Killing the fat mAn!: 2009

23 July 2009

Prayer

I recently read an article about a company that allows you to tweet prayers to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. In theory, it works the same way as actually going to the Wall, praying there and then putting your written prayer into one of the cracks of the wall. This got me to thinking about some of the things that one might pray about or for. I’m sure that people pray for many personal reasons. I have not REALLY prayed for quite a while. I have not been to a synagogue in at least 2 years. I have been selfish and not chosen to make the time to go. That is my fault.

There are many things in my life I would love to change. For example: I would love to have someone with whom I can share my life, I would love to have more money in my bank account, and I would love to be a better athlete to name a few; but are those things that you pray for? I think they are very selfish and not very important in the grand scheme of things in the world. Do you pray for the health of family? What about peace? What about an end to poverty?

Does it make me a bad person if I do not know what I should pray about?

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21 May 2009

STUFF

The past few days have been relatively stressful for me dealing with my upcoming re-enlistment in the Army National Guard. I tried to reenlist into my current unit; however they are 200% over strength in my current MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), so they are not able to offer me a re-enlistment bonus. I am not willing to re-enlist without a bonus. The bonus is fairly substantial and it very important to me that I get a bonus for re-enlisting. I have a few different options to get a bonus:

Go to another unit that has an opening for my MOS. The problem with that is that I would have to do some driving and I really am not a huge fan of driving.
Change my MOS. I would have to wait until I finish the MOS qualifying school before I got the bonus and then they would have to break it up into 3 portions over the term of my contract.

One option I have is to go to a unit that is getting deployed and get my bonus overseas and then it would be tax free. I am thinking pretty hard about that option because I have been feeling the need to get away from my current situation for a while. I have some of the best friends in the world and anyone that reads this knows how much I enjoy training. I feel like I am just going through the motions of life right now and really just want a change.

I have not really dated anyone since I got divorced. I mean I dated, but nothing serious. I feel like that is the only thing that my life is truly missing. I know that if I go to Iraq, I will not have any opportunity to find anyone. I think I would rather that then deal with the bullshit of trying to meet someone with limited time anyway.

The cons of going to Iraq are many:

- I might die! Of course I could die in a car accident this afternoon…

- I will not get to see my friends for a whole year

- I will not get to see my dog Jenny & I would have to find someone to take care of her

- I would not be able to train BJJ or Muay Thai or Crossfit. I could probably find someone that does crossfit over there.

- I’m sure there are others but I can’t think of them right now.

The pros of going to Iraq are:

- I’d be able to save lots of money & get my bonus tax free!

- I could stop drinking all together

- Have a sense of honor

- I could focus on my diet and get down to my goal weight.

I have some time before I need to make a decision, so I will be sure to make a good choice. That’s all life is is a bunch of choices.

19 May 2009

5/18

I think I ate something bad during lunch yesterday because I felt awful when I got home last night. I did not train BJJ last night because I went straight to bed. I woke up about 9:30pm in cold sweats and a headache. I checked my facebook and went back to bed.

I feel much better this morning! Tonight, I am scheduled to do Crossfit at 5pm and then I will probably go to Trey’s to do BJJ since I could not train last night.

18 May 2009

Training 5/15, 5/16, and 5/17...

Friday 5/15

Muay Thai @ 6pm. Scott taught how to slip punches and counter them. I really liked learning that! I have to practice it a lot, but I think I will get the hang of it and do well with counterpunching. The endurance round was tough, but not a death round. I definitely feel my endurance getting better! I worked with Bjorn. He is approximately 135, but he hits hard for his size. He can kick the heck out of some pads too…

BJJ- Andrew has been teaching techniques from the guard all month. He taught a wrist lock setup to take the back and other ways to take the back from guard. It was a pretty good small class, but lots of rolling. I really like rolling to warm up.

Saturday 5/16

Andrew went to a Muay Thai seminar and he asked me to open up and do an open mat while he was training. Honestly, I did not think many people would show. I was right! Brian, Chrissy, and MikeByrd were the only people to show up at noon. Russ, Lendo, and Cheryl came in late. It is always fun rolling with Russ because he always takes advantage of mistakes, and shows you ways to become more technical immediately after the round. I rolled with MikeByrd a couple of times. He is so flexible and strong! He got me a few times. I think I got him once or twice, but he is really pretty technical and solid. Brain is getting really good! I like working with him because he is a good training partner and moves like a very experienced grappler. He has been training for a while and barring injuries, he would have been a blue belt long ago. He is very hard to submit! He works pretty hard when he is in class.

Sunday 5/17

US Grappling held a referee certification at Andrew’s School. The referee’s score live matches as part of their final certifications. Along with a few others, I came in to roll and give the refs some practice in scoring the matches. Chrissy gave some instructions to do illegal moves and positions on purpose to see if the refs would catch them and warn the grappler. The first match, I was told to allow my opponent to get me into a triangle and pick him up from there. That was kind of fun! I picked Chris Lombard up like he was a rag doll.

In all, I got to roll 5 or six times. The matches were not real, but I did win 3 matches. I did not go hard in any of my matches, but I did sweat pretty badly all the same.

12 May 2009

5/11/2009- BJJ

Yesterday, 5/11/2009, I worked all day as I normally do, and got off at my regularly scheduled time. After work, I was scheduled to go in to train crossfit with Coach Jason. I like going to train because it helps me get stronger and more explosive when I do Jiu-Jitsu. I had to go home to change before heading out. I usually let my dog out and check my facebook account. When I got home, I discovered that Jenny (my dog) had gotten into my trash and it was everywhere. Needless to say, I was pretty upset and I had to cancel my crossfit session in order to clean up the mess that she made.

I did get to go train BJJ last night. I made it to the basics class where Andrew taught how to take the back from the turtle position and also from the full guard position. Lo, Karl, Bjorn, and I were at the basics class.

Regular class was packed with Blue belts last night. Snake, Devin, Tommy, Greg Hoder, Big Mark Pushinsky, CLinzy, and I represented the blues. Vince was the lone Purple Belt. Lots of White Belts also. Brian Linzy, Lo, Bjorn, Mark (don’t know his last name), Karl, among others…

Andrew taught the wrist lock and a really cool triangle setup from the guard. We drilled to warm up as usual. I really like getting all the repetitions for the basic movements.

11 May 2009

Copa NoVa Saturday and Open Mat Sunday

Saturday, I competed in my first tournament as a Blue Belt. I had to drive two hours to get to the venue before 9:30 am so that I could weigh in. When I got the, I realized that I could have slept in for a while longer as the weigh-ins were very unorganized.

Andrew, Brian, and Chrissy were doing the bracketing for the tournament. They really do a great job getting the brackets set up.

The tournament itself was very long! I had to wait ALL DAY before I could compete. Normally, with the US Grappling events, the executive (30+ age bracket) goes in the morning and I would be done by 2pm at the latest. With this tournament, my bracket did not get called until 4:30pm. Once my bracket did get called, I was pretty relaxed and ready to go. I tried to sleep earlier in the day but just could not get comfortable.

My first match went alright. I got caught in a baseball bat choke. I would like to say that I won my fist Blue Belt match, but I didn’t. I pulled guard and had a sloppy scissor-half position when I went for a kimura. My opponent crushed my legs to the ground and passed my guard. He then got a hand in my collar and I fought hard to not allow him to get his other hand in. He did eventually get his hand in and checked me. I was pretty discouraged, but Andrew reassured me that it was just my first time as a blue, so I took solace in that. I felt like I should have done better in that match, but oh well it was very good experience.

My next match was much better for me. My opponent pulled guard and started working for submissions. He was pretty aggressive, but I weathered the storm of his attacks and with 30 seconds left in the match, I passed his guard and started working to submit him. We got too close to the edge of the mat and the referee stopped the match and restarted us in the center of the ring. At that point, there was about 10 seconds in the match and all I had to do was hold on and not allow him to reverse the position. In the end, I held on to win. I ended up getting second place overall in my division. It felt so good to get my first win as a blue belt. It is starting to sink in that I can compete at that level.

Jay Rollins (my teammate from downtown), was also there competing. This was his first real tournament. He did the in-house tournament this past December, and has been fairly consistent in his training for the past few months. He is still very new and needs to drill a lot, but he pulled out a 3^rd place finish in White Belt super lightweight. In all, he won 3 matches and showed a lot of heart!

Sunday was open mat at Andrew’s school. I got to roll with Tyler (blue belt from Yamaski), Andrew, Vince, Dax, and Daniel. I felt really good rolling with those guys. My teammates are so good and I feel like they make me better every time that I roll!

08 May 2009

Copa Nova

I am sitting here at work thinking about what my game plan for the Copa Nova should be. I finished my work for the day an hour ago and I have to be here until 3:30, so I am just killing time until then.

I am a little nervous about competing tomorrow. I know that I am in shape enough to go a few rounds, but this will be the first time competing as a Blue Belt. I know that I can hold my own with most Blue Belts out there because the Blues at my school and on my team are tougher than most just about any place else and they are exceptional training partners!

The Kimura from scissor half-guard has been working very well for me lately. I will most likely utilize that at some point tomorrow, but I also want to try other submissions at the same time. I don’t want to be a “one trick pony”. More than likely, the people I will be competing against will have never seen one of my matches, so could probably get it on at least one person.

I am looking forward to going to train Muay Thai and BJJ tonight! I just want to punch stuff in Muay Thai class! I have some anxiety that I need to work out!

I will try to take it easy in BJJ but I definitely want to refine my game plan and sharpen my technique.

Training 5/7/09

Yesterday was pretty uneventful work wise. I really need to get something with benefits! I really like doing what I do, but the people with whom I work is a different story. I am the only mAn in a room of 6 people. The ladies are a diverse group. I will talk more about that at a later date.

On to training last night! Crossfit was pretty good! The WOD’s always look easy on paper yet rarely ever are. Yesterday’s WOD consisted of 12kb swings and 6 knees-to-elbows/6 Romanian chair sit ups AMRAP in 20 minutes. I got through 16 round of the WOD in 20 minutes. I did not want to be on the bottom of the group of athletes that performed this WOD. I wasn’t, BUT I certainly was not the best either.

This was my 3^rd WOD in a row, and when I got there I was pretty tired, but I was happy to make it through. I was also happy that I did not have to do pull ups again this week.

I decided not to go to BJJ at Eric’s. I would have been late to the class, and that is a big no-go for his classes. It is highly disrespectful for any instructor! I think I needed to rest anyway. I have worked out everyday this week and I still have Muay Thai and BJJ on Friday.

My foot is starting to feel better, so I just took it easy after crossfit.

07 May 2009

Training 5/6/2009

- Yesterday was a VERY long day for me! I worked from 6:30am until 3:30pm; (my normal schedule is 7am-3:30pm). Then I changed clothes and went straight to Crossfit. The WOD was:

Run 200m/Row 300m

10 pull ups

15 wall balls

4 rounds for time

- Since my foot is still hurting me, I opted to row using the aerodyne rower. Rowing takes so much more out of you then running. It really is a much better exercise for cardio then running will ever be. I was still sore from doing all the pull ups from the day before also, so my time was not the greatest, but I finished the entire workout in 15:01. I was pretty happy with that time, but I know that I could do better. I need to push myself! I think I held back a little bit because I knew that I still had to go to Muay Thai and BJJ afterwards.

- Muay Thai was fun! Cornell had us working on foot jabs for most of the class. The endurance round was not awful either. It is tough, but there have been some endurance rounds that I thought I might have to throw up. I really like punching things though! Andrew was my training partner again. He always pushes me to keep my hands up even if my arms want to drop and tries to motivate me to do just one more kick or punch right before the end of the round.

- No-Gi night at BJJ. We are working closed guard drills this month. Andrew always starts with the basics and progresses towards the advanced closer to the end of the month. We started with basic warm up drills; kimura from closed guard, arm lock from closed guard, and triangle drills, etc… The technique he taught last night was attacks from the high-bite position. This position is similar to the setup for the arm lock in that you isolate the army that you are attacking and position your body perpendicular to your opponents. The main difference is that instead of kicking your other leg over, you would position your leg over your opponent’s shoulder of the arm being isolated.

- We drilled for most of the class and then we did some situational sparring. Situational sparring is fun because it allows you to work on that single position for the time allotted. If you get a submission, you go back and start over. If your opponent passes your guard or reverses the position, you start over. It’s very nice because you can go all out 100% for the entire time working on that position.

- I was so tired after working out for 4 hours that I didn’t do any rolling after class.

- Andrew, Vince, Myself, Lenny, Antoni, Brian Maltby, Chris Lombard, Joe, and Bjorn were all at class last night. I wish that more people could come in and train more regularly. I would love to see Andrew’s school grow to over 100 full time students.

More tomorrow.

06 May 2009

Training Cinco De Mayo

With the help of my friend Brain, I am now able to write blogs at work and post them to my account. I’m pretty happy about that because I always seem to have an extra 5 or 10 minutes at work, but I NEVER seem to have the time when I am home. The only problem with sending the blogs from work is that the legal disclaimer that shows at the bottom of my blogs. No worries otherwise.

CrossFit was pretty tough last night. Just to look at the WOD (Workout Of the Day), one might think that it is not that bad, BUT believe me, it is! The WOD was:

3 Pull Ups

6 Dips

9 KB Swings

As Many Rounds As Possible (AMRAP) in 30 minutes

I got 19 total rounds. I really started to fade at the end! Total for the workout, I did 57 pull ups, 114 dips, and 171 kb swings. It was so humid in Coach Jason’s gym. He plays the wildest music to workout to also. I feel like I’m stuck in the video game Tetris with the Russian Ballads and Classical music.

After finishing CrossFit, I did not have anything to do so I decided to stop in at Trey’s BJJ class. Trey was not there, but Russ Helm (Brown Belt) was teaching. I got there towards the end of class and the class was already doing situational sparring. They are working on chokes from the back. It was so hot in the facility; I broke out into a sweat as soon as I walked in. I had just stopped sweating from CrossFit.

After we finished doing the situational sparring, we went into a free roll open mat situation. Russ did the time keeping and watched us roll. He gives very good feedback! The rounds were 4 minutes and he expects all out hustle the entire 4 minutes. Once the rounds are over, he made us do burpees and then switch training partners. I thought I was going to throw up! We did this for four rounds. I was really tired!

I finally broke the 220 mark on my weight! I am at 219.5 as of last night. This has been a huge hurdle for me. I am feeling very positive right now about my training and conditioning. Of course there is ALWAYS room for improvement and I being that I am not the best athlete anyway, I need to work harder than everyone else just to be half as good as the next guy. I am motivated to work even harder now though. I want to get back down to the 200 pound mark by the summer time.

5/1/09

I didn’t train last night; instead I opted to do some house work. I have been neglecting my laundry for a while and really needed to get some done. I cleaned the kitchen, living room, and bathroom last night.

I have guard duty this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Drills are typically very boring. Hurry up and wait is the name of the game. My section is very busy dispatching vehicles and running reports on Friday night and Saturday’s are usually slow. Sunday is the day for the mechanics to turn the vehicles back in and we get busy again at the end of the day. The mechanics usually will perform a variety of tasks during the weekend. They could do anything from change the oil to transmission work. They work on all the wheeled vehicles in the battalion. We are part of an aviation battalion, so there are not a ton of vehicles, but the ones that we do have, we take care of.

I am excited because I get my enlistment bonus in July or August. I’m trying to figure out what I should do with the money. One weekend, I will be traveling to Tampa, Fl for my buddy Brian who is getting married. I am pretty excited to go down there as I have never been. From what I understand, it is very beautiful year round. August may be a little hot, but that will not bother me too badly.

Of course, most of the money will be put into savings, but I do plan to do a few things. I’m going to get another tattoo at some point, and I would love to go to Vegas!

30 April 2009

Muay Thai & No-Gi training

Muay Thai training is so much fun! Cornell taught a way to setup the clinch and to start throwing knees. It felt really good throwing knees! The endurance rounds are getting easier for me to go hard the whole time. The first time I did an endurance round, I though I was going to die. My shoulders were tight and it hurt to even keep my hands up to block my face from getting hit. Even though the workouts have become more difficult with more complex combinations of punches and kicks, I really like it a lot!

It is very easy to get frustration out when punching the focus pads. Andrew was my training partner. He is in really good shape and I don’t want to hinder his training, so I feel like I need to keep up with his pace which in turn helps me build up my stamina and endurance.

No-Gi night for Jiu-Jitsu. Andrew continued his lesson for the deep half-guard. He showed two entrances to the position and two really cool sweeps from the position. It is a really cool position. I think this is going to be a strong part of my game for a while.

After the technique part of class, I rolled with Andrew, Lenny, Vince, Jason Taylor, and Brian Maltby. I find myself getting into the position fairly easily with most people. Andrew is amazing. I have trouble doing anything with him. I know what he is going to do and I still cannot even slow him down. Of course it might be that he is a black belt and VERY good at what he does!

I like rolling with Vince because he will let you get into a position and work. I like to try new setups and positions with him. Vince is one of the coolest people that I have ever met in my life!

My foot still hurts but not nearly as bad as it has been the past few days. The bruising is starting to go away and it is not as swollen either.

29 April 2009

4/29/09

My right foot still hurts to put any kind of pressure on it. I hurt it at the Submission Only tournament this past weekend in Winchester. I knew exactly when it happened, but I was not about to let my opponent win because of an injury to my pinky toe. I would never live that down. I just made sure that I submitted him that much faster.

I seem to be getting hurt a lot lately. I think my age and lack of good dietary habits are starting to catch up with me. I have been talking about making a change in my diet for a while now, and for the longest time I could eat whatever I wanted because I was exercising so much. Now, my body does not seem to recover quite as quickly as it once did, so I need to focus on it much more if I want to continue training. Which I desperately want to do!

I was awarded my Blue Belt on Monday, 4/27/2009 by Andrew. I was not really able to roll after class like I wanted due to my foot injury. I was very disappointed as I felt such pride from being promoted! I am really looking forward to training tonight though. I will take it easy, but I have to train.

- In other news, I finished my work @ 11:30am this morning and I have been surfing the internet most of the afternoon trying to look busy. My day starts at 7am and I normally work until 3:30pm. I really like this schedule, especially with the summer quickly approaching!

- I did crossfit last night with Coach Jason. The Workout of the Day (WOD) was to do 50 wall balls/50 pull ups, 30 wall balls/30 pull ups, 10 wall balls/10 pull ups. For those that don’t know, a wall ball is the act of doing a front squat and going directly into a thruster while shot putting a 20 pound medicine ball to a target 10 feet high. You might be thinking “I could throw a 20 pound ball 10 feet in the air with no problem.” You might be right for abound ten or fifteen; but try doing it for 50 without stopping, and then going straight into the 50 pull ups and then going back to the wall balls for 30 reps and so on… It is very difficult and I was EXHAUSTED!

28 April 2009

Blue Belt

Last night I was awarded my Blue Belt by Andrew Smith. He has been my instructor and friend for almost three years. I feel very fortunate to have him as an instructor. When I met him, I was going through a very tough time in my life. I had just gotten divorced and laid off from my work. Andrew got me to come in and try a class out just to see if it might be something that I might want to take up. During my first class, I threw up; but I got right back to training and finished the class out. I was hooked! Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu allowed me to "let go" of the ouside world and just focus on training. You really cannot think about anything but training otherwise you will get hurt.

Over the past 3 years, I have trained pretty consistently; although there are times that I took away from training, but after some prodding by Andrew, I got right back to it.

I am by no means the greatest athlete in the world, but I have a pretty solid work ethic and will not quit on anything.

I was really happy that my great friends Trey Martin, Brian & Chrissy Linzy, Big Mark Pushinsky, Vince Newton, Lo, Greg Hoder, and others were there to share this great day with me.

Andrew, Trey & Vince each threw me as part of the traditional promotion.

It meant the world to me that Andrew and Trey each said very nice things about me. Trey is another one of my instructors, and I train occasionally at his school.

Through Jiu-Jitsu, I have found not only good instruction, friends, but also a family and I would do anything for anyone of them.

05 March 2009

Not Enough Hours in the Day

I feel like I don't have time for anything outside of my normal day to day life. I get to work between 7 and 7:30am and work until around 4:30 or 5pm. Once I leave work, I head home for a quick second to let my dog Jenny outside before I head to either Crossfit, BJJ, Muay Thai, and I have even been swimming when I get a wild hair. I do some combination of this training just about every day. The only exception is Thursday night, when I only do crossfit; and I can't do it tonight because I have to work late. I want to try to go train at Richmond BJJ tonight at 7. I'll see how it goes with work though. I am off tomorrow (due to National Guard weekend drill) and I don't want anyone to have to do my work on top of thier own.

I am getting to a point where I am ready to get back to dating seriously, but I don't know where I would find the time. I love my routines, and don't want to let anyone down mainly myself by letting my training fall off after I have been working so hard the past few months on getting in shape.

There are many things I love about my life, but there are a few others that I would like to change.

02 March 2009

Blogging

I was talking with Brain last Friday night about how I read his blogs as well as a few other friends' as a part of my day at work and he mentioned that I should start a blog. I signed in to my Gmail account to get started blogging and low and behold, I found a blog that I had written when I first started training BJJ (2006).

It was really strange reading it. I thought about the feelings that I had when I wrote that, and how I feel now. I still love training BJJ! Although I have gained some of the weight back that I lost, I feel as though I am in better overall condition. I know that I am MUCH stronger than I was back then due to training Crossfit. Crossfit is one of the hardest thing that I have ever done! A different workout everyday, and they are designed to stress you physically and mentally.

In February, I started learning Muay Thai Boxing. I feel TOTALLY awkward when I kick! My shoulders constantly hurt from a combination of punching and holding pads for my training partner. Not to mention crossfit. Muay Thai is mostly cardio for me at this point. I have no desire to ever fight. I guess at some point (like BJJ) it will stop hurting so bad and I will be able to finish a full round of punching/holding pads...

My parents are going to come to watch me compete in two weeks at the US Grappling (www.usgrappling.us) event. I am pretty nervous as they have not seen me compete since High School. I have confidence in my technique, but my mind gets in the way of me competing. So, I am hoping that I will do well this time. recently, I been doing pretty well competing, but I think this might be my last competition. We will see...I used to really like competing in high school, but I just don't get as fired up as I used to.

Lots to write, I will try to start writing everyday.