A Warrior's Thougts on the Martial Arts

Just had my first grappling session since I ruptured my tendon. Had to quit after three rounds of sparing, but still - I'm back! Tomorrow I'll participate in some light kickboxing sparring again. Good times ahead!

Time for an update, I guess. A week ago, while attending a [Luta Livre] workshop with Daniel D'Dane (watch the video above for some info on that guy. Note that obviously, it's not the workshop I've been to.), I ruptured the extendor tendon in my left pinky finger. No big deal, but then again, the doc says 16 weeks no grappling or boxing. Now that's a big friggin' deal. Especially since we're about to go fight in [Poland] again. Great. Another tournament where I'm sidelined and just attend as a coach. Well, nevermind, though, since four of my youngsters are going to compete, so there'll be quite some work for me anyway. Ok, now what do I do with no boxing or grappling? Pout and sob - a lot. But when I'm done with that, I'll be going to work. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are     --Theodore Roosevelt I can still kick, so that's what I'll be working on. No rocket science here. I can shadow box and I can wo...

Nothing new here ATM. I've been in Poland for about the last two weeks - for the first time, I spent time there without hitting the gym even once. I didn't attend a single martial arts class. I don't want to go into detail why I didn't train as there was a couple of reasons. Anyways, on monday, Chris and I are going to hit our 5x5 again. Also, over the last days I was kicking, striking and grappling again, with little to no pain during the sessions. I have to admit my knees were swollen afterwards, but I'm dealing with that pretty well. After living with an injury for some time, one learns how to support the body in fighting off the pain. In my particular case, the best therapy is heat. A hot tub before bed or some sauna after training will spare me a lot of pain during the night. On a last note, I'll attend a Kali seminar next weekend - the first of a whole series. I'll keep you updated - so long, take care

I wish you all a happy new year. Photo by camera slayer, found on flickr.org For me, the year won't start particularily good, I guess. On january 7th, the doc will put my foot into plaster again. This time, it's 4 weeks. After that, we shall see further. Now on the one hand, this is significantly screwed up. Gone are my plans of doing a max strength program to begin the year. Also, as a professional trainer, not being mobile at the beginning of the year means a serious handicap to my marketing actions. Novembet through February are, after all, the best months for any sports school, finance-wise. Also, I need to make up for all the losses my second studio has produced over the last year anyways. Instead of recovering financially, I'll now have to pay an instructor to teach my classes. Great. Not to mention all my plans of offering more classes at my Dojo. They're most definately put on a halt at the moment. As you can see, from a business point of view, my situation is s...

What I thought to be some simple stomach flu turned out to be salmonella. I therefore wasn't able to train at all during the last week. Seems like I'm more or less over it now. Since I've seriously lost weight, my priority now is to regain what I've built in the HFT phase. To do so, I'll repeat my HFT training (100 pushups, 50 pullups a day every day) for another 3 weeks. Additionally, I'm taking electrolytes and protein supplements to fill up stores again. After those 3 weeks, I'll see how much weight I can place on my foot. At the moment, I'm having pain treatment and ultrasonic therapy every week. Well, I only had it done once until now, due to beforementioned sickness. I hope this is going to do the trick. On a positive note, this Saturday, Ronny Kokert, the man who taught me most of what I know about the martial arts, is going to hold a master class at my dojo. The topic will be relaxed technique. If it's ok for Ronny, I'll post some videocl...

Great. Couldn't post until now, I'm sick. Apparentaly catched some infect. As for my HFT, I couldn't do more than one day in a row. Every other day I had to skip the program due to massive exhaustion. Guess I overdid it. So, I'll get back to a more moderate approach to HFT once I'm on my feet again - until I've regained what I'll lose during my bed rest. Then, I'll try again. When it comes to my foot, I'll start manual therapy next week. At the hospital, they said they didn't knew why my ankle is still so extremely swollen. My doctor at the physical medicine centre said the same thing. Well, isn't it reassuring to know medicine is such a precise science... Now I'm really curious as for how the manual therapy is going to work out. I'll keep you informed. So long, take care

Where to begin? On Friday I've finished 4 weeks of upper-body HFT training. Basically, as mentioned in my previous post, the program had me do 100 pushups and 50 pullups every day. On that last friday, I had a "max day", which basically means that I did one set of pushups, then did one set of pullups and repeated this until all 150 reps were completed. Interestingly, I wasn't sore or anything on saturday. I was told I've gained some muscle, however, due to my injury I still wasn't able to test that new strenght in any type of combat yet. Which brings me to the second topic at hand, my torn side band. The doctor told me that the band healed as supposed, however, the foot is still extremely swollen- far more than it should be, that is. That's why I'll go to hospital again tomorrow morning. I really hope those guys do anything useful this time, lest I shall lose my faith in modern medicine. As for a positive thing, on friday, yesterday and today we had a...

My leg's out of plaster again, however, I still can't do much. I'm wearing an aircast splint, so I can walk and climb the stairs to our flat again. Kicking, running and jumping remains quite out of scope for me, anyways. So, I've decided to do some high frequency trainingfor my upper body. You see, my legshave always been dominant when it comes to muscular development, speed and power, my upper body has always been lagging behind. I'm pretty much convinced that both my boxing and my grappling could benefit greatly from improved upper body strength. Basically, that's why I've decided to give Chad Waterbury's latest HFT article a shot. Today's the third day - and I'm glad to say that I'm not experiencing any of the "screaming agony" in the serratus anterior, or in any other muscle when it comes to that. If you haven't read the program, it basically says "do 100 pushups and 50 pullups every day, no matter how many sets you ne...

On Monday I've torn my inner ankle side band. Basically, the Judo instructor performed an Ouchi-gari, I stumbled and ruined my foot. Great. Doctor told me it's going to be 6 weeks out, at a minimum. Now, I'm at home and can't even walk to the kitchen or the bathroom without my girlfriend's help. The foot is all swollen and blue. Needless to say it's hurting badly. I guess that's it for the British Open in november. In 6 weeks, all the endurance I've built up during the last two months will be gone. Also, from what I heard it'll take even longer than that to regain full ankle stability and mobility. As soon as I can place enough weight on the foor again to walk a bit, I'll see if I can make up some neat upper-body HFT program. Since I'll be spending a lot of time at home in the near future due to my immobility, I'll have the time to put in a short seesion each hour or so. Obviously I can't change the situation - being injured - so I ha...