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'.