After four months—and if I’m being completely honest—six months off of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I’ve made my return to the mats.

It is FUCKING HARD you guys.

I have this thing I always say about BJJ, which is that physically it’s hard, but it’s never harder than I expect it to be. Mentally, emotionally, it’s a killer. This is truer than ever right now. Physically, if anything, it’s actually easier than it was. (More on that later.) But again, physically isn’t the hard part.

So, for those of you playing along at home, I had a combined septoplasty and turbinate reduction in July, because I couldn’t really breathe out of my left nostril in any meaningful way. At the time, I said I was going to have to take three months off, but in reality, three months was the MINIMUM amount of time I was going to have to take off. At the three month mark, my nose still hurt like Hell if I washed my face too enthusiastically. Four-and-a-half months post surgery, I finally went back to training. By then, though, the holidays were almost upon us, which meant that I was heading off to such exotic locales as London: No, the Small One, Scarborough and Detroit. It’s now January, and I’m only starting to re-establish a training routine.

Everything is different now. People who were roughly my equal are miles better than me. Everyone seems to have at least one move where they choke you with the lapel of their gi, I am perpetually frustrated.

But it’s got to get better, right?