very, very busy lately. school semester just started. Training the whole summer was great too. This semester of school will allow me a lot of time to train. Preparing for the IBJJF Honolulu Open this weekend. Just finished my last day of strength training by performing repetitions for power. need to rest my body 

got to stay strong mentally

Flying to California this Sunday to adjust and compete in the BJJ Mundials 2010 which will be my first world championship and biggest tournament I have ever been in. In the past couple days, I accumulated a knee injury, viral stomach infection, and a rising fever. I just hope that these pass through and pray they improve when the time comes for it. I am trying to view these things as signs or ways of keeping me in check from hurting myself more in other ways like overtraining and putting the situation in the best perspective possible. Life is unpredictable and it seems that's what is so dynamic and and exciting about it. Good and bad, the whole package is all it comes with.

competing and training

after having much doubts about competing after being promoted, I finally really began to grasp the concept of progression in the art. Figuring that I have never won anything or placed often at white belt level competitions, I could not begin to fathom how would I even remotely could do well at the blue belt level. I took the new color of my belt as a sign to train even harder to try and catch up to the skill level I hoped to reach and tested myself in competition. 

SO far my first two competitions as a newly promoted blue belt I have placed first and second place, something I have not managed to do at white belt. As I advance more and compete more often, I understand I will be more and more comfortable with performing and not be afraid to open up my game under pressure. There are many details and mistakes that have been brought to my attention through competition that I probably would not have noticed from the comfortable training environment in the gym. Now this makes me want to go to the gym and work on things that brought me doubt and excitement in the competition. 

late night/super early morning in NYC

right now sitting in a super small and cold room the size of a barn stall, unable to sleep so I am here tweaking on the net. Looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning for 2 hours of quality BJJ training at Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro's school under 6x World champion Marcos "Loro" Aurelio Galvao Perreira. The guy is awesome. Feeling itchy to train after 2 days of well rested days on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. More info later. Been very busy the last 3 weeks. Merry Holidays everyone :)

Strange strange.....

Last night, I did not even sleep. I had ZERO hours of sleep due to the waking my lazy ass up at 1:45 pm on Thanksgiving day then downing 40 oz of coffee with my pumpkin pies at about 4:00 pm. Retarded idea as I could not sleep at all. Then I went to the morning BJJ training and I felt great actually. It was easy training, light technique and rolling. Only for about an hour and a half. Ran home and ate a huge acai bowl with a grilled cheese sandwich only to down some more accursed coffee. Went back to the gym again expecting a 2nd session at 4:30 and another at 6:30 pm. But instead, it ended up with a warm up and free rolling lasting from 5:00pm all the way till about 8:00pm. I felt like I was on it today! So strange since I had zero sleep at all the night before. THis phenomenon has happened once when I was in the mainland and didn't sleep then said fuck it the next morning and showed up for the most brutal conditioning and BJJ sessions I have ever endured. I learned quite a bit and probably had a lot of mat time added to my experience but I also was able to get down Braulio Estima's patented Inverted Triangle setup which works like a charm when pulled off properly. Well, I will go catch up on sleep now 

Productivity: TIme Well Spent

Well, if there were a worldwide competition for slacking off, I would be in the rankings. For the past 2 days, I have done no studying even though finals are coming up in 3 weeks. Instead, I show up to my morning Physiology class, wing my presentation on Grave's Disease, then nearly fall asleep during the teacher's lecture. Then, off to BJJ class I went.

THe normal brown belt who teaches the class was out with a rib injury so he brought in his friend who is a black belt from Gracie Humaita association. THis instructor is on good terms with my  head BJJ instructor so he ended up teaching class. We went over good warm up drills but the technique stuck well with me. It consisted of:

Arm bar from guard>guys pulls arm out>omoplata to inside arm (without closing feet)>underhook their near leg with your near arm & grab own collar, (alternative-grab omoplata'd arm with same hand if possible. THis is hard if they have short arms/gi sleeve), secure their arm with free hand>kick the heel/ankles to the ground to buck them forward, then redirect horizontally to bring them over you and on their back>hold and secure trapped arm and pull up to straighten as this stops them from sitting up>keep turning to face him and secure mounted triangle/fall to triangle/triangle armbar. 

After, we free rolled and I thought I held my own decently against a pro MMA fighter who was also a blue belt. Afterwards, I was lucky enough to roll with the guest black belt instructor. He brought his level down to mine I felt and let me work. I was in danger, escaped only to find myself in another bad position but was able to mount offense in the form of a half-guard V-Bar (my instructor's terminology!). THis was my best form of offense and he brushed it off as if he were swatting a fly. A very productive rolling session as I consider rolling with black belts awesome as they can feel so much going on and vary so many things. This black belt gave me constructive advice on what was good and bad, as if he were evaluating me and then letting me know all my flaws. Sadly, I had to leave to work but I came back that might for another BJJ training session. Trying to pull as much 2-a-day practices as I can for now. I just want to improve my BJJ, is that so much to ask?

I notice with black belts, they can lower and bring up their levels to roll with anyone they are going with. From blue to brown up to more skilled blacks, they can lower themselves and still give you a battle without completely annihilating you (if they want to). I hope to achieve this level of proficiency one day.

The night time session was awesome, going over a bicep spicer variation of open to guard to sweeps and taking the back. THe rolling session was more intense with a bigger class and more blue belts who were new to the school. ANyways, I was so spent and after going home to have a HUGE dinner of quinoa, kale, and 1/4 a turkey, I knocked out to go to bed. LEading till today....

Waking up at 9:30 when my Exercise Physiology class started at 9am! I felt like I needed the extra sleep to recover from the training. I slept in, ate breakfast headed to school but since skipping for first class for the day, I am now sitting in a coffee shop munching on an white chocolate macadamia nut cookie (clean ingredients of course!) and sipping on a huge amount of coffee, watching Robson Moura's cross guard instructional. Is it wrong to feel like I am actually making productive use of time right now? Well, after my 1pm class and work (which I totally enjoy), back to the gym for more BJJ training tonight!

BJJ training days

With the increased number of classes by my instructor, I can get more classes in, yay! But the schedule goes a little late so I get home later at night so, nay! Ended school very early today at 8:00am so I am now muncing down on pasta at home then going to take a nap followed to prepare for a consecutive schedule of BJJ>work>BJJ for the next 9 hours. Hopefully I don't drop from exhaustion. good day yall!