hey, i'm on the east coast and go to a place called boston brazillian jiu-jitsu, run by this dude roberto maia(maya?). He's 1st degree and trained under robson and carlos, so for something a few miles away I'm lucky. It's got open mats and usually there's a dozen or so guys all over the place skills-wise, which is fine, if people are nasty they still get to work on experimenting with new ways to start and the other person gets better through osmosis and learning by doing.
i do it mainly to have something competitive in my life and i don't have the attention span for golf anyhow--i'm at the point where the next step would be to go to some competitions, which i don't have any real interest in, I'm happy to have somewhere i can show up any given afternoon and get some exercise and forget about stress and other bs for 2 hours.