pneumonia, my shoulders, and my AARP card

I'm not sure what karmic shitstorm I must've invoked, but my training has been derailed as though I should take a whole season off. Hardly what I had in mind...

I haven't decided if I simply work in a germ farm, or if I have the immune system of a disco coke whore from Studio 54 circa 1979. Regardless, I lost hundreds of dollars and weeks of training to what was dangerously close to pneumonia. I'm just starting to feel like myself again.

So now I start the process of starting over. At crossfit, at bjj, at everything. Annoying, but surmountable for certain.

Then I hurt my shoulder at wrestling practice. Couldn't lift my arm overhead. Couldn't shrug that side at all. Extremely scary and unlike anything I've ever experienced before. At least it didn't happen again since... just some random aching now and then.

Aging is kicking my ass hard lately. And I do not like it. And I cannot combat it the way I used to - with more reps, more effort, red-lining myself into being stronger. Those tactics now end up with me sick, hurt, or both. I have to get smarter about this.

More sleep, more water, better eats. Start there, then get on the dang mats.

still struggling with scheduling

I'm starting to wonder if something is wrong, like health-wise. I can't seem to get in more than 2 occurrences per week of any of the following: crossfit, bjj, wrestling. Crossfit in particular is leaving me sore for 4-5 days. As in, I'll go on say a Tuesday, but be so damned sore that bjj on wednesday is out, so sore that going back to crossfit the rest of the week is out, and I'm still feeling the effects once I finally pony back up on saturday.

I'm all for DOMS. I rather like feeling a little soreness from work. But this is a bit much. I am not accustomed to soreness lasting this long. It's not like I just started crossfit. Granted, I've been missing quite a bit due to work schedule, but dang, really?!

Something has to change somewhere. I can't be so sore that I can't make jiu jitsu. I don't know if that's scaling down weight or reps or what but this is ridiculous.

And entirely enraging. It also smacks of that nagging "you're getting old" voice I hear more and more. And all the people I know who are 40+ who doomcast "oh, wait until you hit 40, it's terrible"

well, bullshit on all that. I have no time for terrible, nor for being sore 4-5 days at a time. I have another competition coming up in December, and I'll be damned if I go in to it as underprepared as I did last time.

Maybe I just take shitty care of myself, I don't know. My asthma decided to make a random appearance as well - greaties. Random afflictions wheeee! Annoyance.

On a more positive note, I received a new set from Stephan Kesting this week, his 2nd series on studies for defeating bigger, stronger opponents. If it's anywhere near as good as the 1st in that series, I'll be a very, very happy Tim. Folks are testing for stripes and belts at the gym this weekend (I am not among them), so it'll be interesting to see if this means less or more ego on the mats. I'm hoping for the former.

Yesterday's wrestling "private" was more of a "public", but it was cool to try and use the stuff I've been drilling. My timing is still questionable, but that's to be expected. I tire quickly, but that's been an ongoing theme. I'm doing a better job of not overthinking things and just doing the moves. I felt a little scumbaggish for doing only wrestling yesterday, but oh well.

But this lagging immune system thing... ugh. Maybe I shouldn't have given up milk?

not really shocking results.

Won my first gi match by kimura, lost the 2nd match on points. Lost both gi matches to choke.

Sure, it stings a bit. Were I younger I might be more emotional and buttsore about it, but I'm really not. Younger. Or buttsore. I went into that knowing it wasn't ideal. Knowing that I had holes. Knowing that I was not prepared in the least. But I'd avoided competing long enough. I wasn't sure if I'd ever feel "ready" to compete. I also wasn't sure I'd ever muster the balls to try it again. So I charged headlong into it, wisdom be damned.

And I'm still fine with that decision. I'm still fine with having lost. Too many good things come from it. Too many things to learn from it.

Things that I knew good and damned well needed work:

• nogi, in general. I live in my gi way too much. Taking up wrestling privates will eventually help here, and I already saw a lot of that transfer over to my nogi. It'll come around in time. 
• grip fighting - the dvds and books I've been reading the most regarding bjj and grappling have HEAVILY stressed the importance of grip fighting, and holy shit, were they all ever RIGHT. I have got to stop conceding grips to people. Maybe I can do that in practice, but in a competitive scenario, grips are so ridiculously key that I do feel like a friggin moron for ignoring them. 
• Overall conditioning. Damned desk job and shift changes are killing me slowly with weight gain. Have to get back on my quasi paleo wagon and force the issue with regular exercise outside of grappling. I am not getting any younger, and locally we will likely never have a women's master's division.
• scrambling - my style has been slow and deliberate for some time. Either I'm going to have to become way more effective at that style, or I'm going to have to speed it up. I'm figuring the latter will likely be the route I end up ultimately taking. Strength is all fine and well, but it was rarely working for me at the tourney - and that makes me happy. 
• nerves/attitude - the intensity of the whole roll was taxing. I clearly need to be around ramped up training more often before I compete again. That's a pinch, since I don't mean everybody PRIDE RULES!!! training, but I need pushed more than I've been pushing. I need to get over a little of my apprehension towards heavy training - a string of injuries has created a fear response that is holding me back. There has to be a happy medium between intensity and injury prevention. I need to be a little braver in finding it. I also need to figure out what coaching style works for me. I already figured out that having someone right in my face yelling shit like they'd shotgunned three red bulls isn't remotely what I need. Holy ADD short circuit brain.

Things that surprised me:

• those ladies were way more aggressive and nasty than anyone I've rolled with in a long, long time. I still struggle with being "mean" on the mats. I blame a lot of that on early formative years of being forced to work with the "new girl" of the week back when I started - gently coddling them and bringing them along into jiu jitsu (at the expense of my own training), where they'd usually stay a few weeks, or until they broke up with whichever guy dragged them to the gym. 
• I spent zero time in half guard. WTFF. I live in half guard. I forward my mail to half guard. That blew my mind.
• What little wrestling I've been exposed to is sticking. I had just been introduced to granby rolls a few days before the competition, but damned if I wasn't rolling all over. I also hit a nice double leg right out the gates (and damn was it sweet - you were right, Ms. Linzy) that unfortunately made everyone extremely wary of my takedowns the rest of the day. Pout. 

 So the overall experience was good. I don't despise competing. I'll probably do it again, but I for damned sure won't do it again so ill-prepared. That's just foolish. Especially now that I have some semblance of an idea of what to expect.

I have things to work on now, with a renewed sense of how and why. For now, my work schedule is going to allow me to work on them. I'm extremely grateful for that. That said, it's time to pack my grappling gear up and head to work.

first competition day. commence freak out.

I have not trained regularly in months. My hands have not healed from the worst outbreak of eczema I've ever had. I have not done much of anything along the lines of prep work.

so yeah, let's go ahead and enter our first competition. sounds like a plan!

I really don't mean for it to sound as negative as it probably reads. Honest, I don't. I do, however, mean to admonish/praise myself for stepping away from my usual habit of insisting I have all hatches battened down before sticking a toe in the waters of something new.

It's okay. This is the last competition I will ever enter so ill-prepared. I know this because it may also be the last competition I enter period. Or, I may love competing and become a weekend road warrior for it. Either way, I'll never go into it so lackadaisically. And I am relatively cool with that.

I've already won. I've already lost. It's already over.

I've already gotten over the fear of even entering. Later this morning I'll get over the fear of competing. Later I'll get over the fear of letting teammates and coaches down.

Later it won't matter. And that will be a welcome feeling, to shed all of those things.

I already have four different move paths I want to work on, and that's without having faced a single soul on the mats. Things are clicking that never clicked before.

If I'm lucky, today I'll identify more. More strengths, more weaknesses. More moves I've never considered. Make more contacts for gyms to travel and visit.

Today I'll find out how well those Defense Soap wipes work, haha.

Either way. I'll find out.

It sounds so over to say "I want to give a shout out" but I feel I should

In lieu of actually doing a damned review or two, I figured I'd throw out a list of gear manufacturers that I have enough respect for to actively pimp out on this here site.

In no particular order (and I'll maybe actually add links at some point):

1. NOGI INDUSTRIES - always and forever. Period.
2. Origin BJJ - Pete puts together a hard-to-beat package - a fantastic gi - gorgeous AND sturdy - paired with a matching long sleeve rashguard (sublimated, no cracking and peeling, y'all), stalker-fast shipping, and always great customer service.
3. Atama - my original gi of choice, started with em, and still have every gi I have ever bought from them in perfect condition (if a little faded - my fault, not theirs)
4. Clinch Gear - recently picked up a few pair of their shorts, and I'm really digging the freedom of the flex panels, and especially the lightness of the fabric and how very quickly they dry during these summer months of profuse sweating - mine and my partners'
5. Brute kneepads and sleeves - Good stuff, and helpful as I wander in wrestling, although I'm clearly between sizes, as usual.
6. Shoyoroll - love the gis, HATE the process of getting one
7. World Martial Arts - Some ridiculously good instructionals coming from these folks - Ryan Hall's stuff, Pablo Popovitch, Robson Moura, Roberto Abreu... not to mention some older classic collections - Saulo, Marcelo, Mario Sperry. Quality stuff, and they seem to always have some kinda sale going on. Quick shipping here, too.
8. Getting its own mention: Ryan Hall's dvds from WMA. Really, really well done, explained well, details, and realistic presentation - I especially dig that he focuses on entries, since dammit nobody will just hold still and let me just throw these damn moves on them. I mean, DUH. 
9. Stephan Kesting/Grapplearts - anything the man so much as sneezes on is gold. Especially,
10. Emily Kwok & Stephan Kesting's DVD series on dealing with larger, stronger opponents. I keep going back to it - easily what is getting the heaviest rotation on my dvd player. EASILY. 

Let's limit it to ten for now. After all, I'm already late for open box at crossfit :-/

let's go do some cleans and jerks and snatches. 

As Ice Cube said, I gotta say it was a good day

Great ways to start your post-chore Saturday morning - a text from one Butch Hiles saying "I'll be at the gym in 15 minutes, if you can make it"

HELL YES I CAN!!!!!

What followed was the least hellacious nogi session I can recall in years. And that is a wonderful statement to be able to make after weeks/months of feeling incredibly stupid with my nogi game. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but it was nice to just not feel like I was wasting my time.

I thank wrestling for a lot of that. As I'd hoped, the mentality there is bleeding over. I kept a loop playing in the back of my head "move forward, never backwards" "get fucking meaner" "control the hips/head" and "move move move" -- again, room for improvement, but something piercing my thick skull is always a good thing.

Later, trying to work on some single leg X guard was frustrating, but that's just going to be something that maybe comes around later on. I maneuvered over into it at one point rolling, but that was from someone standing in my open guard. And that's fine. But trying to swing around and into it when my opponent is kneeling is just going poorly. For now. It'll evolve. Some more drilling, who knows where it'll emerge as an entry/option.

I'm adding it to the bucket list along with tornado guard and berimbolos as something that I think may someday be cool to add to my game, but aren't ideal right now maybe, given my body shape/limitations.

Guillotines also snuck in today, which is not something i normally go to. Again, wrestling's influence. And I was so shocked to see it so naturally fall into place- I'd only worked on some front headlock escapes this week, and thereby some guillotine type moves. With short T Rex arms, I tend to bail on chokes early, if not outright ignore them (stupid, I know), but now? We'll see. I still wish I had longer arms to achieve Brabos and their ilk.

That's okay, I'm sure my training partners wish I had longer arms too. With my blatant disregard for most armbar attempts, I'm sure I'm due some payback there.

Guard passing got sloppier as time passed. I was lazy, stuck with standing guard passes at first. Foolishly chose to start trying kneeling passes only once the mats were slicker than snot on a door knob. Really need to develop some discipline there to work hard for the kneeling passes, regardless of height differentials.

On the way out of the gym, it was also really cool to have someone tell me they tried a simple open guard concept/suggestion and have some success with it. It wasn't anything earth-shattering - "just play around with your grips/hook placement when they stand up in your open guard" but seeing his eyes light up explaining how he'd gotten a sweep from it... this coming from someone who'd poo-poo'd the idea of open guard being an option. Pretty sweet.

Now I have to decide: wash these grappling clothes or burn them? Yuck.

I think BJJ has a restraining order on me

The work schedule sucks enough, random mandatory OT makes it even worse.

I can't seem to get anything resembling consistency going for any of my training - bjj, wrestling, crossfit, swimming... nothing. So I've been reduced to slapdash training by the seat of my pants. I abhor this, as I'm a big scheduler. I want things on rails. Plan plan plan. Nope nope nope.

I've added swimming back into the mix just as an afterthought, really. One of those "well, I can't do anything else, let's get some laps in" sort of things. Well, that and I find it calming. In light of the bjj/grappling being hit or miss, I find myself cagey as hell. That meshes poorly with a job in customer service. Anything I can do to temporarily calm myself has to be good. And it's a half hour or an hour with nothing vying for my attention. I'd do well to convert some videos to audio and maybe listen to them while swimming. Or some podcasts perhaps.

I think next week, I'll just make crossfit the focus. If that means I have to hit the 545AM class, so be it. I need something to be consistent, and crossfit is probably the thing most reliable in terms of scheduling at this point.

I'm digging wrestling still, although I'm just barely sticking my toe in the water at this point, in terms of what I've learned. It's a nice, brutal hour of damage, which is nice. I enjoy the challenge of putting in the work, even if it's only an hour before I seem to tank and diminishing returns sets in like a mofo. Maybe over time my conditioning will pick up. It'd be nice to be able to just plow through hours of training like I did in my 20s. I won't be holding my breath for that, though... as if I can find hours of training.

this is so frustrating. I was intending to enter my first tournament in early September. I may still, but I think it's ill advised at this point. Going up against people who train consistently. Who've competed plenty before. Who've won tournaments before. But I've watched them compete and thought "I could've passed their guard. Their open guard would've had nothing for me. They wouldn't have gotten that takedown on me..." and so on.

I don't know. It's like I'm stranded on a remote island where I can just barely see jiu jitsu on the horizon, but I'm no closer to it. And I freaking hate it. Because I know there are people just tripping over excess jiu jitsu in their worlds. There are people I train with who are sitting around the mats skipping reps, talking about a move they pulled three months ago, pulling off the same sloppy armbars like there's no tomorrow. And I'm sitting around wondering if I can put a gi on that spare heavy bag in the garage.

I'm going to find a way through this drought. I will not maintain the 200' distance.