the guilty check in/update

well, I don't know that "guilt" is the right word. One can only document so much on so many forums...

At any rate, it's roughly a month in from my last post, and weight loss continues. I'm down a total of roughly 15 now, which is on point for my goals so far -- steady 2# loss a week.

Things I've learned: quit eating full meals late. More protein. Don't let emotional matters influence your eating. More protein. Yes, vanilla is in fact a screw-uppable flavor. More protein (not vanilla). Less is more (except for protein). I don't need to redline everything I do in order to make progress. If anything, it's detrimental to my progress when my joints are tore up, I'm tired, sick, etc.

Other things: why why WHY do I keep getting sick? I don't go around licking doorknobs. I wash my hands. What the crap? I've been like, skipping from cold to cold all winter. And yes, mom, I got a flu shot. This is ultimately the most frustrating deterrent to my progress (besides snow, perhaps).

I'm a few weeks out from investing in an airdyne for my apartment. Will probably move a weider crossbow (think generic bowflex) in shortly thereafter. That is, if I don't move between now and then. I am stepping up my house search chiefly because I'm tired of sharing living space with a building full of chain smoking morons who routinely wake me up late at night AND early in the morning. I am firmly convinced that half my ailments are due to allergic/asthmatic reactions to the ever-present aroma of various smokes in my building. Air purifiers not so much helping.

So I need my own space. I need to not share walls or floors with others. And I'm really at a point where I need my monthly payments to earn me some equity instead of lining the pockets of my lazy landlords. Let more drug dealers move into my place. I'll free up another slot for them.

I can't really post of any progress in jiu jitsu, because I think I've only been maybe twice in the span of a month. I've been sick THAT often. I am noticing a marked re-interest in stand up. Hell, I even ordered new bag gloves (some killer-looking Rivals. I'm anxious to see if that cross strap makes any difference to wrist stability, review pending, naturally).

This year's main goal is dropping weight. Running a close second is getting to stripe #2. I've been at 1 stripe since Sept. 2008. Granted, I've been through a host of school changes in that time, but still. There's some consistency available now, so it's time to also put my training on rails and move forward.

Recalibrate and try again

Wrist issue has been diagnosed as tendonitis. Advice? Well take a pile of advil for 2 weeks and see how it feels. If that doesn't work, we'll try cortisone shots. If not that, surgery.

Okay so I did that. And it pretty much feels the same. I can't flex my thumb more than 30-45 degrees. This makes for a host of painful annoyances on the mats.

Oh yeah, took like a month and a half off from bjj, judo, the whole bit. I'm doing my own diagnoses from now on. The first one being: bjj and judo didn't cause my tendonitis. So I'm back at it.

I'm very fortunate to have a friend I train with whose spent time as a personal trainer. He's helping me out, since I clearly have no idea what the hell I'm doing anymore. As of this writing, I'm on the eve of my 2nd Monday morning weigh in. Last week, I'd dropped 6 pounds. And that was with only one trip to nautilus and one night of bjj. That is, 6 pounds off just from diet.

Variables at play this week include daily morning cardio, whether or not I'll continue to have egg protein shakes before said cardio (or go on empty stomach henceforth), and one variable I KNOW I'll be changing: yeah, just because I had a 2-a-day training day that ended with an evening of martial arts training doesn't mean I get to pork out on a footlong from subway.

(I say pork out, but at least they were relatively harmless in terms of content. It was the portion size methinks that was off the standards I'm aiming for)

I'm nervous and anxious to see what the scales say tomorrow morning. I'm being way more public about it because I probably need the pressure of guilt to stay on point.

As for bjj, I was utterly frustrated by a number of items. Butterfly guard in general eludes me, both in offense and especially defense. As in escapes. I can't correctly judge which way to shift my weight when in butterfly guard. I identified quickly that my base being limited compared to most everyone means I'll have to find other methods (I say base in terms of the say the base of a pyramid - the available span I have to balance my posting points -- it's smaller than 90% of my opponents, so it's making it way easy for them to off-balance me).

People escaping my open guard by backing out. Laziness on my part, I am sure. That, and I'm accustomed to most people playing into my open guard with forward pressure instead. I need to work on keeping hooks in, keeping them near so as to tie them up/sweep.

Tying up too high on the arm for omoplatas. My legs are biting up way up into the armpit/shoulder, which is all fine and well for making the opponent topple, but when I go for that rotation to sit up and lock in the omoplata, my mobility is limited by having my hips pinned to their shoulder. I can't achieve the sit-up.

My grips are severely affected right now. Setting up chokes is about out. Difficulty with moves involving changing grips from sleeve to sleeve. Can't post much, nor push away using my right hand. Trying to maintain c-grips to secure elbows when applicable. Pistol grip is out. All tendonitis related. grrrrrr.

Judo proved more difficult. Not surprising, given the gripping issues. Need to work on my leg sweep more in O soto gari.

Still, all in all, it was nice to be back to the usual grind.

back to the drawing board

Well, scratch that last program.

I am not in a place where my body will let me go to the gym every morning to do HIIT cardio and left 2-3 times a week, AND train bjj and judo 3 times a week. Not yet.

Hit the wall last Thursday. My lead hand wrist has been really really sore and stiff for a couple of weeks now (no idea why), and I had my knee give out in judo. That (the knee) was my absolute red flag sign: I haven't had knee issues in a LONG time.

The knee seems fine now, the wrist not so much, but what I'm thinking/hoping is the case is that these weren't specific incidents where I will have chronic issues with these joints. I think I was just asking too much from my body at once.

NO coincidence that this philosophy happens to follow in the footsteps of a recent issue of GracieMag that espouses the overall lifestyle that tends to enter the life of anyone who trains in bjj and wants to do so for the rest of their life. Last week I also changed up my diet to restrict carbs (to varying success - man that's a hard habit to break), and last week I didn't get anywhere NEAR enough sleep. And work had me all bent out of shape.

That probably lead to a cumulative inflammatory overreaction in my system. Way more than could be handled by a few fish oil capsules.

So this week I'm making a point to sleep more. Reel back the lifting to days that I'm not training martial arts that evening. Doing intu-flow daily again to nourish the connective tissue and sort of recenter myself. Enough water.

Cautiously approaching today and tomorrow. Bjj private today, might do regular class as well tonight, judo tomorrow night. Not sure how/if my wrist will handle that.

We shall see.

Cheating on my husband

Oh how proud my journalism professors would be, using a lead like that.

I used to think of BJJ as a boyfriend that treated me like shit, but I kept chasing after anyways. Well, we've long since gone to couples therapy, and it's more like a marriage now. A good one, not one of those ones you see disintegrate on Jerry Springer.

Lately, though... I've been fooling around with my husband's best friend: judo. And I don't care what the neighbors may think.

Okay, enough metaphor. I'm having an absolute BLAST in judo class (which isn't to say I don't in BJJ), and I think the work of gripfighting and trying to read the momentum of what I'm doing or what my partner is doing is going to translate over well to my work in BJJ. And maybe it already is. I'm really hoping it improves my timing, especially with sweeps since I find myself in a defensive posture the vast majority of the time in bjj.

Maybe it's because I'm encouraged to use strength with my technique. Maybe it's just a natural inclination I have to throw people. Maybe it's just the experience of studying something almost entirely new to me. Whichever, I'm finding myself newly inspired. And that's always something I welcome.

In bjj, I'm toeing the line of going hypercritical on myself, a common derailment that has reared its head in my studies all along. I'm trying very very hard to not get frustrated, to instead try harder to make things work, make things stick (my biggest obstacle), and make things flow (a close 2nd place in the obstacle department). It is my intention to drill more with people, but life keeps getting in the way. And few and far between are the people who will lower themselves to just drilling (read: letting the old rusty broad flop about and try to get the moves down).

ADD is no friend to learning bjj. Last week I had a horrible evening because I couldn't focus. Too many moves, too much rushing about, not enough reps, and nowhere near the attention span I needed. The harder I tried to focus, the more easily distracted I became. Which only made me that much angrier and less capable of focusing. I told a friend later that I wish the drug companies could come up with something akin to an asthma inhaler for ADD. It doesn't derail me like this that often, but when it does, it is horribly infuriating.

dialing back my lifting a bit this week. I'm restricting my lifting days to those day in which I'm not training bjj or judo that night. Doubling up on those days is causing more damage than I can heal from. I'm skirting injury. Probably looking at lifting and cardio intervals 2 mornings a week, the rest will go to cardio intervals only. Rest on the weekends.

I'm frustrated on the nutrient timing angle of this though. I know I need to make more wholesale changes to my regular diet, but can't seem to find 2 sources that agree on the whats and hows of it. Carbs are okay or not? Restrict them after 7pm or allow if post-workout? I hate to waste time with a procedure that isn't going to work, but I also know it generally takes 8-10 weeks of consistency before I can tell if something is or is not working for me.

Maybe this week I will try and go back to protein shakes for dinner. Mostly protein. carbs only from recovery drink. It's hard though, I usually come home pretty hungry. Maybe some fruit/clean carbs in the afternoon before training.

We'll see how less lifting affects things. Judo is my last day of martial arts training for the week, typically. By Friday morning, I'm pretty fatigued. Sore knees, sore wrist, sometimes weak ankles -- I'm hoping those are just signs that I can eradicate by backing off a little on lifting, and getting back on track with my fish oil supplementation.

I guess we'll see by year's end.

Review: Nogi's 2009 product line... copied from my post on sherdog

Hoodie detail just didn't come out like I wanted. The white logo is actually similar to the white kingpin shorts (i.e. -- has the tiny grey o's on them).

The material of the volts is slightly lighter (to me) than the kingpins. Embroidery is insanely nice on all models.

Actually a lot of things to discuss here, so I'm probably going to go at it a piece at a time. We'll start with the hoodie. For those of you who don't know, I'm female, so my opinions on sizing will likely not be as accurate for you fellas. I've got more curves than y'all, but for what it's worth, I'm really short and have pretty stout legs/quads. Wear an A2 gi. Far from frail. Yes, you need to order up a size for the sherpa lined hoodie. At least one size. If you plan on wearing a thicker top (i.e.-- sweater, fleece, anything much more than a t-shirt or perhaps thermal), maybe 2 sizes up. The sherpa lining is THICK. I normally get large regular hoodies from Nogi, and this actually fits about the same by the time the lining is accounted for. too a few more shots to try and show the detail on the chest logo, the embroidery on the hood, and the thumbholes for hand warmth.

also, ipod pocket within the front left pocket is an added bonus. Has a reinforced metal grommet for your headphone wire to poke through. Not sure it'll fit my big video ipod, but certainly ample space for a shuffle or nano.

outer material is heavyweight cotton, don't see it failing anytime soon. Embroidery is absolutely superb. Would LOVE to see color variants on this. Maybe a white outer, red embroidery, grey lining using the black kingpin material? Hell, as long as it ain't pink. lol

gorgeous hoodie. I have zero complaints.

more grey volt shots


front side

front leg embroidery

back side

back leg applique

side shot


side leg embroidery


front closure embroidery


front closure/inside waistband

As a fan of the previous ghosts/phantoms from Nogi, the grey, black, and brown Volts are all wonderful iterations along that forefather design. These run to right at/below my kneecaps (sorry, no pics, I need to shave). Ample leg openings - no kick restrictions whatsoever. To me, the cut of these, especially the seam placements, make for guard-friendly action. Your hips should be plenty free from restriction in these.

closure is solid, the velcro is strong as is its stitching (for those concerned by previous model's velcro being too strong for the stitching, that appears to have been addressed). For you fans of drawstrings, that has also been implemented. While a departure from prior Nogi closure systems, this one is just as good. I've noted no chafing from the wider closure fixture when playing guard or being stacked.

no pockets on this model, so no concerns of getting fingers or toes snagged while playing ground game.

the back leg has a graphic imprint on it -- seems sturdy to me, no breakdown after repeat washings at this point. Plenty of open space for your own sponsors, incidentally.

the embroidery to the side leg and front right leg is fantastic - a hallmark of Nogi. Overall stitching seems solid to me thus far.

material is typical Nogi fare - lightweight but durable, and just as comfy as anything I've encountered on the market today. Moreso, actually. Nogis continue to be my standard for comfort - I wear these as much for hanging out as I do training (although the 2 tend to overlap more and more for me these days).


the 2-sided beanie:





and I mean, it's a beanie. a damned handsome one at that. two, actually.

I find the material on the Kingpins to be thicker than the Volts, but just as comfortable. The graphics are very very sharp. Outstanding embroidery.

this model has a back pocket, incidentally. And it's free-floating - meaning there's a separate pouch for the pocket that isn't 100% fixed to the inside of the short. Typical velcro closure similar to the old Grill shorts.

slight split to leg opening, not that it needed it. As much ornamental as functional I would wager - an appeasement to those who insist on needing a split on the leg opening.

The piping is nice, sturdy.

I'm imagining that the heft of these shorts comes more from materials being layered atop the black "frame" material -- if you look at the shorts inside out, you see it's not like one piece attached to another piece of material. Don't be deterred by the issue of weight, it isn't cumbersome. The comfort level is certainly not compromised. If anything, it just makes the shorts feel nicer, of higher quality. Being limited editions, I'm sure that's to be expected.

rashguards - speed short sleeves, rank rashguards, and loose-fit.







lower profile neck on the rank rashguards, but the neck of the regular speeds are also lower profile than, say, atama rashguards... otherwise, the speed rashguards are thin, sturdy fare. I've yet to have any degradation of graphics on my nogi rashguards, and expect no different from these. The material is a bit thin, but far from flimsy.

the blue of my long-sleeve guard was lighter and the short sleeve model, but may've just been a coincidence of timing - I did not order both at the same time.

on the ranked rashguards, I especially like that the side seams are offset to run just slightly towards the front and back -- that is, not going perfectly down the sides. I believe this allows for better dispersal of stress to the garment according to specific typical demands. Layman's terms, it ain't gonna tear as easy from strain as it might were it constructed like a typical shirt/rashguard with regards to seam placement.

Generous length, overall -- I never worry about the bottom of the rashguard riding up from my gi pants or shorts.

smooth stitching/seamwork - no chafing that I've noticed.

the loose fit is a thicker lycra than the speeds. minimalist logos. generous sleeve length on the short sleeve model.

baby steps

that I've not updated in over a month is less a testament to inactivity than it is spare time to do so.

In starting back to more serious training, I reeled back everything else I was doing in terms of exercise. I hit the reset button, and elected to instead pursue bjj practice, and little else, until my body re-acquainted itself to those rigors and demands.

several weeks later, I'm ready to start adding things back in. Some weight training, but chiefly some interval training for cardio. Right now, that's only being paired with my lift days. ~24-30 minutes of HIIT cardio followed by sets of maybe 2-3 exercises per major body part/mechanism to failure. A friend recommended it to me after I whined about my quads crapping out on me/filling with lactic acid - enzymatic training.

Since everything I've tried doesn't seem to elicit the results I want, I'm taking his advice for a few months. Or at least, I'm going to try to. I need to add more HIIT sessions of just cardio, since really my primary goal is weight loss at this point. I'm way too heavy to execute, and it's also impeding my flexibility. And I'm sure it's probably inviting injury as well. I've just been lucky with that.

and aside from recovery drinks/shakes, no carbs after 7pm. This will be hard. It will mean dinner = muscle milk or some similar derivative for the foreseeable future. Evenings that I am training bjj/etc I rarely get home before 830pm. But carb restriction is also something I've yet to try, so I'm certainly not going to pass judgment on it until I have at least given it its fair shot.

I would like to be able to do HIIT in the mornings, but I'm not precisely sure whether that means getting up doubly early to go to the gym for cardio machines, or if maybe I'll do something along the ilk of CST/flow-fit/bodyweight activities. Or even going downstairs to do some bas rutten thai boxing on the heavy bag.

I'm also going to have to figure out a means of getting to sleep faster on my bjj nights. None of this will be as effective if I don't get rest.

ON A MORE BJJ RELATED RANT... training has been going okay. I'm still a little overwhelmed really with all of the material, and last week was derailed by a family emergency that feels as though it lasted weeks in terms of interrupting my training. But hopefully all will get back on track soon. I'm hoping to get to start attending the judo class followed perhaps by muay thai, since I'm never really certain if/when I'll train bjj on weekends.

Trying to do private lessons at least every other week, and I think it is helping, but it's just difficult to see sometimes. With so many people intent on going full bore (when they are already stronger than me), that nullifies some of my new technique. I don't want to stoop to she-hulking my way through things, but the temptation to do so is always there.

with injury usually lurking close behind it.

that said, time to suit up and go do HIIT and pick some new upper/mid back lifts to torture myself with.

change is very, very good.

In between work and overtraining, I've not taken the time to blog. Which should not at all be taken to mean I've had nothing worth blogging about.

Quite the contrary.

My first couple of weeks back, I plodded through the first hour of class, maybe a little over, but nothing resembling rolling. Took the other nights off to go do hamster wheel cardio or what not.

Then it kicked back in. Two nights a week quickly turned back into as many nights as available, which quickly turned into sore knee joints, troubled shoulders, and a host of gis drying from every doorframe.

I'm sure the local water company is elated.

I'm learning so much, not absorbing enough. I want more drill time, but need more rest time. My notebook is filling up, but I insist on researching one more move and detailing it.

Ah yes, welcome back to the obsession. How I missed it.

But now I'm realizing that while the will may be strong, the flesh is weak. I can't train every night. Not yet. I'm in no shape for it. And there's no sense pouting about it, it is what it is.

So I'm trying to figure out how to maximize my ground work time while minimizing the effects of overtraining. Sadly, I think I'm going to have to give up the tuesday/friday MMA class. While I love doing it, it isn't bringing my ground game to anyplace I really need to take it. I'm not going to be cage fighting any time soon. And my stand up is okay. As okay as it needs to be really. And I'm not sure that the class isn't causing undue wear and tear on my already beleaguered joints.

I have a lot of ground to make up (no pun intended), and I really shouldn't donate training time to something that isn't maximizing my improvement.

but dammit, I like hitting things sometimes.

I believe I'll resolve to occasionally take the class on fridays, when I know I'm not going to be training on saturday. I've got to recover. There are only so many pills from GNC to take, so many pain reliefs gels and creams to paint myself in, before I simply have to acknowledge that I'm pushing too hard.

As for bjj study, I've had ah-ha moments involving s-mount, half open guard, guard passing, open guard, omoplatas, diamond guard, armbars, triangles, hell... more than I can count. And my notebook is filling up so fast it's unamusing. And by unamusing I mean completely awesome.

change, for me, has been exceptionally good. I hope this continues for a long, long time.