Sadly due to the holidays I haven't really been able to train. It's been one thing after another and I am fairly disappointed in myself. I can feel my body weakening, and it's driving me crazy. There are two elements that are holding me back at the moment. The first being that my sleep habits have been totally destroyed. As of right now I fall asleep at 7 am and wake up at 3pm. It's horrible, and I really have no idea how to fix it. Secondly I have no real motivation. I've been training in many different forms of martial arts for the last 16 years, and I no longer know why I continued to do so at all.
Some people train in order to stay in shape, while others immerse themselves in the art. Initially I had wanted to be strong, but that goal is far to broad to specifically state why I want to be strong. I can already handle myself in a fight, and have been able to do so for a long time. Once you reach a goal, what do you do? I can't find that answer. I can continue to train and learn nothing based on my lack of motivation or I can stop for a bit and compose myself; neither seems like a good option. I want to compete, this year, but why? In high school I wasn't allowed to partake in sports, based on the decisions made by my mother it was what she felt would be the best for me. The fact is it wasn't and I missed out on quite a bit growing up in those awkward years. I do indeed wish to experience the camaraderie that comes with competing on the mat, but is there a better reason?
Hopefully, as I reflect on this problem this weekend, I'll come to suitable answer. I feel as though I've already grasped it, but I'm not sure I have the whole concept correctly placed in my mind. I hate myself when I don't train, but is that enough to ensure I do it as much as I should?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The grand opening of the new facility
It seems as though Sundays will be the day I update the blog, I was hoping to post more regularly but since Finals have been destroying my extracurricular activities there hasn’t been anything going on over the last few weeks. I figured since Matt Lindland fought last night today would be the perfect time to bust out this post, regarding the seminar I attended where both Lindland and Dan Henderson came to the gym. It makes sense since they both showed up on Strikeforce last night.
On December 5th I woke up far earlier than I normally would. Generally I sleep in till noon on the weekened, but today was special. It was the grand opening of Team Quest Redding, the fight club where I train whenever I find time to do so. Redding has been blessed with quite a few black belts spread between the two main gyms up here, so for the most part we are mainly grapplers. That was one of the reasons why this seminar was so important, with 9 BJJ classes (and two submission wrestling classes, making it of 11 grappling classes) a week, but only two classes for standup, means this would give everyone some much needed instruction.
Since the seminar started at 10am I showed up 15minutes early, in order to stretch and pump myself up. As I’ve stated in the first blog entry I haven’t trained in well over a year, my first class back had been two weeks prior to this event, and I was pretty nervous. Generally with so many people in the gym we wouldn’t do warm-ups, but for some reason we did. For a big guy, like myself, warm-ups are pretty dreadful in general so I was pleasantly surprised when I made it all the way through without having to slow my pace down. The only thing I had problems with was pushups, mainly because I fear I’ll dislocate my shoulder. After the warm-ups we paired up and got to work. Since it’s been a while I didn’t really know anyone, so I got paired up with this random guy. His name was Ryan, he turned out to be a great guy who came up from Santa Rosa to train with us. He actually trains at our Pure BJJ club down in Santa Rosa, which is cool. So we started off working on our Clinch game. Hendo was taking us through the steps leading into the clinch, and what to do after you’ve achieved the clinch. I learned some interesting techniques that I’ll probably use whenever I get a chance to do so. Sadly he didn’t go into takedowns, mainly covered the striking aspects of the clinch.
After a little over an hour of Hendo teaching the group Matt stepped in. He’s a cool guy, easy to talk to, and I’m wondering why he hasn’t started to focus on coaching rather than fighting. Matt focused primarily on the ground game, and how to deal with the BJJers…which is ironic for more than one reason. One of the youth instructors stepped in to demonstrate, and Matt was able to control him while on the ground fairly well. As Ryan and I worked on our skills something horrible happened, I ended up slipping on the mat, due to the ridiculous amount of sweat on the floor, and dropping my entire weight onto his ribs. Normally this wouldn’t have been an issue, but Ryan already had a preexisting injury so I ended up breaking his ribs. I felt horrible about it and Ryan if you read this blog I am sorry, though you’re probably tired of hearing this. So Ryan, being the trooper that he is, continued to train. I lasted the entire 2 and a half hour of training and felt pretty good aside from ruining my training partner. We took a team photo and called it a day.
3 hours later I arrived in order to get a pair of Hendo tapout shirts signed, the line was pretty ridiculous. There was free food and drinks but no one really took advantage of it, rather we all waited in line to get our stuff signed. After 2 hours of waiting in line I wanted to hang myself, but finally made it to the table. Hendo was cool, even remembered my name…though I do standout, it was neat. Carlos, the gym owner, tossed me the Gi I had ordered weeks ago but had arrived the day before, and I made my way home to sleep. It was a great experience, and I can’t wait for the next seminar.
On another interesting note last week I won some Manto gear from FightTrends.com. They do drawings every few weeks and it’s a great chance to get gear. There’s a few different ways to enter, and it looks as though Hayabusa or Jaco will be next manufacturers for the equipment. Check it out; Cody is the administrator and posts regularly on the Sherdog.net forums. Happy Holidays, I hope you all get in some training because whenever I don’t I feel horrible. Till next time, be safe.
On December 5th I woke up far earlier than I normally would. Generally I sleep in till noon on the weekened, but today was special. It was the grand opening of Team Quest Redding, the fight club where I train whenever I find time to do so. Redding has been blessed with quite a few black belts spread between the two main gyms up here, so for the most part we are mainly grapplers. That was one of the reasons why this seminar was so important, with 9 BJJ classes (and two submission wrestling classes, making it of 11 grappling classes) a week, but only two classes for standup, means this would give everyone some much needed instruction.
Since the seminar started at 10am I showed up 15minutes early, in order to stretch and pump myself up. As I’ve stated in the first blog entry I haven’t trained in well over a year, my first class back had been two weeks prior to this event, and I was pretty nervous. Generally with so many people in the gym we wouldn’t do warm-ups, but for some reason we did. For a big guy, like myself, warm-ups are pretty dreadful in general so I was pleasantly surprised when I made it all the way through without having to slow my pace down. The only thing I had problems with was pushups, mainly because I fear I’ll dislocate my shoulder. After the warm-ups we paired up and got to work. Since it’s been a while I didn’t really know anyone, so I got paired up with this random guy. His name was Ryan, he turned out to be a great guy who came up from Santa Rosa to train with us. He actually trains at our Pure BJJ club down in Santa Rosa, which is cool. So we started off working on our Clinch game. Hendo was taking us through the steps leading into the clinch, and what to do after you’ve achieved the clinch. I learned some interesting techniques that I’ll probably use whenever I get a chance to do so. Sadly he didn’t go into takedowns, mainly covered the striking aspects of the clinch.
After a little over an hour of Hendo teaching the group Matt stepped in. He’s a cool guy, easy to talk to, and I’m wondering why he hasn’t started to focus on coaching rather than fighting. Matt focused primarily on the ground game, and how to deal with the BJJers…which is ironic for more than one reason. One of the youth instructors stepped in to demonstrate, and Matt was able to control him while on the ground fairly well. As Ryan and I worked on our skills something horrible happened, I ended up slipping on the mat, due to the ridiculous amount of sweat on the floor, and dropping my entire weight onto his ribs. Normally this wouldn’t have been an issue, but Ryan already had a preexisting injury so I ended up breaking his ribs. I felt horrible about it and Ryan if you read this blog I am sorry, though you’re probably tired of hearing this. So Ryan, being the trooper that he is, continued to train. I lasted the entire 2 and a half hour of training and felt pretty good aside from ruining my training partner. We took a team photo and called it a day.
3 hours later I arrived in order to get a pair of Hendo tapout shirts signed, the line was pretty ridiculous. There was free food and drinks but no one really took advantage of it, rather we all waited in line to get our stuff signed. After 2 hours of waiting in line I wanted to hang myself, but finally made it to the table. Hendo was cool, even remembered my name…though I do standout, it was neat. Carlos, the gym owner, tossed me the Gi I had ordered weeks ago but had arrived the day before, and I made my way home to sleep. It was a great experience, and I can’t wait for the next seminar.
On another interesting note last week I won some Manto gear from FightTrends.com. They do drawings every few weeks and it’s a great chance to get gear. There’s a few different ways to enter, and it looks as though Hayabusa or Jaco will be next manufacturers for the equipment. Check it out; Cody is the administrator and posts regularly on the Sherdog.net forums. Happy Holidays, I hope you all get in some training because whenever I don’t I feel horrible. Till next time, be safe.
Monday, December 14, 2009
A little bit of background
In all honesty I have no idea if anyone reads this blog, and perhaps no one has even looked at it. But if anyone is keeping an eye on it, well I apologize for the late update. For those of you who attend college you all know how hard it is to deal with finals, and since I am transferring to a University it makes things even more Hectic.
In this update I’ve decided to talk about my background, as well as the experience I have when it comes to fighting. Some of it is bad, some of it is good, but it all comes down to your opinion. For me “fighting” really began to take over my life in Elementary School. We all know how cruel children can be, and when I was growing up I was picked on quite a bit. After more than a few school yard fights I asked my Uncle what I should do, this turned out to be my first mistake. Over the following weeks my Uncle taught me everything he had learned on the streets, from the basics of how to throw a punch to fighting multiple opponents. Probably the best piece of advice he gave me was: “Break the knee.” (Kind of like “sweep the leg”). Essentially these “lessons” led me to hurt a few kids pretty badly, which ended up mentally harming me as well.
A few years passed and I was fairly introverted, the other kids knew what I had done so I was left alone for the most part. During this time of “peace” I experienced something that haunts me to this day; a cousin of mine had lost control and ended up strangling me until I was unconscious, and held on well past that point. I was more than a little depressed after that incident, and the school councilor picked up on it. After my near death experience I changed, whenever someone hit me I’d black out and come to standing over someone. I didn’t tell anyone about it at that time, since I didn’t realize what was going on, but my Mother decided that it was time for me to learn martial arts, thus I started TMAs.
TKD was essentially the first step in my evolution. Growing up in the Bay Area there are number of gyms, fight clubs, and health centers and you really have your pick of what you want to do. The academy I ended up going too was merely close to home, but it ended up teaching me something. By doing TKD and Capereira (poor spelling is a failing of mine) I learned that I actually liked training. But it only took a year for me to become bored, mainly from the lack of progression at the gym, and I started to sample other things.
High School was a fairly boring period in my life; I was still dealing with being traumatized when I was younger, so I kept to myself. A friend of mine taught me some Aikido, but aside from that all I did was brawl when I had too. There was no certain style that I favored, there was really nothing to me other than taking shots and keep on going.
After High School I experienced a cooling off period, I really just hung out and lifted weights. My cardio was fairly poor, but it really didn’t matter to me at the time. It wasn’t until I was 20 that I discovered Mixed Martial Arts, and more specifically my love for boxing and Muay Thai. My first MMA class occurred at MODCOM, a great gym in Berkley near UCB. I was only there for a week, but I learned the basics and continued to hone them on my own. The reason I only stayed there for a week is simple, I had quit my job to explore other options and ended up moving up to Redding. It was essentially three years of drilling by myself, working on my stance and my striking while I lifted. When I turned 22 I decided to return to “normal training”, but ended up studying Shotokon Karate while I searched for the perfect gym. This actually had some good effects on me; it allowed me to be an overweight guy that had some decent cardio.
Once I found Axis Academy, I was sure I wanted to train there, and in the sport in general. I had come to the realization that MMA was something I needed, and I couldn’t be without it. I had six great months of training at Axis, ending with a seminar by Saulo Rebeiro which is one of the greatest moments of my life. Then, as it usually happens, I ended up getting injured. Within the span of a few months I was hit by a car, and also fell on my head which resulted in neurological issues. Essentially was screwed. It took me over a year and a half to get myself back in order, physical therapy and building enough confidence to come back took some time. I did learn something important though, I am not invincible, just close to being so. On a more serious note, I learned that I hate myself when I don’t train, and that’s not something I enjoy.
Now I am back, though I am only cleared to do BJJ, and I am training again.
Next post will cover something that happened last week, the seminar I attended that was taught by Matt LIndland and Dan Henderson.
Sorry for the long post, but yeah. I think it had to be done.
In this update I’ve decided to talk about my background, as well as the experience I have when it comes to fighting. Some of it is bad, some of it is good, but it all comes down to your opinion. For me “fighting” really began to take over my life in Elementary School. We all know how cruel children can be, and when I was growing up I was picked on quite a bit. After more than a few school yard fights I asked my Uncle what I should do, this turned out to be my first mistake. Over the following weeks my Uncle taught me everything he had learned on the streets, from the basics of how to throw a punch to fighting multiple opponents. Probably the best piece of advice he gave me was: “Break the knee.” (Kind of like “sweep the leg”). Essentially these “lessons” led me to hurt a few kids pretty badly, which ended up mentally harming me as well.
A few years passed and I was fairly introverted, the other kids knew what I had done so I was left alone for the most part. During this time of “peace” I experienced something that haunts me to this day; a cousin of mine had lost control and ended up strangling me until I was unconscious, and held on well past that point. I was more than a little depressed after that incident, and the school councilor picked up on it. After my near death experience I changed, whenever someone hit me I’d black out and come to standing over someone. I didn’t tell anyone about it at that time, since I didn’t realize what was going on, but my Mother decided that it was time for me to learn martial arts, thus I started TMAs.
TKD was essentially the first step in my evolution. Growing up in the Bay Area there are number of gyms, fight clubs, and health centers and you really have your pick of what you want to do. The academy I ended up going too was merely close to home, but it ended up teaching me something. By doing TKD and Capereira (poor spelling is a failing of mine) I learned that I actually liked training. But it only took a year for me to become bored, mainly from the lack of progression at the gym, and I started to sample other things.
High School was a fairly boring period in my life; I was still dealing with being traumatized when I was younger, so I kept to myself. A friend of mine taught me some Aikido, but aside from that all I did was brawl when I had too. There was no certain style that I favored, there was really nothing to me other than taking shots and keep on going.
After High School I experienced a cooling off period, I really just hung out and lifted weights. My cardio was fairly poor, but it really didn’t matter to me at the time. It wasn’t until I was 20 that I discovered Mixed Martial Arts, and more specifically my love for boxing and Muay Thai. My first MMA class occurred at MODCOM, a great gym in Berkley near UCB. I was only there for a week, but I learned the basics and continued to hone them on my own. The reason I only stayed there for a week is simple, I had quit my job to explore other options and ended up moving up to Redding. It was essentially three years of drilling by myself, working on my stance and my striking while I lifted. When I turned 22 I decided to return to “normal training”, but ended up studying Shotokon Karate while I searched for the perfect gym. This actually had some good effects on me; it allowed me to be an overweight guy that had some decent cardio.
Once I found Axis Academy, I was sure I wanted to train there, and in the sport in general. I had come to the realization that MMA was something I needed, and I couldn’t be without it. I had six great months of training at Axis, ending with a seminar by Saulo Rebeiro which is one of the greatest moments of my life. Then, as it usually happens, I ended up getting injured. Within the span of a few months I was hit by a car, and also fell on my head which resulted in neurological issues. Essentially was screwed. It took me over a year and a half to get myself back in order, physical therapy and building enough confidence to come back took some time. I did learn something important though, I am not invincible, just close to being so. On a more serious note, I learned that I hate myself when I don’t train, and that’s not something I enjoy.
Now I am back, though I am only cleared to do BJJ, and I am training again.
Next post will cover something that happened last week, the seminar I attended that was taught by Matt LIndland and Dan Henderson.
Sorry for the long post, but yeah. I think it had to be done.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
A quick introduction
To be honest this is my first blog, and due to that fact it will be nowhere near perfect. There are a few reasons why I’ve taken it upon myself to document my training, first being it will keep me on track. Having a training log where I update it once every few days ensures that I will actually train. It also allows me to share my experiences when it comes mixed martial arts, and in particular grappling.
Over the last sixteen years I’ve studied many different forms of combat, though I have leaned heavily in what is considered TMA (traditional martial arts) over the last four years I have begun to focus on more modern forms of striking as well as grappling. Right now I am training at Team Quest Redding, one of the newer locations in California. I’m trying my best to improve myself, in both mind and body, and take my abilities to the next level.
Over the last Seventeen months I have been sidelined due to an injury, and because of that I am essentially starting over from scratch. My body no longer moves the way I want it too, or the way I remember it. I believe that these circumstances make my experience unique, and thus I am writing it done for anyone else who is in a similar situation.
This is merely the first post, the next will include some biographical information, my martial arts background (in more depth), and the training I was lucky enough to be a part of today.
This is merely the beginning of my Odyssey, Act 1 starts now.
Over the last sixteen years I’ve studied many different forms of combat, though I have leaned heavily in what is considered TMA (traditional martial arts) over the last four years I have begun to focus on more modern forms of striking as well as grappling. Right now I am training at Team Quest Redding, one of the newer locations in California. I’m trying my best to improve myself, in both mind and body, and take my abilities to the next level.
Over the last Seventeen months I have been sidelined due to an injury, and because of that I am essentially starting over from scratch. My body no longer moves the way I want it too, or the way I remember it. I believe that these circumstances make my experience unique, and thus I am writing it done for anyone else who is in a similar situation.
This is merely the first post, the next will include some biographical information, my martial arts background (in more depth), and the training I was lucky enough to be a part of today.
This is merely the beginning of my Odyssey, Act 1 starts now.
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