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.

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!

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.