I have been a little quiet on my blog since returning to Australia. But, I can assure you that many exciting things are happening in my life. Here is quick summary:

• Firstly I started my new job at Melbourne Physiotherapy, Fitness and Pilates Group in St Kilda, Melbourne. I work as a physiotherapist and a clinical pilates instructor and absolutely love my new work place. I have a great space and a lovely team and it’s a really good feeling when you love what you do each day.

• I am also the Head Physiotherapist for Caulfield Grammarians Football Club  – I manage the player’s injuries, rehab and return to play, as well as work during their game days on Saturdays. This eats into my own training (competition class), but my career is very important to me and I am committed to having more balance in my life.

• I have settled into a nice routine of training and have some excellent, small and skilled training partners at Maromba. I’m really enjoying consolidating a few (by a few, I mean A LOT) things I’ve learnt in Brazil and trying them out on lower belts. I am lucky to have a nice team to specific train, drill and trouble shoot with outside of class times. It is also very cool to have some higher belt females to train with that are a little closer to my size than the boys. Jess, Jo, Esther… you rock.

• I am very excited to announce that I have an upcoming fight at the BOA Super 8 in Melbourne in September against a great competitor Kate Wilson. Kate had a great performance at Worlds and was promoted to brown belt, so we will fight at brown belt rules, which is very exciting! Lachie is in the main draw of 8 black belts all vying to win $5,000. Can’t wait for this event. Come along and support us, I will try and put on a great show.

•  Recently, I had a meeting with my sponsors MA1 Apparel about creating a new women’s range of gis. The designs and colours will be beautiful and it’s a lot of fun being involved in the development phase.

• Having my friends and family around has been amazing. Being able to communicate freely is something I took for granted before. Catching up with my little niece Lucy has been too much fun, going out for endless coffees with my girlfriends and tasting Melbourne’s awesome brekkies/brunches on Sundays is the best. My little sister Julia is back from an exchange in Mexico and we spend our nights at home signing way too loud to atrocious choice of music.

I am loving my life here at the moment and every day I wonder when something will go wrong. I do really miss our friends in Brazil and training full time without work, alas, one can only dream to do that forever – both my wallet and body would break.

The next phase is preparing for Australian Champions Cup, BOA Super 8, Pan Pacs, GTA and possibly the Asian Cup. In the mean time I love every minute on the mats more each day.