Thursday, November 29, 2007

Ultimate Fighter Episode 11/28

Another fine example of the caliber and quality of people in the sport of MMA last night. I am of course referring to Farmboy's unbelievable tenacity in fighting through one hell of a tight armbar and a solid triangle in the first 2 minutes of the fight. Rob was clearly sick, looked like he could barely breath, and really went all out to finish the fight quickly. Unfortunately Farmboy is some kind of superhuman wrestling cyborg from the future and was able to resist the submissions. After that it was more or less lay and pray with some punching. I think the match should have gone to a third round, but the result would have been the same. Unfortunately for Rob he was defeated by the flu. I fully expect to see him in the UFC within the next couple of years if he keeps at it though.
Oh, there was also some douchebaggery in the house involving toilets and door kicking, but we don't care about that here.

After I got my clutch fixed it turned out I had a blown head gasket in my car, so it was overheating every few miles. That is now fixed and I will make my triumphant return to class tonight after which I'm heading down to a friends TKD school for some dojo storming fun. I'll have another post up tonight about all that.

Next competition is on Feb 10th of 2008. I've been doing a lot of conditioning work while out of class and I feel stronger. The weightclasses at this comp are pretty wide though, so I expect to run into some monster guy who just outpowers me. Should be fun though.

Update: No class or dojo storming tonight. Made it an early evening with my girl. Dojo Storming moved to next tuesday, possibly with video.

Friday, November 16, 2007

The Ultimate Fighter 11/14

I haven't been to class since NAGA due to total car failure. 800$ for a new clutch, woohoo! I should be getting my car back sometime today though, hopefully in time to make it to open mats tonight.

So I missed most of the last TUF episode, but I did see the coinflip to decide who would be coached by Hughes and the resulting Douchebaggery by Hughes when the two guys tried to make it clear that whatever beef was between Hughes and Serra, they were just there to train. So Hughes AGAIN looks like a dick. Lucky for him he has the future winner of the show on his team, Mac "The Vegan Tornado" Danzig. Mac put on an absolute sprawn and brawl clinic in that fight. Fought off the takedowns with finesse and continually landed shots through the entire fight. The RNC finisher was just icing.

A couple of good threads going on over at Bullshido right now about the closed guard, here , and here check them out if you're having any trouble with your closed guard game. I'm still working on my cardio, I feel pretty good about everything else right now. I think the next technique related item I really want to focus on his my hip movement with armbars from the guard. I feel like I'm leaving my hips stuck to the ground, they just aren't mobile enough.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

NAGA Video Extravaganza

Ok, the videos from NAGA are up on Google Video now the links are below:
My 1st Match
My 2nd Match
My 2nd Match Overtime
Guy From Hardcore Gym whose name I forgot...
Brian, the guy I met at Casca Grossa, Match 1
Brian Match 2
Brian Match 3

The videos don't seem to be working just yet, may take a few hours for them to be available.

I've been skipping on training since a combination of car trouble, the time change, and NAGA has me feeling under the weather. I may not make it back to class this week, which would suck, but I'm sure I'll be back next week at the latest. I'm working on a conditioning routine that I can hit every day to try to get my endurance up. I'll post it up here once I figure out what I'm going to do. My Ironman Burpees challenge ended on 38, I skipped one day, then another, then stopped doing them all together. I just have too many things going on at once.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

NAGA 2007 AfterParty

Alright grappling fans, NAGA was today in Suwannee. We travelled over from Athens for the event and managed to avoid getting lost on the way in and arrived about 12:15. I registered and then went down to weigh-in. With my jeans on I was exactly 140.0, without them I weighed in at 138.5. So I've put on a little weight since Casca Grossa.
We sat around watching Futurama DVDs until the Kids divisions were done then the mens No-Gi divisions started. A couple of the guys from Hardcore showed up to compete in the Novice divisions and a guy I met at Casca Grossa was there for Novice as well. Things ran pretty smooth and everything was wrapped up ad we were back home by 5.
I again won my first match, then lost my second. With a 1/1 record I was then fighting for 3rd place, I was exhausted and lost that to a fairly cheap neck crank that I never saw coming. That won't happen again. The other guy from hardcore lost his first match when he got caught in a triangle and spun the wrong way out of it. He looked pretty good but needs more practice.
Brian, the kid I met at Casca Grossa ended up winning the Novice division. I got most of his matches filmed, but I missed the final one. So now I have a 5th out of 12 at Casca Grossa and a 4th out of 9 at NAGA. I feel like I'm squarely in the middle of the Beginner division and I've now accomplished 2 of my goals, won a match at CG and won a match at NAGA.
What I got out of this competition was that my conditioning is sad. I REALLY need to be in better shape if I expect to win one of these. So time to start doing sprints and stuf, really get my cardio up there. That's my focus for the next couple of months.

Video links will be up once the giant uploads are finished.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

The Ultimate Fighter: Episode 7

I sat down and watched TUF last night with my fiance and our roommate and we were all pretty equally appalled at Matt Hughes. His coaching methods as shown on the show are abusive and very unhelpful. His ego is so deeply tied to beating Matt Serra that he is neglecting his guys. He has unreasonable expectations for rookie fighters and blames them for everything. Matt Serra on the other hand has a very low pressure training environment that is also high intensity and very enthusiastic. Even after Serra's protege lost the first match to Danzig he sucked it up pretty well and just moved on. Yeah he told his fighter what the guy did wrong, freezing inside the triangle when he had an opportunity to escape, but he didn't ride him for it and he didn't punish the rest of the team over it.
I know that editing plays a big part in how we perceive the coaches on this show, but Matt Serra really comes off as the better COACH of the two, regardless of which is the better fighter. The same happened with BJ Penn and Jens Pulver. BJ is a GREAT coach for people who are already highly motivated and really on the same page as he is, but he's not so great for people who aren't as motivated or as capable as he is. Joe Lauzon seemed to benefit a TON from BJ while some of the other fighters didn't seem to improve at all. Jens Pulver was able to keep his whole team motivated and together the whole time and everyone seemed to be improving and learning. Now clearly BJ is a better fighter than Jens is. Jens is great, but BJ is in a whole nother world. But if I were able to pick one to be my coach it would probably be Jens because I know he has the patience to work with me that BJ lacks.
The ability of a coach to keep their teem cohesive and moving in the same direction is just as important as their ability to fight. Matt Serra has it, Matt Hughes doesn't.

NAGA is this Saturday, I'll be hitting up class tonight and then open mats tomorrow. I'm feeling a lot more comfortable escaping side control now and everything else about my game feels pretty tight. I really want to win my division at NAGA.