One week

well, in exactly one week I will be in the state grappling tournament. I am pretty excited, if nothing else I want to get it over with so I can stop being so nervous about it.

Sorry for being a sucky blogger

Well I didn't go to either class this week. Not for them being canceled, life just got in the way. I also severely neglected Fitocracy, I haven't had any exercise to log in nearly 10 days. I truly do feel crappier when I don't exercise regularly. I guess that's probably a hint huh?

Another no class :(

Bummed out, instructor is sick. Sometimes life just really gets in the way. A few days late but oh well.

Todays class 6

Woke up today with a text message that there would be some open sparring at 1115. Hooray!! except I am a third shifter and didn't wake up until after noon and wasn't ready to roll out of bed until after 1. But there was class tonight which is always good. We did a horribly painful warm up that was just awful but the rest of it was grappling sparing. We ended with some take down work on the grappling dummy and then the night was over all to quickly.

About me update.

So I have to make an update on the about me section. The other day I stepped on the scales and they read 263 which is a lot better than the 271 I have seen in the past. I have also dropped my insulin back down to the 65 units that the doctor put me on and the weight is going back down. Gee who would have thought that I should have listened to my doctor!? Oh well I am calling myself right around 265 until I can stay under 260 so now I am only 15 pounds heavier than when I started.

Today's Class 5

Well as promised today's class was a quick warm up and consisted of a round robin style of grappling sparring. There were three of us so it was spar one person, then the other, then sit out for a match, then back in for two. It is still really frustrating sparring another heavyweight, especially when he is a lot stronger than me. he he gets me stuck on my back that's it. He is just so heavy I can't move, and then it is only a matter of time before he finds his way around to a kimura. However positionally if I get on top I can usually keep dominant positions for the length of the round. The first half of class was gi, then the last half was no gi. Towards the end I somehow got a bloody nose that took forever to stop bleeding. I had to use one of those quick clot strips stuffed up my nose to finally get it to stop.

No classes

Bummed out because the last two classes have been canceled.... SIGH!.. I did manage to stay busy with some exercise and playing around with Fitocracy some more. I am now level 9!! Class tonight though I have been promised will be straight grappling sparring and I could not be more excited about that. I was starting to freak out that the State Open Grappling Tournament is now only 24 days away and all I want is time on the mats. On the downside though I have been neglecting my exercise of the month. Partly due to not having room to jump rope inside and now it is getting down to freezing temperatures outside. But that is just an excuse and to borrow a saying that I picked up several years ago from watching The Unit. "That is an excuse and the maximum effective range of an excuse is exactly zero meters!" Can't wait for tonight's class though.

Modified Loop Choke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MSZ5ygriC4k

Found this video on this blog and I love it, both the technique and the blog. Short sweet simple choke I can't wait to start practicing .

Anaconda Choke

http://youtu.be/bFHL3Swv_Fc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcl-ZOFgkXY&feature=related

Technique posts.

So I told a friend at class who has around the same amount of time on the mats as I do that I had some youtube videos saved that I had been watching because I thought they were fairly basic moves I might not be too dense to learn before I go into the state tournament. So if it seems like I am spamming youtube videos it is because I am....

State open grappling tournament is less than one month away!

I have already sent in my paperwork and registered to compete in both gi and no-gi. I should be in the novice division and defiantly still qualify as a super heavyweight. I stepped on the scales yesterday and am still sitting at 270 lbs. It is coming up quick, and I don't know how to feel about it. Sometimes I am excited and cannot wait, then sometimes I am convinced this is going to be a waste of money because I am going to get completely steamrolled.

Since it is a grappling tournament I should meet a lot of BJJ guys so I am hoping they all have that laid back chillax attitude I keep hearing about. I don't mind losing it is just easier to accept defeat to a humble winner. I don't know how many fights I will have but for some reason I have the numbers 1 and 12 stuck in my head so I figure I might win by points in one of my matches, and then just lose the next twelve in a row or something.

I have read enough other blogs and articles to know I should just stop bitching and go because win lose or draw it will (hopefully) make me a better martial artist for the experience. I say martial artist because I have to keep reminding myself I go to an MMA gym and don't actually study BJJ.  All in all I think I just posted the worst run on rambling in history but missing class and having the tournament so close has made my head a little 'rambly' anyway.

class cancled.

Today's class was canceled, which really had me bummed out because I wasn't notified of it being canceled until I was already there waiting for people to show up. I went home and attempted to exercise I threw in my Kenpo X dvd and started it. I got about fifteen minutes into it when my decides that she needed to occupy my private workout space. "Don't worry I won't even pay attention to you."...... Well frustration, and annoyance got the better of me and I never did finish the video. The good news is class is rescheduled for tomorrow. The bad news is I am working tomorrow and turned down a special job detail today because of class, so now it has cost me hours at time and a half plus a call in bonus and I can't go to the class tomorrow. So I am just bummed in general. I will throw something together for a workout though because I can't let my body be lazy until next class which should be Monday.

Todays class 4

We had a simple warm up that killed my abs. We had all pretty much stretched out and then we were told the warm up was 20 pull ups, 30 push ups, 40 sit ups, 50 squats. After that we all got in a circle and held a plank position while one by one we took turns low crawling underneath everyone until we got back to our original position, then it was back in plank and the next persons turn.

The class itself I felt really good with we refreshed the sweep we learned last week and added an arm bar to it, then it was sparring. First no gi then in gi. I felt pretty good with my performance. I was starting to see openings for submissions and was able to actually practice my transitions rather than just getting stuck on my back the whole time fighting off side mount and knee on belly.

Goal of the month 2

Jump roping, that is what I am going to be doing for October. September was National Yoga month and I cannot find any national exercises for October. I decided I will be working on my jump roping. I bought a 'speed rope' from the local sporting goods store and it works amazing compared to the nylon rope I had tried before. I did 250 reps, or hops or whatever they are called and I was out of breath and my legs were burning before I was done. I was a little sad that fitocracy doesn't track reps and I should have looked at my watch first. I just guessed 5 minutes but I will be tracking total reps for the month. Unfortunately my 250 tonight don't count because it's not October yet. 

National Yoga Month Update.

Ok I know it's not exactly the end of the month just yet, but I am calling it close enough. I have stuck with it for the month and I actually think I am going to make an effort to keep doing it at least occasionally because it has really helped me loosen up the muscles in the back of my legs allowing me to for the first time ever last night to be able to lock my legs out and bend over for enough, not just enough to touch the floor, but place my palm flat on the ground.

For the most part at least all of my sessions were 20 minutes, lots of them being 25 minutes and a couple 30 minute sessions. My grand total for national yoga month was was 3:55:00. # hours and 55 minutes of yoga broke down over eleven different sessions which is worth a total of 5,853 experience points on fitocracy. I enjoy it I guess, and I think it will continue to be a supplement to my exercising.

Now I need to come out with a goal for October!!!

Todays class 3

The warm up for class was the most absolutely ridiculous thing I have ever seen!! It was a forever long obstacle course involving lots of jumping, jump roping in sets of 100 and one of the worst things was 'box jumping' on a tractor trailer tire as high as my knees. This immediately killed my quads and ruined my life for the rest of the warm up.

The drilling was ok we reviewed the single leg sweep take down and learned some cool new things about how to work your guard and make distance. It looked alot like the GJJ punch block series. We finished with some flow rolling. I was so beat after the warm up and class. I had myself convinced that I was never coming back again and like usual by the end of class I had forgotten how much I hated the beginning.

Todays class 2

Today we started out with some bjj drills after warm ups. First it was breaking guard to mount, then it was attacking the far arm from side mount, followed with a drill where we started out attacking the far arm from side mount, but if we failed to pin the arm closest to us and they try to A-frame out of it you switch to armbar the arm closest to you. We finished with full mma shark bait. I went first to get it out of the way there were four of us so it was a three minute round, a one minute break, then the next round, etc.

I felt tired going into class, and never really lost that tired feeling. I performed ok in the grappling portion of the mma sparing. I used some small things I had picked up from a couple of classes again. It is weird but what my brain is remembering is stuff that the newest brown belt has been teaching me when he subs in small portions as a student teacher.

Physically have yellow belt now!

today was a great class. We did an awful warm up with jumping rope and various agility ladder things. Walking plyo push ups down a ladder is just all sorts of awful. Then I finally physically got my yellow belt today which was great, it feels more official now.

We gi'ed up and did lots of repetitions of 'hip control' stuff. We started with small groups doing a waist lock take down then moved to a round robing thing where one person is in  the middle and will get attacked one by one by everyone in the class and they have to use the move we just practiced. Then we did a standing arm drag in small groups followed by round robin again. Our last exercise of the night was a standing triangle to a single leg reap to an armbar. Again first in small groups then round robin. Somewhere in there I grappled with T who is due for his black belt soon towards the end of the month. I ended up getting rear naked choked.

All in all tonight was full of fun shenanigans and I loved it. We ended with some stretching and discussion about the upcoming grappling tournament. I left feeling energized and excitedly waiting for the tourney coming up. I don't know an official date yet but somewhere in mid November.

why am I so lazy?

I don't really know... Because I am is the best response I can come up with. We grappled a lot tonight it was just the gi jacket. I got tapped out a lot tonight too. I got to attempt a version of a loop choke, it didn't hold. That was about it I spent the rest of the night getting tapped by everyone. It truly is crazy how different things are with the gi vs without. We ended the night with some kick boxing and I am wiped out for tonight.

In other news I tried the jump rope I bought out yesterday. I am disappoint :( it had a nylon rope that carried no momentum whatsoever. I should have just bought a kids plastic rope like the ones we have in our gym I like those much better.

I don't think I am hitting that wall again like I was when I first started posting. My blood sugars have been much higher lately because of a bad diet and forgetting to take multiple doses of insulin. So fingers crossed this is all my blood sugar and when I go back to class again Thursday my sugars will be better and so will my motivation.

Finally a mostly BJJ night

I was excited about how much class was just awful tonight. Our warm up took nearly an hour and I thought I was going to pass out. It was a some sort of hellish obstacle course that our main instructor thought up from some where. It started out outside in the MMA cage with 100 single under jump ropes, then Squat jumps down the length of the battleing ropes and back. Once you got back it was 30 swings on each arm and then 30 double swings with the rope to then have to bang out another 100 reps on the jump ropes. After that we would run inside, take the stairs 2 at a time to find four agility ladders laid out on the floor. First complete agility ladder was some weird football exercise high stepping through them and after each ladder it was 5 pushups. We did a total of six complete circles on the agility ladder mixing up the exercises each time around just to run back to the MMA cage to re run the jump/battling rope circuit. It took forever and I felt like I was gonna puke. Then we put Gi's on and did some BJJ drills.

The move of tonight was the Kimura. We drilled that a lot and then went on to a very slow sharkbait exercise. Everyone was told to go maybe 50% and reset after every submission. It was fun and relaxed and I felt less retarded at that pace than I usually do. For example if I got armbarred from mount after I tapped we would reset with me rolling in like I fought off the submission and we would do that until it was time to switch partners or someone tapped again. It was very relaxed, and low pressure. I felt like I actually had time to think things through I got a lot out of tonights class.

Todays class

Today seemed like kind of a light class. We did not destroy ourselves with some brutal boot camp type work out which I was relieved for. We did some light rolling to warm up with. Then we put on shins and 16's and kick boxed for most of class. We ended with some rolling.

Because of the rolling I now have to hobble around. I was stubborn in letting my guard go no matter how hard my partner dug his elbows into my thighs on the inside a bit above the knees. There are nerve bundles there that do not enjoy being pressed on with an elbow and it hurts. Now I have some pretty good bruises developing right in those spots. I though I was rolling pretty good but ended up getting heel hooked. I was a little bit sad we didn't do gi grappling but oh well I will live. On the last roll there it was pretty much a stalemate. I did get the chance to try an armbar from mount but it didn't work out, however I don't think I have been able to give that one a shot yet. I have class again tomorrow and it will be interesting to see what happens with my knee/thigh bruising.

Yoga update

So far I have been doing yoga fairly regularly in celebration of September being national yoga month. Today is the first time I have felt and physical effects from it. I have been walking around for most of the evening wondering why the tops of my thighs have felt sore like I have been doing a bunch of squats. Then I realized that the night before I was doing yoga and decided I could hold the 'tree pose' for two minutes a leg. That on top of some of the other leg exercises have showed me my legs really did some work. If nothing else I think it is a little bit more motivation to pursue some longer sessions or try some more advanced exercises.

Fitocracy

So I have been giving fitocracy a try lately. It seems to be kinda like Sparkpeople meets Facebook. I am still trying to get the hang of it, but I have found some things that I really do like alot about it.

First, you level up! I am a big gamer and one of the draws of Fitocracy is that you can 'level up in real life'. You log your exercise and based on what it is you get experience points, and after X amount of experience points you level up. This has my inner gamer hooked already, now only if it had character classes too!

Second there are quests. Again my dwarf paladin is going crazy. You complete quests and receive badges in recognition of you effort. Quests are something exercise specific such as running a mile in under a certain time or doing certain exercises such as swimming, or dancing. I like this alot because it exposes me to different activities I might not normally do. Actually would never do is what I should say because I would never do something like dance for 1/2 hour and then jump rope for ten minutes. But to finish a quest I would!

However this is all based on the honor system. The website does not know if I jogged for an hour or not. This comes down to each persons personal code of ethics. Just like a video game it doesn't mean much other than bragging rights in the end, and cheating in this is only cheating yourself.

By the way I am level 5, and Muay Thai racks up some serious XP I went from level 2 completely skipped over level three to level 4!

Class was cancled tonight

I work third shift so on days where I go to my MMA classes I wake up and have relatively little time before I am dressed in my gym cloths and out the door. I awoke today with a text message telling me that my yellow belt had come in but was the wrong size and had to be sent back, and also that unfortunately class was canceled. I wasn't mad class was canceled, stuff happens and you can't help that, but I was surprised by how sad that made me. Suddenly I had a block of time freed up that I was hoping would be spent (fingers crossed) on grappling today.

I did get some exercise in, not as much as I would have in class but I trolled youtube for a bit and found a 30 minute yoga session and did that since it is national yoga month. I am hoping I can find a website somewhere to tell me what the exercise of the month is for next month because I have done more yoga this month already than I ever have in my life. This exercise of the month thing is just enough motivation to keep me doing it and keep me looking forward to the next exercise.

Also I don't physically have my yellow belt yet. This is driving me crazy, I am impatient and just can't wait for the next time we gi up and I get to put on my yellow belt instead of my white one. It is kinda like being a kid waiting for Christmas morning. I just can't wait to be able to hold it and put it on and feel like I am 100% a yellow belt now rather than a white belt and a half.

I suppose this yellow belt situation gives me some time to look back on my journey so far and it wasn't until as I was typing this right now that I realized. It is just a yellow belt... Not that it isn't important, but it is just a belt I still have the same experience and skill set whether I am wearing my old white belt or my yellow. The color of my belt does not make me any better or any worse than anyone else. I should take this as a lesson in being humble and just be patient it will get here when it gets here, it holds my gi jacket together and nothing else. I still have to do all of the work on my own to make myself a better person and a better martial artist, and a belt does not do that. I have to.

I am giving myself a gold star.

So tonight at work my willpower failed against the Oreo cookie cheese cake with caramel and chocolate chips on top. I took a piece and began elevating my blood sugar at my desk. It wasn't long before I got distracted with the computer and ended up forgetting about the cake in front of me. Eventually I realised I hadn't finished it yet, but also that I had no desire to. I had eaten half of a three inch piece of cake, and that was it. I no longer had the urge to devour every last morsel. I actually ended up throwing it away. This is very new behavior for me, I never would have not finished that in the past. Heck in the past I never would have taken such a small piece either. I am hoping that this is just one of my small steps toward being a healthier me. If nothing else in this one battle I managed to put the fork down and step away from the plate.

Monday is Muay Thai night.

First class back since the belt test, and we are now transitioning back towards the MMA aspect of our gym. I had gotten used to prepping for the belt test which meant we weren't pushing the cardio as hard as usual. I survived tonight but it left me sucking wind through most of it. Lots of kicking and punching drills. What was different was part of the warm up. I tried jump roping for pretty much the first time ever. What was funny was I had been considering giving it a shot and purchased a jump rope from K-Mart today. Turns out I am an awful jump roper. We also used an agility ladder which was different, I hope it really helps with my footwork.

Towards the end of class we ended with some grappling. I got crushed the first couple of times both to a kimura, but not because of the rotation of the hold, but because the guy I was grappling with is a monster and I thought it was gonna snap my forearm. My last roll we ran out of time.

What I was happy with was I got a chance to try out some things on another heavy weight. I can't use a closed guard on someone that much stronger than me. I came close to hitting an omaplata which still has me excited five hours after class. However with the states open grappling tournament coming up soon I need to concentrate more on BJJ because twenty minutes here and there aren't going to do it for me against people who do this multiple times a week.

September is national yoga month

So September is supposed to be national yoga month so on a whim I decided that I would try yoga independently of all of my other exercising for the month. I am keeping track of my yoga time on fitocracy so I can report at the end of the month how much yoga I have done. So far I have done 45 minutes of it between two different sessions. Also I am hoping I can keep myself motivated and honest by putting it on my blog here. We will see how this goes at the end of the month.

Sparing breakdown.

So I reviewed the video of my belt test sparing, and I forgot how much of a lardass I look like. The bell dings and we touch gloves. He throws a head kick that doesn't connect, I close the distance and we jab at each other and clinch up. After a few back and forth pushing contests against the cage we end up on the ground with him in my guard, but not after I take some pretty good knees to my right thigh. I attempted an armbar and a couple of kimura's, but they all failed. He passes my guard and I have taken a lot of body shots. I hit a trap and roll and shoot for side control but he gets his feet on me and keeps me at legs distance. I sweep his legs left and gain side control for maybe a second before he has me in his guard and he is putting pressure on an armbar variation. I stack him up and escape but as I try to pass his guard the bell rings and its over. It was only three minutes but it seemed so much faster.

Another yellow belt.

So I am excited to say that everyone in the test passed, including me. My enthusiasm also returned. I was surprised how taking the test affected me physically though. I have been sick for a bit with a stuffy nose, cough and a bit of a fever here and there. As the test went on my symptoms disappeared until a couple hours after. I don't know but maybe my adrenalin was keeping them at bay or not.

I was most nervous about the side rolls, but everything went perfect. No injured shoulders here. Even though I had not practiced them since I did hurt myself I just kinda fell into them today with no real problems.

What I did not expect was we were thrown more strikes than I thought. The last belt test I got to observe it was one strike to a ten count with a kiah (spelling?) on the tenth one. Well we did way more than that especially the mawashi geri or roundhouse kicks we did a total of fifty of those. Then after burning our legs out on extra kicks myself and the other person testing for yellow belt had to stand in kiba dachi or horse stance while the upper belt when through the upper belt strikes. I normally do not really have any issues with the horse stance and could knock out the two minutes we required with no problem. However after having done several minutes of off and on horse stance during other parts of the test it made this two minute session a real killer.

My sparring was pathetic. I was set up with T, who is my height but only 150 lbs and can hop and jump around like a flying ninja monkey. He also has several actual mma fights under his belt, as well as being able to out kick and box me with no problems what so ever.

I honestly cannot remember if I threw a single punch. The bell rang and he threw some flashy head kicks that missed by only a couple inches, I think he missed them on purpose. He could have simply kicked me in the head at the bell and been done with it. I remember eating some jabs and blocking a couple of other punches while I clinched him up at the cage. We wrestled back and forth a bit as he worked his way lower for a take down. He landed several really good knees the inside of my right thigh that had me limping a bit after.

I managed to get in a guillotine choke for a little bit while I suddenly forgot everything I was supposed to be doing. He did work his way out some how are fight went to the ground and I ended up on my back with him in my guard. This is where I spent half of my fight taking punches mostly to my left side and some to the head while I wrestled with his arms to attempt something. I have a couple pitiful kimura attempts and thought I might have locked in a pretty good armbar but he was able to stand up out of it leaving me almost on my head with his arm between my knees but no real pressure on it. we transitioned a bit more and I ended up in his guard he almost locks in a weird armbar variation where my forearm is against his neck and his arm is applying pressure against my elbow. I sort of stack him up and fight my arm free in time for the bell to ring signaling my three minute round is over.

Luckily my wife was able to tape my round and I can give a better play by play later. Right now I can only remember those bits and pieces.I honestly cannot recall if I actually threw any strikes at all. Tomorrow I will go over all of my wife's pictures and videos and be able report more.

Belt test tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my belt test for yellow belt in Aikijitsu. This is the gym that I pay to study at regularly and is primarily an MMA gym. Tomorrow myself and two others will be testing for our belts, one other yellow and one for 2nd brown. Lately we have really been study the system requirements for the belts and not focusing so much on the MMA aspect of it.

I am a bit nervous but I think at this point either I get it, or I don't. I have an extra two months or better practicing here than the other person testing for yellow belt. This originally made me feel extra stupid that we are ready to test at the same time because in my head I had convinced myself that those two months earned my right to my belt two months sooner than the other guy. This is where I made my big mistake. In thinking like that I failed to do one of the first things that is expressed to you alot in the BJJ circles. "Check your ego at the door!" Fast froward six months later and here we are. Myself and the other person that I felt I should be promoted in front of. We have been training together with just us drilling with each other because we are the closest match in height, weight, and experience. I now call this man my friend and he has been gracious enough to invite me over to train at his house. Instead of being frustrated that I had to test at the same time I should have counted myself lucky to have him as a training partner. I feel that we have bonded alot over this last month and in 15 hours I will be standing next to him throwing strikes and calling out a KIAH!! next to him. Fortunately we won't be put together for the sparring portion of our test which for our belts is one three minute round. Because we have been training together just us it would be the wimpiest round of sparring ever because both of us would be too afraid of hurting the other one. In the off chance anyone ever stumbles across this blog that I train with, Cheers G, you will do just fine, and congrats on that yellow belt I know you will get it.

Belt test on Wed

OK so it has been officially announced that the belt test is going to be on Wednesday. Almost all of class sucked today. It was a practice test so we were all gi'd up, we went over all of the strikes, and stances. We practiced all of the Aikido and BJJ portions and then once we were finished with all of the yellow belt portion I was paired off with another white belt and we drilled ippons and the triangle from guard for what felt like forty minutes of getting beat up, or triangled. Then we were told to drill the Ikkyo for most of the rest of the class. I was exhausted covered in sweat and bored. Then the instructor came over and told us that we were looking allot better and we were just polishing some things before the test and he was confident everything would be fine. That baby pep talk changed my entire mood. I was excited to drill the same boring things we had been doing for over an hour and I found my thoughts changing from, have I gotten bored with this should I quite to OK I can't wait to get Wednesday over so I can start working on my next set of belt requirements.

I feel pretty confident with everything except for performing side rolls. I am still a bit gun shy. Not too long ago I injured both my shoulders doing side rolls and I couldn't go to class for over a week. I actually couldn't lift my toothbrush I had to bend my elbow and lower my head to the brush.  That happened because we were being shown some break falling for higher level techniques and I was to stupid to say hold on a second I don't quite understand. So here I am with my arm cocked funny by the instructor who is telling me to now just put my arm through and roll. We had been doing these rolls for probably half the class by now and my brain all of a sudden had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't know which arm was supposed to move so I just kinda rolled and hurt my left shoulder. It bugged me a bit during class but I toughed it out even though it was slowly hurting more and more as time went on. we ended class with a few more side rolls this time for whatever reason when I rolled my elbow hit the ground and instead of keeping a stiff arm and rolling, my arm collapsed and slammed my right shoulder to the mat and my momentum just kinda flopped me over. That instantly caused a lot of pain and even though I tried to hide it my eyes well up and I though I might have just broken a bone I acted like everything was cool. The next student rolled and I don't think anyone noticed I damn near cried. The instructor asked if I was OK and I waved it off telling everyone I was fine. I also ate ibuprofen like they were M&M's for the next week. I haven't really side rolled since then and I am a bit nervous. but we will see how things go.

I don't actually have any real goals. Part 1

Yesterday I ended up going over to the house of one of the guys I train with at the MMA gym to go over some of the Akijitsu requirements. Other than Practicing horse stance for the required amount of time we didn't get much done rather than talking about stuff. Although it was all martial arts related and I am always happy to do that I just left feeling more like we hung out than accomplished any actually training. It made me realise that this often happens to me. I plan all sorts of awesome things then never actually get them done the way I want.

My friend expressed that holding the horse stance is very difficult for him and that he probably hasn't been putting enough time into training it as he should have. I told him I kinda felt that with with push ups and said that I started incorporating push ups into my normal exercises at home. (Looking back I don't have an actual routine or any real structure in my at home exercising)

Today I was browsing through some MSN news articles and came across the top five fitness bucket lists for men and women. Between that and yesterday I realized that I don't actually have a training routine. I don't have any actual goals. Yes I want to achieve my black belt but that's as shallow as my goals are I don't have any steps on how I plan on doing it.

So with all of that my first immediate goal is to spend some real quality time soul searching for what my fitness and martial arts related goals are and put them on paper so I cant forget them.

Below I will post the link to the articles, men's and women's respectively, that's where I got the info from, I didn't create it and I have no rights to any of it.

http://innovationforendurance.msn.com/articles/detail/fitness/252922651

http://innovationforendurance.msn.com/articles/detail/fitness/253236719

Men's fitness bucket list.
1. Waist hip circumference ratio of .80.
2. 1.5 X body weight bench press.
3. 10 pull ups.
4. Sprint 1 mile in under 6.5 minutes.
5. Bend over and touch your toes.

Women only had 4 fitness goals.
1. Hold plank for 60 seconds.
2. Run a half marathon.
3. 10 push ups.
4. 60 second tree pose.

+ 1 for Kenpo

So tonight didn't quite work out as planned I would have liked to get more training in but didn't I timed myself and I got less than ten minutes total. I did however pass my yellow belt test for Kenpo so I am excited about that!

Here was my workout for the day. I did five circuits for a total time of 8:35.72

10 push ups
10 crunches
20 bent over rows with resistance band
25 squats

By the end my thighs were starting to feel it, it totaled

50 each push ups and crunches
100 bent over rows
125 squats.

Didn't do a thing today.

Class times are weird. The two instructors both work full time jobs so classes are scheduled around when they have a day off so class on week one is Tue/Wed. Class on week two is Mon/Thur. Class on week three is Tue/Wed, and the cycle flip flops like that etc, etc. So class was Tue/Wed this week, I did a little bit of exercise on my own on Monday and was just completely wiped out by the time class was over on Wednesday.

I woke up today planning on not doing a thing to let my body recover. I was starving before I went to bed and purposely did not eat because I wanted to see what my blood sugar would be like in the morning. I tested at 192 which is awful for anyone but me I was excited to be under 200 fasting. It also made me wonder if just maybe all this exercise is really helping bring my blood sugar down closer to where it needs to be. I have my fingers crossed for that one.

Here is my real problem. Happy about where my blood sugars were going I spent the day off and on binge eating just huge amounts of crap I shouldn't have been eating anyway. I work third shift and when I get out of work in the morning I have the day off so the plan is to try my hand at some at home beginner level crossfit stuff. Then if I can rope either my wife or my sister into playing grappling dummy I want to work on some of the Gracie stuff. If not then it will be on to youtube for some video refreshers on Kenpo Kata and forcing my father in law into another impromptu garage lesson.

Introduction.

My name is Matthew I am a 270 pound white belt. I go to an mma gym twice a week (most of the time). Officially the actual martial art taught is Aikijitsu, but we study a combination of grappling and striking with elements of BJJ and Aikido. I am starting this blog more as a journal than really expecting anyone to read it. I have hit a wall recently with my training and I am hoping this will help me get over it.

So the last couple of classes just really haven't been that fun. I am leaving tired and gassed and just not feeling great. My performance sucked yesterday, alot! I spent alot of time grappling just playing defense. I didn't get tapped but I really didn't do anything else either. My mood was just 'blah'. I am hoping that this is temporary and I can get back into this the way I used to be. Before and after class I am still thinking about martial art, I read every blog, article and watch every YouTube video I can find, but once class starts I lose all of my motivation.

The worst part of this is we have a belt test coming up. I will be testing for my yellow belt I was there for the last belt test over six months ago but was to new to actually test so I am the super senior of white belts. On top of that in just a few months is the Vermont Open Grappling tournament that I have already told my class mates I will compete in. So in short here is my journal to hopefully help me get over 'the wall'.