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.