Props to a fellow student.

For those who actually do read this it has been obvious due to my work schedule I have not been able to attend class too much as of late. Well now I have a daytime schedule and will be hopefully getting into class 2-3 nights a week at least. now while most of the guys have caught up to me or are just barely a stripe ahead of me there is one guy in class I want to give a shout out too. Now when I left he was just shy of getting his first stripe.. to describe him he is tiny.. weighs in at a massive 145 pounds and is a good 7 or 8 inches shorter then me. Now he is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a very good athlete plays soccer as well. he has always been quick on the mat and is a natural with ankle locks. David, that is his name, while I was away earned his 3rd stripe not too long ago. which in many ways did not surprise me.. his one glaring weakness was his inability to pass a guard and lack of defense.. man could he attack.. Well he has learned all that. In class tonight it is mainly just a drilling class.. we come in.. do not really go over anything new just practice things we need to go over and want work with. For me I spent most of the night working with Bill (our Blue Belt) working on sweeps. He was able to pick out the one step I kept messing up.. so I am expecting my sweeps to get better. Well at the end of class since I had not rolled with David in about 3 months, we decided to roll. Well I saw right away his game got a lot better. Little set ups I used to do and he went for he did not even think twice about.. we rolled a good 4-5 minutes switching positions going from guards and passing and such. At one point his Gi top came off got bunched up in my face making it hard to breath. he was able to take my back.. and while not able to fully lock in a rear naked choke.. he just had me to the point I could not breathe. At that point I tapped as I could not breath. Being out sick for a whole week did not help.. but no excuse really.. he got great position. After a break and just some BS'ing, me and David rolled again. It was pretty much like before lots of back and forth.. him forcing me to move around at his speeds.. remember He is 145.. I come in at 263. I am almost 2 of him.. yes I am stronger.. but technique is key to BJJ. Well eventually he went back for an ankle lock which I was able to defend against and managed to slip out into side control. David pulled me into half guard where I then went for a modified sort of arm triangle.. I held it pretty tight. Now I do not think it was actually locked in properly it was enough to get him to tap this time. It was great fun and I am glad to see his incredible improvement. Sadly me and my instructor Greg know he is ready for competition he just does not feel he is. I honestly feel sorry for most in his weight class as he is strong has great mat sense is quick as all hell. This guy is really good. I hope we can get him to compete soon. He'll do the school proud.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

Well I made class again tonight.. first time in awhile. Well Bill got his Blue belt, Congrats Bill, the day after the TN state championships at Royler's seminar on Sunday. And well I felt off today.

Class was fun.. we practiced some take downs and then a few different side mount escapes. I did well with all that until it came time to roll. Since I have missed so much class as of late everyone has been able to close the gap. Great on them it is just frustrating for me. I am still better in some area's but they are now able to capitalize on my weaknesses unlike before. I was tapped by the only guy in class larger then me who used to be a wrestler he caught me in an Americana, and then Bill our newly minted blue belt caught me in some awkward choke. Then I rolled with one of the other guys we changed position a couple of times mostly I held top positions either side control or mount. He took none of the bait I gave him and finally I had a shat to fall to the side for an arm bar and just as I did time expired.. then after I worked with Greg on a few things things discussed what I need to work on, and then we BS'ed about the MMA world.

Preparations...

As I have stated I am getting ready to start the Insanity program and to help me along the way I am going to be starting a new diet. The diet program I am starting is based upon your blood type and how certain foods react with your body. This along with controlling my caloric intake, based upon my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). BMR tells you how many calories your body will burn in a 24 hour period of you were just to lay still and do nothing all day. Using this information and along with foods targets to your body you can get the most from your meals. With my current BMR of 2471.2 I am going to have a target caloric intake of about 2000. Meaning if I do nothing but take in 2000 calories in one day I will start to lose weight. Now coupled with the right foods plus exercise I should notice results fairly quickly.

Now I am not starting on this right away I need several days to shop prepare meal plans and such I will make an announcement when I do.

Also today I had a body fat check done. And while not the best looking of numbers it is better then my last check of about 3 and a half months ago. Then my percentage was at 34%. As of today it was down to 25.7%. As I said.. not overly impressive. but great improvement. So once I start this program, both diet and workout I should see see a great improvement.. my over all goal is to get to around 10% body fat.

Beachbody - 3 Cardio Power & Resistance (preliminary review)

This was a bit shorter workout, but no less intense. This being more of a power workout it was at a bit slower pace. The warm up was a little bit different, and it was followed by the usual stretching. The workout as I said was a bit slower paced but focused more on power moves. new moves are brought it. some noticeable from the fit test like the globe jumps. as other workouts it seems to focus on plyo, abs and upper body. but this one does not hit the breakneck pace of the previous. Now do not let that fool you. it is still higher paced and its slower level then the majority of other work out programs. this one just focuses more on strength exercises hitting the large muscle groups including some fun looking tricep exercises.


From watching the first two videos and random bits of the others I do not think my reviews of each are going to vary a lot so I will try to focus on some of the unique aspects of the previous ones.
they all include a warm up and stretch. then the workout itself followed by a cool down stretch.

Beachbody - 2 Plyometric Cardio Circuit (preliminary review)

This was the first work in the program. Just finished watching it. Now like all the workouts it starts with a moderately paced warm up and then the intensity level picks up as you go through the same warm up two more times but increasing the pace of it each time. then once you are warm it gets nice and slow with some stretching. Through out the host Shaun T stresses the fact that you should 1, never sacrifice form, and 2, rest when you need to. then after the st reaches it gets crazy with suicide drills, power squats and other insane exercises one after the other at a pace that has those in the video being forced to take breaks outside of the scheduled breaks. Each circuit is done 3 times with about a 30 second rest for water. with during the breaks reminders that form is more important then the speed you do the exercises at. This is very important because after each break the pace increases. this is the Max interval training talked about.. as it goes on the exercises change with a mix of lower body plyo, ab work and upper body. and "Insane" cardio the whole time. the last section is "Sports" style drills with stuff taken from football and basketball work out as well as some boxing drills at the very end. To be honest, watching this is making me anxious. Both in the feeling of WOW.. am I going to survive this and too, man I can't wait. The people in the video all appear to be in very good shape and some of them are struggling.

Beachbody - Insanity Fit Test (preliminary review)

(Over the next few days I will be watching these videos and taking notes getting familiar with the exercises and movements in this program as I have never really done a program like this. I once attended a cardio kick boxing class, notice the word once As I watch the videos I will post my initial thoughts and then when I begin I will just give my feelings on how I felt at the end of each session and post my fit test numbers here as well. Now onto the review)


WOW... INSANE... I mean really I just watch the fit test for this program. This is what you will be doing every two weeks to see your progress. It is 8 exercises. Many you most likely know if you work out often, though these are kinda slight variations. You do each exercise for 1 minute, with a 1 minute rest. It involves a few minutes of stretching warm up then at the end a few minutes of stretching for cool down. I will be listing the names of the exercises here no real descriptions for them I hope in the future to record one of my fit tests and I will post it for all to see. It did leave me with one question. Something I thought odd about the test but I have a theory already as to why. Keep in mind this is just a fit test.. not the work out. The names are what they are called in the program, So here it is

Switch Kicks, 1 min rest
Power Jacks, 1 min rest
Power Knees*, 1 min rest
Power Jumps, 1 min rest
Globe Jumps, 1 min rest
Suicide Jumps, 1 min rest
Push up Jacks, 2 min rest
Low Plan Obliques, and Done

Now before the last exercise there was a 2 minute rest the people in the video looked pretty wiped by this point.

* I bet you are wondering why I put that. Well it was simple cardio knees but for the fit test you apparently only do them to one side.. I assume this will be your strong side as in the video he said all to lean to the left and they were kneeing with their right leg. now I suspect that since this is just a test that the exercises during hate program will be working both sides, so here you are just testing to one side.

How does Insanity differ from other workouts. Well as you may be aware most other workouts of this type use interval training. You typically go at a moderate pace then push hard for 30 seconds to a minute then slow back down. For Insanity they call in Max Interval training. Where you push hard for most of it then slow down for about 30 seconds to a minute. It so far seems to be a mix of stretch, Plyometrics and traditional cardio exercises with some slight variations.

now I am not sure the exact date I will be starting this program. I have to find a place where the kids will be out of the way but I have access to a TV and room to jump. Not much room in my house for this.

Update.

OK just to give you all an idea of how I am progressing in my workouts... When I first started training in BJJ I was weight in at about 290 pounds, and I would get winded with in a minute or 2 of rolling.
once I started training I started to hit the gym a little bit and things started to get better.
I got down to around 270-275..

Then I started this blog. over the last 2-3 weeks I am walking around at about 264, meaning if I were to compete MMA I would not have to cut weight to reach the 265lbs limit on the Heavyweight class.. Over the next week or two I plan on increasing my gains as I will be changing my diet plan and starting on the Insanity program by Beach body.

I plan on getting a BMI (body mass index) check done at work on Friday and regardless of how ugly the results look I am going to post them so you can all see my progress.. probably some pictures as well so there will be physical evidence of my progress.

Once I start competing I will be posting pics and vids here as I get them as well. I was hoping to compete this weekend in teh state championships, but my instructor advised against it as you all can see I have only made a few training classes in the last 2 months or some. with some good news at work yesterday I am hoping to have a good schedule that will get me more class time.

Up coming bouts. My thoughts.

There are several fights of note coming up I want to give my thoughts on.

Strikeforce / M-1 Global - Saturday Nov. 7th

The first fight i want to talk about is is Gegard "The Dreamcatcher" Mousasi (26-2-1) vs. Rameau Thierry "The African Assassin" Sokoudjou (7-4). Now Sokoudjou is an underdog in this fight even though 6 of his 7 wins are by T/KO, all in the first round, and his losses one being to the current UFC LHW champ Lyoto Machida. Still makes him an underdog. Gegard, who is a training partner of Fedor, is on a fairly impressive 13 win streak. his last loss being to none other then Akihiro Gono to end his previous 8 straight win streak. His wins coming by a mixtures of Submissions, KO's and TKO's having only failed to finish 5 opponents including his 2 losses and one draw. While it is obvious Rameau has some power and can finish a fight with a KO. I do not think his arsenal of weapons is as deep as that of Gegard.

My Prediction - Gegard Rd 2 T/KO.

Next comes JAKE SHIELDS (23-4-1) vs. JASON "MAYHEM" MILLER (22-6). Now I will be honest here I am a bit biased towards shields. I been a fan of his for awhile now. Plus my BJJ instructor is a good friend of Jake's and has trained a lot with him. Now both of these guys have some Ultra slick Jiu Jitsu both holding many titles in various Jiu jitsu competitions. Jake has been very impressive as of late with miller more known for his hosting role on MTV's Bully Beatdown. Jake is on a 12 straight win streak, his last 7 wins were by submission 6 of those in the first round, most notably being Robbie Lawler, who Jake being a LW fighter moved up to middle weight for the challenge. Which is where this fight with miller will be for the recently vacated Strikeforce title. (The title was recently Vacated by Cung Lee who is currently perusing an acting career, and hopes to return to fighting in the future). I think the deciding factor in the fight might be the underrated stand up skills of Jake Shields. if it goes to the ground I think it could be anybody's contest. Miller just seems to have had a string of bad luck in matches lately. going 1-1-1 in his last 3 though his loss was an incredible match against Ronaldo Souza but his most recent match... a rematch against the same ended in a NC. This has the makings of being a fight for the ages. Neither has had to go 5 rounds in awhile, or rather had an opponent able to push them that far. This could be a possibility. Neither fighter is known for KO power and have 7 TKO's and no KO's between them, but I feel it is stand up that will decide this. Many say Jake looks very stiff in the ring and as I stated many feel his striking is sub par. If miller takes Jakes' stand up lightly and hopes to keep this standing he might be in for a surprise. From a recent interview and reading his facebook posts I know Jake is not taking miller lightly in any aspect of this fight. For the outcome of this fight I am having mixed thoughts. It could be a long drawn out decision and a stand up battle going into the late rounds. But if either fighter makes a mistake both are capable of picking up a quick win by a slick submission.

My prediction - Shields Rd 3 TKO

Lastly on this card...

FEDOR "THE LAST EMPEROR" EMELIANENKO (30-1*-0 1NC) vs. BRETT "THE GRIM" ROGERS (10-0). Now its rare for a man who is 10-0, 9 of which are KO's or TKO's to be an underdog, but you would have a hard time finding anyone who gives Rogers more then a punchers chance. Fedor's last loss was 9 years ago (read early entry about Fedor for further explanation) 6 years before Rogers first Pro fight. Rogers most notable win was over Andrei Arlovski in :22 seconds by TKO who 5 months earlier Fedor defeated by KO in 3:14 of the first round. Both men have punching power. But many who have stepped into the ring with Fedor claim no one has ever hit them harder. Fedor has survived many tough situations and over come many opponents who were bigger stronger or supposedly better, with wins over several former UFC champions, including 2 wins over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Now Rogers is not known for having much of a ground game. Where Fedor has out grappled grapplers', and out struck, strikers. Fedor is known for his robot like mentality in the ring showing no emotion even when he wins. His sportsmanship is unparalleled, but to look into his eyes before a fight looks as if you are looking into teh eyes of your executioner, and I think mentally he has most opponents beaten before the opening bell. Watch the eyes of Hong Man Choi even Tim Sylvia before the opening bell, weather they will admit it or not they have the look of someone who just got locked in a cage with a hungry dragon. Now one thing going for Rogers in this fight is it is Fedors first time in a cage. Many previous Pride fighters who have come over to the UFC and other groups have not always fared well in a cage. Though I do not feel that this will be a big deal for Fedor. I do not think Rogers really brings anything to the table Fedor really has to worry about. He has fought people who hit harder, are better strikers, better grapplers and has weathered them all.

My Prediction - Fedor 1st rd KO (utter destruction)


UFC 104 Oct 24th

Only one real fight I want to talk about on this card.

Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida (15-0) vs . Mauricio "Shogun" Rua (18-3) for the UFC LHW title. On 2/3/07 Lyoto made his UFC debut and put together a string of what some called un-exciting Unanimous Decision wins. He came into the UFC with an 8-0 record with wins over BJ Penn, Rich Franklin and Stephen Bonnar to his resume. He started to put detractors to rest when he submitted Rameau Thierry "The African Assassin" Sokoudjou then picked apart Tito Ortiz in a 3 round battle where only once was Lyoto in any trouble then he KO'd Thiago Silva and then Rashad Evans to win the title. Rua on the other hand boasts 15 T/KO wins and has a who's who list of wins to Rival Fedor, including several that match Fedor, Big Nog and Kevin Randleman. Rua is known as a game striker who likes to take it to his opponents a style that has so far utterly failed against the likes of Machida. In fact so far no one has been able to figure out the puzzle Machida represents. His striking is on par with the best and his ground game is on the same level. he has incredible take down defense. It leaves me wondering what Rua is going to try that no one else has, and is it going to work. being a fan of both fighters it is hard to pick. Rarely do I choose against Rua. I just don't think though he is going to be the one to defeat Lyoto.

My Decision - Machida Rd 2 TKO.


Well these are just some coming up that I wanted to comment on.. there are more to come.

Physical Training.

OK.. I know I have not posted in awhile and for that I am sorry.

Things have been a bit hectic. I have started a new lifting program and I just got my hands on a copy of Beach Body's new Insanity program. Which I will be starting shortly and will be talking about. Now for those that may not know. Beach Body is the same company that made the P90X program. I know many on it and it seems to work as they say.The one disadvantage to the P90x is that you need some extra equipment. Things like some dumbbells or resistance bands. and a pull up bar. Now from all I read the new Insanity program requires nothing but some space. It is similar in concept to P90X how it alters itself over time to prevent the plateau effect. It is filled with lots of cardio, stretching and plyometrics. I figure doing this along with my new lifting program should give me some, well... Insane results.

Now as for the lifting program I am doing. It is a 3 day program consisting of 4-5 lifts each day using either drop sets or rest-pause sets. now both are similar in how you do them, but on a drop set you decrease by roughly 20% weight. Now for each set I need to do a min of 8 reps or a max of 10. with a 20 second rest between each set for a total of 3 sets. Either going down in wait as stated for the drop sets or staying at the same weight for the rest-pause sets. And as stated I am doing 3 to 4 exercises a day 3 days a week. Now to keep things different I do, do different variations of the exercises

Day 1 - Monday
Incline or decline bench press, Drop sets
Military Press, Drop sets
Dips, Rest-pause
Bicep curls, drop sets

Day 2 - Wednesday
Standing Rows - Drop Sets
Lat pull downs - Drop Sets
Shrugs - Drop sets
Back Extensions - rest-pause

Day 3 - Friday
Squats - rest-pause
Leg curls - Drop sets
Leg Extensions - drop sets
Calf press/raise - rest pause
Crunches - rest-pause

For the moment on the off days I am doing cardio running for at least 25 minutes and a min of 1.5 miles.. still not much of a runner. Once I start the Insanity program that will be a daily so that will be my cardio.. I still plan on lifting as well.. though I may be forced to change my weights and such.


So now you are up to date on what I am doing. More to follow.

Fedor and the UFC. My thoughts.

First let me start by saying I am a huge Fedor Emelianenko fan. He is most like the most dominant fighter to date in the history of MMA regardless of Weight class. "The Last Emperor" as he is known is was born September 28, 1976 (let it be known I was born almost exactly 1 year later Sept, 19th 1977) he weighs in approximately 233 pounds and fights as a Heavyweight. His current official record is 30-1* with 1 no contest. The asterisk next to his name is to denote his one loss came in a tournament where he was hit with an illegal elbow and cut. The bleeding was unable to be controlled and therefore he could not continue so the one who hit him was given the win so he could advance. if not for the tournament format the fight would have been declared a no contest as it was very obvious the elbow was not intentional. Almost all MMA rankings have him listed as the #1 heavyweight fighter in the world and many have him as the #1 pound for pound fighter in the world his record and stats can be viewed here. Now that you know who this is about let me go into the topic on hand.

Now it is widely accepted and I even agree that at the moment the Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC is the current top dog in the MMA world. In almost every weight class they boast at least 5 of the top 10 fighters and in some weight classes even more. The one weight class that seems to be in the biggest contention is the Heavyweight division. And The UFC has some great young and veteran fighters. It is also widely felt that the HW division in MMA in general for the most part is the most talent shallow division.

Back in the Heyday of Pride Fighting Championship Fedor reigned supreme while Randy Couture was pretty much the ruler of the UFC. Just about everyone who was an MMA fan at the time wanted to know who would win. Captain America or the Russian Machine. Sadly in Randy's Prime this match never happened. Now though Pride is long gone. Fedor is currently under contract with M-1 Global who is owned in part by Vadim Finklestein who just also happens to be Fedor's manager (keep this in the back of your mind. As you read this.)

Now several times in the past Dana White the president of the UFC has tried to sign Fedor for instance after the demise of Pride. In the past negotiations have always seemed to break down as neither side seemed willing to make concessions to other. Past negotiations I blame on both parties at the table.

Now let me state some feelings here. Personally I do not think Fedor has any say over what contract he signs as I truly believe his manager/fighter contract with Vadim has him practically a slave. And his only way out would be to defect from Russia which as most MMA fans know is a point of personal pride with Fedor as he loves his country. And keep in mind Russian contract law is most likely very different then US contract law where most athletes can get out of a contract if they feel their management is not acting in their best interests.

Back to the point... as I said, past negotiations have always broken down with both sides Fedor's management and Dana calling each other names and such. The last time this happened Fedor ended up signing with, if you guessed M-1 Global, you would be correct. The contract was for 6 fights, So far Fedor has had 3. 2 of which were under Affliction where he defeated, excuse me, destroyed two former UFC HW champs. After 2 shows. Affliction is back to just clothing and Fedor needs to find a new place to fight.

Well to give credit to Dana White, He seems this time to have listened to the fans and came to Fedors management with an incredible deal, a supposedly 6 fight contract making over a million, some reports say up t 5 million per fight deal which would make him the highest paid fighter in MMA history. A point of contention on the past has been Fedor's participation in Sambo matches in his home country which is really Fedor's true passion, Dana gave in. Dana said Fedor could hang banners about M-1 Global and even wear shorts in the ring that said M-1 on them, let the record show that when Affliction announced it was going to promote MMA events fighters were banned from wearing Affliction clothing or posting Affliction on their ringside banners, re-aired shows had Affliction apparel fuzzed out, So this was a big thing for Dana to give. Every concession that was for Fedor the fighter Dana appears to have made.

Except, you know there had to be one of these things seemed to perfect...

Except to co-promote events which is what Vadim states as the main reason they did not sign the contract. Now some say this was ludicrous for Dana not to agree to co-promote. Why would the UFC not agree to this? well in the early days when MMA was all but outlawed in most states and Dana and the owners were trying to grow, none of the other smaller promotions of the time would help them fight to get the laws and such changed, Because of the efforts of the UFC and Dana White MMA is legal in most states and more are signing on. It cost the UFC a lot of money which they have more then since made back but have made it easier for the promotions that would not help them to survive, most failed to survive anyway. Dana does not feel like helping another promotion succeed because of all his and the UFC's efforts. I partly agree.

In the Fedor issue I feel the UFC went over and above what it should have done to try and sign this superstar even at the risk of upsetting their own current stable of fighters who most of which together would not be getting what Fedor was offered, but as I said Dana tried to create the fights fans have been begging to see. I also feel this gives some credibility to the past rants of Dana white referring to Fedor’s management team as "crazy Russians".

I also feel the UFC does not need Fedor, nor does Fedor need the UFC. The UFC is now a large stable company believed by many fans to be the major leagues of MMA, argument for a future entry. And Fedor has 30 wins having beat every challenger put in front of him including a rematch to his one "loss"

So where does this leave Fedor, I mean obviously the UFC is going to continue as they already have 4 or 5 shows scheduled and the next season of The Ultimate Fighter taping featuring Kimbo Slice, again future posts. Fedor is going to the next largest promotion in the US, Strikeforce. There he has only 3 obvious challengers the most dangerous of whom would be Allister Overeem, who I predict Fedor beating in the first round and becoming the Strikeforce HW champion to add to his Pride title and the WAMMA title, yet another future topic. It is supposedly a 3 fight contract which will end to coincide with the end of his M-1 contract. Does this mean we have to wait 3 more Fedor fights before we have a chance to see Fedor in the UFC?

The answer to that is I do not know. Personally I feel as long as Vadim is his manager Fedor will not get into the UFC. And if I am right about his contract with Vadim this may never happen because I do not believe Fedor would ever leave his home country. So for me... I look forward to the next UFC event this weekend along with the WEC event(its free so that’s the one I will watch) and to Fedor's next fight whenever that is.

Shout outs

this is just some simple shout out to some of the site I like to frequent...

RGDA TN

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