144.6

Quick little update...

144.6 is what the scale said after a quick suana session.

Going back to the gym in an hour to sweat the rest out and then drive down.
Im going back to try to get the scale lower so I can have some room for something to eat tonight rather than starving myself all night until weighins.

I just drank a naked protein drink and feel pretty good.. fyi they have 500 cals, 1lb of fresh fruit and 40grams of protein.

I'm out

Travel day 2lbs to lose

OK so today is travel day. I work until about 1pm. Got to hit the suana for about an hour or two then help the girlfriend with some car and moving stuff. Then I have to go home and pack and take care of the cats before I head out.. big shout out to Cow and Tri for all there support... not enough shout outs in blog land to Cats.. pics to come shortly of them..and then back to the suana for a bit... id like to get to about 144 before I leave.. that leaves a little room for error and maybe a lil bit of food/water tonite.

anyway.. no eating til dinner and that just might be a protein bar or two.. very very very little if any liquids today..

and then a 4hr drive.. i just realized its labor day.. to me its just a tournament weekend like every other but now im wondering if we are gonna hit crazy traffic on the way down..

anyway thats my plans.. all i need to do really is get to baltimore wake up and weigh in at 145.0 after that im pretty sure my training over the last 2-3months will take care of the rest :)

Thanks for all the support! Hopefully ill post again soon with some good news.

bjj techniques

Here is a video of me demonstrating some bjj techniques i had just learned the day before at a clinic.....

YMCA 8/29

Ok not the best workout for me by any means but oh well. No instructor tonite he had a courier run and class starts at the U this week for him. Large class though.. anyway tournament is right around the corner. Looks like this may have been my last judo workout before the tournament.

Started the class, per the instructors orders, of another nite of just open class. Meaning you can practice whatever you want.. which means I run Around and help people will all there techniques. I did get to work my seonage a bit.. it felt good and I was just working on the action/reaction I Am trying to get.

Randori. I had my interval timer with me so I just set up 3 min rounds. I had to fight a lot of the new people, females and kids which didn’t leave a lot Of rounds for me to go against experienced people but oh well. Here are some highlights:

Vito: I got Vito with one pretty lame seonage and one decent Guruma/Gake. And that’s about it. We worked a bunch of different gripping situations.

Brandon: kinda similar to vito. He attacked more but while standing still.. you need movement.. I got him with a Seo or two and a Guruma/Gake or two.

Timmy: He launched me a Tomo. Almost got me with a SumiGaeshi and Came real close on some Seo’s. I got him with a Guruma/Gake and a Nice Seo. The Seo I had a cross lapel grip with my left hand and threw right side Seo as he stepped in.

I ate a small dinner after Judo and then woke up at 146.0 That should make being 145.0 on Saturday very easy. I got a lil caught up with sleep last nite

And hopefully will do the same tonite.

PMJC - Aug 28

PMJC - Aug 28

Great workout..

Thats all there is to say. Covered everything that Judo is supposed to be about. First the tournament is coming up. Chris pushed all of us like always and I think all the competitors walked away feeling better and more confident going into the tournament. I just kept thinking that Saturday was going to be much easier then what I was going through.

It was tough. Started out with the normal warmup, some newaza drills and then newaza. My first round of newaza was with a new 17yr old blue belt from France. Strong fast .. just had a good round with him.

Then Matt.... I dont know what happened or why all I know is we went forever. I just kept trying to get subs after subs after subs.. turnovers/chokes anything.. I only got one sub. A decent choke I kinda stumbled on.. but the great thing is if it worked on matt and if matt tapped it means that it will work on anyone. and definately gives me confidence going into the tournaments. I dont win much on the ground but id still like to sneak out some wins on the ground to. but anway we were fighting and next thing i know everyone else was on a water break and i was beat but we just didnt stop.. kept fighting.. and fighting.. and fighting.. it was awesome. good mix of technical skills, toughness and strength. It also really pushed the endurance too. I was real glad chris let us keep going and going... im guessin somewhere in the back of his head he was laughing at us.. but at the same time respectin what we were doing.. he didnt stop us until the crash pad came out .... this fight i thought wiped me out for the workout but i was able to recover and got some standing fights in too.

Standing randori.... highlights..

Julian: for being rusty hes good... he is fast and strong and has nice commitment to his attacks.. very PMJC of him! He got me with a gake..

Matt: had a nice no waki on me.. good timing but not good rotation good seonage too.. we went over it a bit and i think with time this is gonna be a great tech. for him..

Chris: its the little victories with chris normallly.. only getting thrown for wazari instead of slammed for ippon.. avoiding the katagurma but take the fall for the te kouchi.. but last nite was pretty decent. I was able to stop all his throws.. i was also able to match some strength with him.. at leat from time to time and with some good gripping, movement and posture. I stopped one really nice attack of his.. his back and forth combo.. made me feel good. he STUFFED all my throws.. oh well..

Joe: Couldnt throw Joe either but i learned a bunch about the setups I need to use.. pretty confident they will work on other 145lb guys

Tim: He got me with a few throws.. i know one NICE uchimata maybe two.. i avoided 1-2 tomonages... got out of a HUGE teguruma... I got him with 1 good guruma gake and 1 little one.. also hit a strange seonage thing but unsure if it would score.. he got out of a huge teguruma too..

ok just some more random junk.. my weight is good.. today is an eat day.. probably have like 3 whole meals :) crazy i know :) but i need a refuel day and my weight is good

i need to catch up on sleep... badly..

Ups And Downs...

Ok so the tournament is less then a week away...

some things are going real good right now some are not

good things

my weight. i want to be comfortable and dont want a rought cut for this tournament. i think if my weight is good i will do very well at this tournament. if i have a hard cut it will be like 4x as hard.

strength/stamina. i am not eating/sleeping much but when im fighting it doesnt really bother me. i am able to stick with my grips and keep the intensity high whenever i need it.

technique. seonage and my new guruma/gake are working. kouchi and te guruma or also pretty solid

motivated. i want to win. i want to do what it takes Im stressed and busy right now but
whatever.. i just keep thinking about bowing on to the mat to fight

ahhh notsogood

work. of all times for my professional life to get hectic... the next month will be crazy...but the $$$$ is good so oh well.

and ill stop there.. no one really likes hearing about how tough things are..

ok now to judo

last night was a YMCA class.

The Y really only has a few players there to challenge me. I mainly go for cardio, try new techniques and to help the players there. Last nite was a large class and we did a TON of uchikomi. Practice, practice Practice...

I worked with Tim and we went over all our throws and talked abit about the tournament and things like that.

Fighting... i fought a bunch of people.. not much to say really... so ill just jump to the Tim / Tom death match finale.

Tim got to fight Neil (260lb wrestler), vito, brandon and george and had just got done fighting Chris (PMJC) for like 40mins prior to this workout. I guess the instructor wanted him tired... those fights really didnt tire him out much anyhow but whatever. we had a good fight each throwing.. he got me with a Kev Costello footsweep, Right Side TomoNage, and SumiGaeshi. I got him with Guruma/Gake, Kouchi and maybe a seonage or something.. kinda forget..
good fight.. good gripping..

Today I got to finish my job... work on my 2nd job and then go to PMJC.

PMJC - Sat Aug 25

I went into this workout feeling real down on myself…. I thought my weight was too high.. I felt weak.. I felt like I was not in shape and I felt that I was in no way shape or form ready for the tournament coming up..

Lets just say things spun around real quick. Such a great group of guys to workout with down there its ridiculous. Ive trained at a lot of different clubs and this group rocks! Anyway:

Uchikomi: went throw a lot of different throws with Chris and Matt. IM SCRAPPING UCHIMATA. The throw gets in my head and makes me feel like I cant do judo. Its just not my throw.. please not in 5 months ill probably post the same thing… ok but good points… Kouchi is feeling good!!! Big bonus!!! It’s a great followup to my seonage. Kataguruma is working.. and my seonages are feeling smooth.

Crash pad: good seonage, good kouchi and good kata guruma. Was starting to feel good at this point.. it was SUPER HOT… I had already worked out for 4 hrs.. but damn..

Randori: Ok again I wont remember all the details but here are some important highlights.

Chris: he got me with a seonage.. maybe a wazari.. grip fighting was intense. I held my own though.. didn’t settle too much.. and I got a score with a seonage to hand trip.. or whatever it is..

Joe: got Joe with a seonage and a kouchi. I don’t think I got anything else in.. he probably threw me as well… cant remember.

Matt: he got me with something.. I thought It was a double but it might have been an ankle pick.. im starting to pickup on how matt enters more and more and hopefully that will help me help him.. I know very Jerry McGuire ish but that is judo .. not that I even like matt but the better he gets the better I get.. that’s judo.. matt is cool btw hes in the brother from another mother club.

Frank: Tomonage doesn’t work.. well wasn’t working that day against him.. oh well..

Vito: good fight.. again I am starting to be able to sense when he is attacking as well seonage working.. left side gake/guruma workig NICE

Tim: I was smoked when I had to fight him.. last fight of the day I think for me or last real tough one.. I know I got a score just cant remember.. I know I missed a kouchi and missed a gake/guruma cause I lost my grip with my stupid right hand.. I think the score was seonage… oh I also missed a tomonage.

Anyway.. I went into this workout super stressed super tired and dreading the tournament. I left feeling real confident and looking forward to the upcoming tournament.

BJJ Clinic

Ok so I am a Judo guy but I really like BJJ. On Saturday I went to a 4hr BJJ clinic. It was just outside Scranton and it was awesome. I will post some video when I get a chance. The Video will be reviewing the moves we went over at the clinic. It was some nice spider guard passes, some nice open guard passes, quick armlocks and some takedowns for open guard. Great stuff!! Sorry not much detail at this point but when I post the vid I will go into detail. I did get to do a lot of fighting at the clinic and that was real cool.. I got tapped a whole lot by Gregg the guy who ran the clinic and by Brian who Ive trained with before. Brian moved to Kentucky just to train with this guy and Brian improved a great deal. So it was a good warmup.. helped me cut weight and then I headed out to stroudsburg for my next workout.

YMCA - 8/22/07

YMCA - 8/22/07

Small class last nite.. a bunch of people went on vacation or something.. oh well..

At class was Instructor, Me, Timmy, John, Jenn, Mike, Tank, Aaron

Uchikomi: I worked on my tomonage, ankle pick and my new gake / Kata Guruma.

Randori: fought the kids.. messed them up good :) j/k

Jenn: I got a nice cross grip sumi gaeshi. some good fakes where she started a sacrifice and i just transition into a pin. Some nice pin escapes and sweeps. She also blasted her shoulder through my face....

Timmy: got a tomonage on him. got outgripped a lot by him but i wasnt exactly fighting it too much.. i wanted to work on being outgripped by a lefty and trying my gake on him. got a small score 1x. Hit a nice seonage off the gripfight.. tim said something was in his ear thats why i threw him.. he also tried right side o soto gari which i countered with te guruma.

Mike: we gripped.. he got his high grip.. he attacked.. attacked.. attacked and got me with osotogari. i think its the first time he threw anyone in randori.

fought instructor during mattwork.. i did ok.. got some submission attempts.. got stuck in a stalemate after a few mins i tried a crazy triangle. got pinned.

PMJC - StroudsBurg Tues 8/21/07

PMJC - StroudsBurg Tues 8/21/07

Ok Ill do some introducing of terms, concepts and things like that as I get this blog rolling.

PMJC is the club I train at in Stroudsburg. I go down there with some of my training partners for Scranton. I am generally there Tues/Sat. They are great workouts with a heavy emphasis on competition style Judo. Not a formal club but a great club to go improve your Judo.

So last nite it was Chris, the instructor, Me, Tim, Joe, Matt, Vito, Tony. All good guys and good players too.

Last nite we warmed up and went straight to the crash pad. A crash pad is like a gymnastics landing mat and it allows you to practice your throws with full force and most of the time your partner feels nothing.. most of the time.

Anyway I worked some Seonage off a 2on1 grip, some Kouchi and Uchimata. I think thats all I did on the Crash pad. I might post some info on those throws.. might not...

Then we did some randori.. fighting.. sparring.. whatever you want to call it. Chris set it up like this 2 minute matches standing and groundwork. Winner stays on. Fun.

My first fight was against Chris. I had planned on working Uchimata that night well I was doing decent at gripfighting with Chris but made a big mistake and came in for Uchimata without really breaking balance and got countered.. big.. suplexed like right on my noggin. game over for me.

I think I fought Joe next. A lot of my stuff wasnt really working at first but my gripping was good. Got a good Seonage off a Jeon style grip break. He controlled my right arm I do 2 quick fake grip breaks towards my face and the third I just drop in for Seonage.

I wont be able to recall all the fights and what happened.. I just had too many and wasnt thinkin about it at the time. But I did get countered a lot using Uchimata. If Im gonna do it I have to do it not play around with it.

I did have a lil luck with some Tomonages and I went on a good streak with my left sided Kosoto Gake / Kata Guruma. I hit it like 3x in a row against vito and then got it once good against Tim too.

Great class.. everyone left dead tired and much improved.