Training Update?

[Carl Elder]

I havent seen any of you in a while. Was curious how your training is going?

[ninjamessiah]

I told ya before, my training is good...hopefully in a couple months more I'll be ready for purple-beltness, but it's hard to say for sure. I still trip over something in my mind when trying to perform an o-goshi from time to time, hehe. Attended a few toiedo classes, been learning some new tricks from mr.housler, and been sparring with/learning from corey as well. Overall I'm feeling much more confident in my abilities, and much more confident that I can handle myself well enough to at least not get killed or horribly hurt in an abrupt street-type brawl. I learn new stuff and realize new stuff about martial arts everyday, so the excitement of being able to constantly learn and improve is really what keeps me motivated to keep on training.

[judonerd]

Still splitting my time between BJJ and Judo... Judo is by far the better work out, but I've had to take breaks from it due to the dojo's hard floors and stiff tatami (ughh). Brazilian is a lot of fun and I feel myself leaning more towards that as a long term hobby. I have recently decided to work towards my blue belt in BJJ. I'm getting better, and I am definitely newaza threat to anyone in my judo classes. The sensei there has me spar with the brown/black belts when we do randori, so I am gaining a lot of experience but getting swept a lot too. Thats what beats me 90% of the time.

How bout you Carl?

[Carl Elder]

Gald to hear your guys training is coming along. I'll be sure to let you guys know next time I am coming up so we can get together and spar a bit.

Well over the holdiays my training has been pretty lazy. The place we practice Judo in has been closed for the entire winter break so that kinda sucks. But now that breaks over I'm going to be training harder than ever before. Ive been doing that low volume weight training that I told you guys about, so far I really like it, to soon to tell if its going to have much gains though. So I do that 2-3 days a week. Been working on my cardio and it feels like its gotten a lot better. Been riding the exercise bike for 20 min 5-6 days a week. And now that the dojo is open again im gonna be doing both BJJ and Judo and a little MMA with some of the guys from BJJ 6-7 days a week. Im feeling really motivated to train and we have a few judo competions coming up in a couple months I think, and hopefully by the summer I'll be ready for my first MMA fight.

Well thats the plan for now anyways, as long as I can stick to the schedule I have set I should be able to be there.

[ninjamessiah]

Hey, that's be sweet to see my ol' sensei in some mma action! you taking any other classes down there or just martial arts?

Dan, I heard that you tapped zach the other day....man nice job man, he's almost a blue belt, that's impressive. sparring with those high ranking judo guys too, you must be a natural.

[Carl Elder]

Yeah im taking other classes to, school just started this week so far so good. The classes I'm taking are Philosphy, Psychology, Marketing, Human Sexuality, and Computer Art. They are all pretty interesting and none of them seem to hard.

[judonerd]

I'm not a natural, I'm just obsessed. I practice on my fiancee. I do drills at home. I watch the same videos OVER AND OVER AND OVER picking up new techniques.

Sometimes after class I can't sleep at night, because my mind won't stop going through the mistakes in sparring. Always a new nut to crack.

Obsession always helps practice.

Zach is good though. He's pretty wiley, and I think he'd beat me at no-gi more than gi.

[ninjamessiah]

Hey I know how that is actually, sometimes at night after training I can't sleep either, I figure something out and go over it in my head again and again and I get all excited, delaying sleep another hour or so..haha..curse and a blessing.

[ninjamessiah]

Oh BTW Dan, if you get that can't sleep thing again, you should try writing out what's going through your head, that'll get it out and you'll always have it to relfect upon later...could help. Lloyd Irvin says he got his bjj black belt in just over 3 years cuz he took notes(amongst other things) in class.

[ninjamessiah]

I guess I'll bump this thread again...
I just finished my 2nd class at Robinson's BJJ.... all I can say for myself is

Hah...man oh man I've gotten lazy and out of practice. Every white belt I rolled with except one pretty much walked all over me 80% of the time. I hate losing all the time...though it's not so much the losing that upsets me but the fact that I felt like I let myself lose, didn't try hard enough because of silly mental blocks. That and being out of it so long.

Besides that I've been conditioning my shins against a heavy bag and doing a lot of heavy bag work, jogging and doing explosive sprints. Still not smoking ;D and that's by far the best training practice I've had so far. Everything goes better. I don't really do the YMCA thing anymore, and I'm thinking about checking out that BJJ place on rt 30 next week too.

How about you guys? Any new classes, new belt ranks, new level of understandings, etc etc?

[Carl Elder]

Good to hear! Don't get discouraged everyone looses and youll have highs and lows throughout your training life everyone does. Stick with pats hes really good, although I haven't seen the other guys so he might be good to.

I'm still training hard down here, harder than I ever have. I am going to get down to 198 by Oct 6th for America's Cup, a judo tourney in Indy. I still have about 20 pounds to go...

I feel like my ground game has recently hit some kind of new benchmark, not really sure what it is but it seems better than before and it was kind of a sudden realization... Im also finally understanding the concept of circular movement in judo as far as foot work goes.... Ive heard/talked/knew about it before but its just now starting to really make sense and has been helping me with different set ups for various throws, mostly hip and half-hip throws. I also think my new favorite throw is sumie gaeshi (which is like tomoe nage except the leg goes on the opponents inner thigh instead) I like it because I can score with it pretty easily and it gets the fight to the ground where in judo at least I feel I have an advantage or at least equal chance...

How do you guys like the new background? I wish I could get it to not tile.... But it wont let me you cna only put in background image and thats it.

[judonerd]

Dont get down about getting beat at Pats class. They're all a bunch of really tough guys, and if you stick with it, you'll be kicking ass too. It takes three years of hard training to get past white belt, so dont let their rank fool you. I'd say the teaching at my current school is better (marginally), but the students at Pat's are generally tougher.

Carl, where'd you get the background graphic? I'm trying to find some jujutsu/hand-to-hand images like this for a tattoo, but all I can find are fully dressed samurai using swords.

[Carl Elder]

I found them here: www.japaneseprints.net/gallery.cfm It was a long and tedious search, they have woodblock prints from just about everything japanese so they were difficult to find. There arent to many jujutsu ones there. I think I have two, this one and one with a samurai in full armor doing kata guruma on a demon its friggin awesome!! Its real busy though lots of detail.

and heres the background image


there might be more on that site, I got tried of looking but dont remember where I left off, I also think they update it occasionally. If you find any good ones let me know!!

[judonerd]

So, where's everyone at? I've been learning a ton at Gracie Barra. Im talking to them about redesigning their website in exchange for a free unlimited membership. I figure I'll start getting into Judo again once I earn my blue belt in BJJ, but that wont be for AT LEAST a full year.

It'd be cool if we could meet up for some mat time, but since I dont have a car anymore and Im in the heart of Chicago, traveling back to the Y doesn't seem feasible anymore. BUT, if any of you guys are in Chi, you can crash at my place and we can head over to the GB for some open mat.

So, how's everyone's training? I want to see some footage!

[Carl Elder]

Nice, glad to hear your training is going well. I got a Judo tournoment next weekend on the 6th, its supposed to be a tough competition but im hoping to at least place. Im hoping to get some video of it so ill post that once I do.

Not sure when Ill be back in valpo or chicago ive been real busy lately with school, work and training. Thanksgiving break is coming up so i should be home then and would love to get some training in.