey with Jiu Jitsu when the timing, space and capacity is not in alignment nor congruent with my vision and calling. 

Here I share why Black Belt is more than jiu jitsu to me. 

What does one step away from my dream feel like??? 

For me learning how to get out of my head and into my body, not only saved my life. It gave me a whole new of being and doing in the world. 

In this yarn I reflect on where I am at. And that if something I am doing does not serve my family, than it has to go. And I yarn about being on country and the lessons available with deep listening. 

For a lot of people they compete in elite sports or prepare to go the Olympics to win gold is one if not their main focus. It guides their preparation, they visualise about it.  

However, winning gold has never been my sole or most important focus driving my why and preparation in Jiu Jitsu and competing. In this competition my main focus was to nurture my own self-belief and the belief and trust I hold in my own path towards being an elite athlete. 

In this competition and these fights, I won something more precise than gold. I won my own self-belief and trust in my Ancestral Calling. 

2023 is a new path of self-belief and trust. 

The first competition of the 2023 season is coming up for me. And here I am in Puerto Rico and unable to train. So here I break down a little of how I am using my current knowledge to train and prepare for my first competition while travelling and working. 

2023 is also the year I will be making my return to International Competition and share some insights into this and what is coming up. 

What would you do if you had an opportunity in front of you and you would lose regardless of what you do? What if the opportunity presented growth or experience to be gained just by showing up and giving your best? 

This is the situation I am finding myself in right now, in the lead up to my first competition of the 2023 season. Registered to compete at this competition is a young athlete Gabrieli Pessanha, who is the most dominate in the world right now for her weight division. And we happen to be in the same division. 

And I competed against Gabrieli in 2019. I faced her x3 times, in x3 different countries, first round each time. And gotten beaten and dominated every time. She is a powerful athlete who has been consistent and developing globally since then. Ive had my own journey and JiuJitsu was not one of them until my return to the mats in 2022. 

Im going to show up any, give it my all. Come and have a listen as I yarn about this experience and how I am preparing.