Weighing-in consistently at about 76.5 kilos with my runners on. Pushing towards 45lbs plates on each side for Germans (10 sets of 10), but I’m not quite there yet. A couple weeks ago I felt confident about being able to achieve 20 chin-ups in a row (16 is easy) but my energy levels are suffering due to a cold. I’ve been neglecting cardio—occasional stair-running and judo is all I’ve managed to get in. I special ordered a new pair of runners for my funny feet so maybe those’ll kick me back into high gear. Left ankle is at about 85% and not a concern: e.g., saiza is easy when I’m warmed up.
Starting to get 3D veins in my right biceps (left biceps is already quite prominent), calves, thighs but I’m sure the holidays will help with that. Bruises on my hips and shins from falling and having my legs hacked at in judo never seem to heal. I look like the victim of an unending butt-kickin’. I privately enjoy being one of the people at the gym that actually looks like he applies his fitness.
Groundwork: been developing my butterfly guard since I purchased Marcelo Garcia’s book on the X-Guard. Typically doesn’t work well against larger opponents who instead flatten me, but comparable/lighter opponents are becoming easier to control, sweep, puppet around. I’ve been making poor attendance to jiu jitsu and reasonable attendance to judo, mostly due to the cold weather. Might cancel jiu jitsu til the Spring.
Standing: while I had aspirations of developing my forward throws earlier on, I think I’ve more generally geared myself towards developing “kuzushi” (i.e., off-balancing uke). Pulling up, pulling in. Made a bit of progress last week, as I felt like I was controlling a (quite exhausted) black belt’s weight. Of course I didn’t throw him, and he ragdolled me when he felt like it. These movements involve muscles that aren’t necessarily as developed as I’d like, so even if I don’t manage to perform a throw, I think the repetition is good for me.
In yesterday’s post I anticipated I’d sleep like a baby, which would’ve been nice since I got up at 05:30 for the gym. That didn’t happen, though. Even though I was in bed at ~22:30, I was feeling crappy in general and a conversation started up outside my window ~00:00. Gymming (cable flies, low rows, medicine ball sit-ups, squats, super sevens) suffered accordingly, but I’m happy to report the ankle isn’t bothering me anymore.
Jiu-jitsu was a win. We covered kesa gatame escapes and transitions, which are familiar to me from judo, but it’s always nice to see a familiar subject under a different light. These were (1) stuffing your captor before rolling the other way, (2) hipscaping and hooking your captor’s neck with your leg, and (3) stuffing your non-reacting captor flat into the ground. The only one that’s worked reliably for me in judo are (1) and (2)… (3) just requires too much brute force in practice. I had to tap once from ankle pain (I was transitioning into butterfly guard and it got stuck, heh) but otherwise it actually felt good to test its range of motion.
After JJ I had a few minutes to kill before my bus came so I went to Tim Horton’s to have a turkey sandwich without the dressing. I was proud of myself for skipping the ranch but then I ordered a medium iced cappuccino but goddam it was good.
Last night I played some nethack and finally killed Medusa—first time for me. I have yet to embark on the Rogue quest (scared of the polymorph traps) but my character has become a serious brute. One day I’ll write a blog post about nethack.
I slept in this morning, and it felt great. I tried to have some oatmeal for breakfast with cardamom and cinnamon and sugar in it, but I think I overdid it with the spices and it tasted horrible. Then I went to the gym, even though yesterday’s workout was horrible (I’ve been sick). Today’s wasn’t great but I had a little more pep:
Chin-ups, 10 wide-grip then 10 wide-grip/behind-head.
Bench, 30, 10, 15, 10, 10 reps with 95lbs.
Some cycling to break things up (13 mins and 83 calories—pathetic!)
Squats, 3×10 with 95lbs (testing the ankle).
Triceps extensions, 5×10 variable weight.
Concentration curls, 3×10 on each arm, 20 lbs.
200 crunches (various).
My ankle is mostly recovered. I can’t fully extend my foot (e.g., sit in saiza) but I think I’m ready for some judo/jiu-jitsu next week!
Woke up at 0530 this morning to meet a good friend for a 0600 workout. I got dressed, heated some water on the stove for my oatmeal and tea, and thieved one of my housemate’s bran muffins. I left the house drinking the tea and stood on the corner where I was going to be picked out, wearing my grey wool cap and my black sweatshirt (it’s starting to get cold). The streets were damp from rain and pitch-black and I couldn’t help but feel happy for the moment.*
Machine flies/pushups circuit, 4 sets.
Wide parallel-grip seated rows, 4 sets; maxed at 160lbs.
Kneeling crunches (what’re these called?), 4 sets.
Narrow grip incline bench, 4 sets; 25lbs plates.
Wide-grip chinups/overhead flies circuit, 4 sets; dumbbells were plenty at 15lbs.
Hamstring curls, 4 sets (this exercise is all I can manage w/ injured ankle).
Buddy curls.
Quick abs circuit.
*I’ve been excited for the last three weeks to take this great girl out for Turkish food, but found out yesterday that she hooked up with someone else two weeks ago. At first I felt dissed, but suddenly I’m over it.
I woke up and scrambled two eggs for breakfast. I travelled to campus to meet with my friend Lonn, and we played hacky sack for a bit. By then I was hungry, so we looked for food but all the lineups were too long. Instead, I bought a granola bar out of a vending machine and we played nethack for *hours*. I managed to polymorph my dog (via polymorph trap) into a master lich; meanwhile, Lonn found rings of poly-control and polymorph and decided that a master lich was the best thing for him to polymorph into. I died when an air elemental engulfed and tore my meager 59-hp character to shreds, but Lonn’s is alive and well. Afterwards, I was so… hungry…
Today my ankle is doing fairly well (hence the hacky sack) but still not completely recovered. I really want to go back to judo & teh jitz, but not just yet.
Tomorrow I start my Ph.D. studies. I *still* need to decide on a class to take, but I’m uncertain enough about each of the classes to have to visit each one in turn to make my decision. I also need to decide on a research topic—my supe is taking several very interesting directions in his research, and experience tells me I’ll benefit by complementing his interests and experience.
Today at judo I was randorizing with a really big opponent. I can never throw him, but I reason that fighting heavier opponents will make lighter ones easier. And secretly I still think I’m invincible.
Unfortunately I ended up being thrown to my side (the details are lost to me), which I tried to recover from. My foot was badly placed, which put pressure on my ankle. My knee reacted by buckling immediately, but since I was still coming down my ankle got worse and there was an audible “crack” in the room as I collapsed. I tried my hardest not to yell but I was pounding the mat with my fist and was on the verge of tears.
Fortunately, it’s not broken! It feels like it will heal in a couple of weeks.
Hello, devoted readers! My absence is mostly due to the fact that, for the past few weeks, every day & all day has been spent writing my thesis. It really doesn’t leave me with much of a desire to write here (I don’t know how some people do it!). But today I’m taking it easy, so I thought I’d play some catch up. Read the rest of this entry »
Guess I’ll dive right in… tonight it was either the gym or judo. Since I did judo yesterday, and my ankle is just beginning to recover, I opted for some cardio and weightlifting:
Two sets of pavilion stairs with 1 rep backwards crawl.
11 minutes on stationary bicycle, intervals over last 5 minutes
Various shoulder exercises on cable stacks, & triceps with dumbbell.
