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.

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.

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.

How BJJ saved my life

BJJ saved my life in a real way that most people cannot imagine...I was going through some very rough times emotionally because of my divorce and separation, and professionally. I ran into Andrew Smith. He runs the Revolution BJJ school in the west end of Richmond. At the time I had thoughts of suicide and death all the time...Not to mention, I was fat and out of shape and had diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. If I did not make a change, I was headed down the road of a major heart attack or some other health problem.

He presented the opportunity to train at his school. I made some excuses for a month or two and finally came in to train. My first night training, I threw up and got right back in there and finished the night. I was hooked! It was almost like when I used to wrestle in high school but much more intense...I guess I was about 250 pounds and totally out of shape! My pant size was 44 and I got out of breath walking from my truck to my building...I had been weight training for a while and was getting stronger, but still had no cardiovascular conditioning.
I continued to weight train and train in BJJ. Tonight, I weighed in at 202, and my pant size is 34...My confidence is through the roof with how good I am starting to look and feel! I no longer have diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol.

Physically, I feel great! Not to mention the physical transformation that has taken place, I made some very good friends. Thanks to Andrew Smith and Revolution BJJ for saving my life! I owe you!