The last few months have been pretty up and down and full of changes. Firstly I graduated from Uni, then my parents called it quits on their marriage with my mum moving back to the UK from the middle east, and now I'm in the process of packing and tying up lose ends before I head back to Bahrain. Hopefully I'll be able to find a job and start saving up enough money to travel and have a year to build upon the sporadic amount of skills that a course in sports science actually indented in me. Over the three years I have acquired an interest in health and nutrition as opposed to the biomechanics and training of elite athletes, although the last year of training bjj has increased my interest in the latter field.
Soo why am I rambling about all this, mainly because people are always nagging at me not to bottle things up and constantly be in a state of panic about things I can't control. Easier said than done, But i do feel that I'm ready to embrace change and have a fresh start so to speak, which is probably why the last few months and probably in the next few weeks, I have been extra stressed out. It doesn't seem to have affected my training too much, in fact its nice to have those few hours a day where I just focus all my energy into training and with most of my friends being back home I haven't had too many distractions or people nagging at me to come and party. I don't think many people realise how much time and effort I put into training or how much I enjoy it, I like that I feel healthier and stronger both mentally and physically as cheesy as that sounds.
Anyways to put an end to my jibber jabber and return to the matter at hand I think I will be leaving on the 14th which is a couple of days after grading. Me and Alex are going to try and actually get the same flight home which for some reason over the last 3 years we have only managed to organise about once. It would be cool to make it to the Scandinavian open and I just saw online on a blog called girlsonlybjj.blogspot.com (check out the highlight video)that there will be a bjj camp on 30 October -1st November in Stockholm. I still need to find more info on this but it looks like it would defiantly be worth going to, but I'll have to see how much money I have loser to the time. Got training tonight, monday classes have got so big with about 20 people, I think everyone is stepping it up as grading is in 2 weeks time. Grading also marks the 1 year anniversary of tolly teaching classes in eastbourne and will hopfully leave the uk on a high with lots of new skills to bring to the bahrain club. Anyways check out the video and if anyone has any more info regarding the camp please leave me a message.
Monday, 31 August 2009
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Catfight gi needs a good home & another 10hours training week
Well its nearing the end of another busy training week, Saturday at canton and Sparta, Sunday at slough, Monday at canton, Tuesday slough and today at canton. This week I feel a bit more focused have been working on my guard game alot which seems to be improving, I feel like I can really control most people from there and have been using spider guard to sweep or get a triangle or controlling one arm and going for a collar choke, arm bar or sweep.
Saturdays class was pretty chilled it was just me, Alex, Ian, Ben and Isaac who came down from slough, Saturday class was open mat style although tolly threw in a drill where your in the push up position and your partner holds your legs and dead lifts as you press down, we did this just twice for a minute each time for 4 minutes in total but by the end my muscles were quivering especially during the push up part! After lots of rolling me Alex and Isaac went to Sparta and just messed around and drilled some stuff, practiced my sweeps even though gripping was still killing my fingers.
Sunday we got to slough kind of lateish it was just me Alex and tolly that went up, practised a sweep using x guard when someone stands to pass your guard, It took me a while to understand and Alex has a good base even when drilling but at least it gave me more to think about when people stand up in my guard in terms of where their balance and weight are.
Mondays class was hard, to start off the mat space was smaller than usual because the gym is getting a boxing ring put in so it was messy as hell in there with loads of junk lying around and dust all over the mats, it also happened to be a really busy class with about 20 people compared to the usual 13 so things were a bit cramped during the warm up. Tolly made us do a circuit of the push up/deadlifts, bucking our hips with our partner lying across of us in side control type position, leap frogging over and crawling under, triangle situps then side jumps over our partner. I didn't get too gassed during this but my legs were still stiff from Saturday so I nearly fell on soph a couple of times on the last few side jumps. Then we did an abs circuits of crunches interspersed with pushups, again I felt OK doing these just closed my eyes and listened to everyone counting them out as I was second from last. We drilled passing spider guard and going to either a choke or armbar from knee on belly position, then as one of the passes involved rolling your opponent back into turtle position practiced a clockwork collar choke from there. I rolled with Sophi, Joe, Ben, Alex, dean and Paul and Chris. Managed to control Sophi and Joe pretty well with my guard game same with Paul although i find it hard to escape from side control with him I just tried to keep him in guard the whole time. Ben and Chris still go quite hard when they roll, so i tend to slow right down, was stuck in Ben's guard the whole time but he wasn't attacking too much more controlling. Alex and Dean tend to roll alot slower sometimes give me tips which I usually am too stubborn to listen to at the time but usually manage to think about after.
Yesterday up at slough more x guard followed by lots of rolling, had a good roll with another white belt, they tried to pull guard, i passed into side control, took mount, worked on controlling and tried for the ezekyl but he freaked and swept me tried to lock one of my arms in an Americana, i defended with my foot, haha out of nowhere my foot was there kicking his arm away, went to spider guard had the perfect triangle set up and time went! Had another good roll with a purple belt I hadn't seen before, had control of one arm and was going for the collar choke when ze came over and showed me how to do an arm bar from that position which I'm going to try drill some more tonight. Manj helped me with passing spider guard showing me to go to the right side so I didn't get sweeped, I think he's the only person I can take advice from while I'm rolling because he makes me do it till I actually understand what he means.
In other news I'm thinking of selling my green cat fight gi as its just a bit too big for me :-( so if anyone would be interested in buying it let me know will post pictures and sizing after training tonight I've only worn it a handful of times so its in really good condition, its an A2 I think it would do for someone 5"7 bigger build than me. If anyone wants to check it out now their website is catfightgear.com and its the green cat skull style.
Saturdays class was pretty chilled it was just me, Alex, Ian, Ben and Isaac who came down from slough, Saturday class was open mat style although tolly threw in a drill where your in the push up position and your partner holds your legs and dead lifts as you press down, we did this just twice for a minute each time for 4 minutes in total but by the end my muscles were quivering especially during the push up part! After lots of rolling me Alex and Isaac went to Sparta and just messed around and drilled some stuff, practiced my sweeps even though gripping was still killing my fingers.
Sunday we got to slough kind of lateish it was just me Alex and tolly that went up, practised a sweep using x guard when someone stands to pass your guard, It took me a while to understand and Alex has a good base even when drilling but at least it gave me more to think about when people stand up in my guard in terms of where their balance and weight are.
Mondays class was hard, to start off the mat space was smaller than usual because the gym is getting a boxing ring put in so it was messy as hell in there with loads of junk lying around and dust all over the mats, it also happened to be a really busy class with about 20 people compared to the usual 13 so things were a bit cramped during the warm up. Tolly made us do a circuit of the push up/deadlifts, bucking our hips with our partner lying across of us in side control type position, leap frogging over and crawling under, triangle situps then side jumps over our partner. I didn't get too gassed during this but my legs were still stiff from Saturday so I nearly fell on soph a couple of times on the last few side jumps. Then we did an abs circuits of crunches interspersed with pushups, again I felt OK doing these just closed my eyes and listened to everyone counting them out as I was second from last. We drilled passing spider guard and going to either a choke or armbar from knee on belly position, then as one of the passes involved rolling your opponent back into turtle position practiced a clockwork collar choke from there. I rolled with Sophi, Joe, Ben, Alex, dean and Paul and Chris. Managed to control Sophi and Joe pretty well with my guard game same with Paul although i find it hard to escape from side control with him I just tried to keep him in guard the whole time. Ben and Chris still go quite hard when they roll, so i tend to slow right down, was stuck in Ben's guard the whole time but he wasn't attacking too much more controlling. Alex and Dean tend to roll alot slower sometimes give me tips which I usually am too stubborn to listen to at the time but usually manage to think about after.
Yesterday up at slough more x guard followed by lots of rolling, had a good roll with another white belt, they tried to pull guard, i passed into side control, took mount, worked on controlling and tried for the ezekyl but he freaked and swept me tried to lock one of my arms in an Americana, i defended with my foot, haha out of nowhere my foot was there kicking his arm away, went to spider guard had the perfect triangle set up and time went! Had another good roll with a purple belt I hadn't seen before, had control of one arm and was going for the collar choke when ze came over and showed me how to do an arm bar from that position which I'm going to try drill some more tonight. Manj helped me with passing spider guard showing me to go to the right side so I didn't get sweeped, I think he's the only person I can take advice from while I'm rolling because he makes me do it till I actually understand what he means.
In other news I'm thinking of selling my green cat fight gi as its just a bit too big for me :-( so if anyone would be interested in buying it let me know will post pictures and sizing after training tonight I've only worn it a handful of times so its in really good condition, its an A2 I think it would do for someone 5"7 bigger build than me. If anyone wants to check it out now their website is catfightgear.com and its the green cat skull style.
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
graduation, celebrations and vacations
As i predicted in my last post the weekend after the competition was indeed the calm before the storm, the last ten days or so have been hella busy! Got back from Valencia on Monday morning at about 4.30 after trekking all the way from stanstead to eastbourne, me and alex just about avoided killing one another on the trip back as we were both so grumpy after all the travelling. I'm Looking forward to getting back to training after a weekend of lazing on the beach and eating my weight in puntillas and paella!
Scotland was good fun, got to see pretty much all my family and spent a nice day sailing with my aunt and uncle, I've decided that I'm determined to overcome my fear of the sea and sailing seemed like a good place to start. I even managed to steer the thing for a while without capsizing and only felt somewhat seasick towards the end. Managed to check out Royce Gracie Scotland in Rutherglen on Saturday morning, Megan who I had met at one of the competitions trains there and it was fun to have a roll with her and some different people. Scott McVeigh, a brown belt, took the class which involved a good warm up with some circuits before drilling some guard passes and a knee bar that I failed to master! http://www.roycegraciescotland.com/
Went and trained at btt in slough yesterday, got there late so basically spent 40 minutes just rolling and it was sooo dam hot! I like training in slough because i get to train with purple and blue belts which is nice because i know they'll roll more controlled and fluid whereas in eastbourne theres alot of new people at the minute who go completely crazy every time! That plus the 20kg most of them have of me always makes me a bit paranoid about getting injured. I tend to get to practice alot more stuff in slough although i hardly ever tap anyone.
Tonight's training was fun, had a good warm up and then drilled scissor sweep to mount escapes for about 15 minutes, I was with Dan and felt like I got the hang of it really well by the end. We then went over an armbar from back defiantly would need to drill that more, still not a huge fan of armbars. Then much to Alex's annoyance, tolly went over bow and arrow choke which Alex had slowly working his way through the class killing everyone with, the bow and arrow choke seems pretty much impossible to get out of when someone has it set up, I've been killed with it countless times by isaac in slough and by Alex drilling it over and over haha. The last part of the class was spent rolling I basically tried insisting more on things and making a point of countering sweeps and really working on my guard game which went well.
Just chilling at home now and owwwww my poor fingers have been rubbed raw it always seems to happen after I've not trained for a while. Luckily I don't feel too stiff and cant complain of any other injuries so I guess I'll count my blessings but still owwwwch! Think our grading is coming up on the 12th september, some of us have been training for about a year now so it should be interesting to see if anyone gets their blue belt, till then heres some of the competitions i'm thinking of going to, if anyone reading this is doing them let me know as the number of girls competing is always a factor when deciding what ones to do.
Competitions I'm thinking of doing
matrial games - loughbrough - 5th september
bristol open - bath - 6th september
CBJJE europeans - switzerland - 19th september
Scotland was good fun, got to see pretty much all my family and spent a nice day sailing with my aunt and uncle, I've decided that I'm determined to overcome my fear of the sea and sailing seemed like a good place to start. I even managed to steer the thing for a while without capsizing and only felt somewhat seasick towards the end. Managed to check out Royce Gracie Scotland in Rutherglen on Saturday morning, Megan who I had met at one of the competitions trains there and it was fun to have a roll with her and some different people. Scott McVeigh, a brown belt, took the class which involved a good warm up with some circuits before drilling some guard passes and a knee bar that I failed to master! http://www.roycegraciescotland.com/
Went and trained at btt in slough yesterday, got there late so basically spent 40 minutes just rolling and it was sooo dam hot! I like training in slough because i get to train with purple and blue belts which is nice because i know they'll roll more controlled and fluid whereas in eastbourne theres alot of new people at the minute who go completely crazy every time! That plus the 20kg most of them have of me always makes me a bit paranoid about getting injured. I tend to get to practice alot more stuff in slough although i hardly ever tap anyone.
Tonight's training was fun, had a good warm up and then drilled scissor sweep to mount escapes for about 15 minutes, I was with Dan and felt like I got the hang of it really well by the end. We then went over an armbar from back defiantly would need to drill that more, still not a huge fan of armbars. Then much to Alex's annoyance, tolly went over bow and arrow choke which Alex had slowly working his way through the class killing everyone with, the bow and arrow choke seems pretty much impossible to get out of when someone has it set up, I've been killed with it countless times by isaac in slough and by Alex drilling it over and over haha. The last part of the class was spent rolling I basically tried insisting more on things and making a point of countering sweeps and really working on my guard game which went well.
Just chilling at home now and owwwww my poor fingers have been rubbed raw it always seems to happen after I've not trained for a while. Luckily I don't feel too stiff and cant complain of any other injuries so I guess I'll count my blessings but still owwwwch! Think our grading is coming up on the 12th september, some of us have been training for about a year now so it should be interesting to see if anyone gets their blue belt, till then heres some of the competitions i'm thinking of going to, if anyone reading this is doing them let me know as the number of girls competing is always a factor when deciding what ones to do.
Competitions I'm thinking of doing
matrial games - loughbrough - 5th september
bristol open - bath - 6th september
CBJJE europeans - switzerland - 19th september
Sunday, 26 July 2009
3rd Brighton Grab and Pull
Well its the day after the competition, it was great to have one on home turf which meant that we didn't have to get up too early. We got to the king Alfred leisure center at about 9.30, which gave the boys time to get changed and hit the warm up mats! the whole event was filmed and streamed live online so that people could watch which is a pretty new concept to have at a bjj comp so thanks to Gus the competition organiser for sorting that out.
There was alot of us from Eastbourne competing this time including me and Sophie cook- female white belt, lee finch, Dan osborne, Alex broers, Steve, Paul Brown, Ben Donahue, Dan, Pete, Sam scobie, in various white belt categories along with our coach Tolly competing in the purple belt category and a couple of guys from BTT slough.
I watched a few peoples fights but me and soph were up fighting pretty quickly at 12. There was 5 female white belts there, Pippa Granger was kind enough to sort out the brackets splitting it up to sophie and Camilla in the light weight cat and me Rachel Passfield and Vlavena Agapekyan in the heavier cat. Sophie did really well against Camilla wining on points. I had to fight Rachel first which was a tough match I got the points for take down and mount and then won with an ezekyl choke. I wasn't looking forward to fighting Vlavena again as last time when we had to fight standup for 6 minutes. This time it was equally hard she got the 2 points for the take down and was in my guard for the rest of the fight which was about a minute and a half. I was kind of gutted to loose just by 2 points but it was still a good fight.
For the absolute i got a bye in the first match when Rachel fought camilla and won. The match was going pretty much the same and I was about to try for the ezekyl choke again when she started screaming and tapping, i think as she was trying to buck and turn she had hurt her rib? So I won that match which meant winning the absolute as Vlavena had dropped out as her lip had split when we were fighting.
couple of pics from this grab and pull and the last one
All in all another good competition and we came back with a few medals and a lot more experience as a team, which will help to improve everyones game and I'm sure we will all be training harder and working on new things. I bumped into Jadon who writes The tapping like riverdance blog (see my blog list) and he was updating me on his travels to all the different BJJ schools, Also bumped into Emma Leavy who i fought at the British open, it seemed like a few of the girls I know are injured atm so i hope everyone gets better soon! If anyone is looking for pictures of the event I think there will be some on combat-bjj.co.uk and coyotewebgallery.com within the next week.
Today now equals sitting around blogging having a nice hot bath and doing some yoga and will probably be the calm before the storm as I have my graduation on Wednesday and then my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary in Scotland followed by a quick trip to Spain, where we might check out a club where out friend Isaac from btt trains.
I think my training in the next few months will involve drilling
the hell out of a couple of takedowns, practicing my guard game, seeking out a few more girls to train with, (need to talk to meg about when to have another ladies open mat)and maybe a bit of strength training now my cardio is back on track.
The next competition I'm thinking of doing is the Bristol open on the 6th of September which gives me lots of time to train and be ready for that.
There was alot of us from Eastbourne competing this time including me and Sophie cook- female white belt, lee finch, Dan osborne, Alex broers, Steve, Paul Brown, Ben Donahue, Dan, Pete, Sam scobie, in various white belt categories along with our coach Tolly competing in the purple belt category and a couple of guys from BTT slough.
I watched a few peoples fights but me and soph were up fighting pretty quickly at 12. There was 5 female white belts there, Pippa Granger was kind enough to sort out the brackets splitting it up to sophie and Camilla in the light weight cat and me Rachel Passfield and Vlavena Agapekyan in the heavier cat. Sophie did really well against Camilla wining on points. I had to fight Rachel first which was a tough match I got the points for take down and mount and then won with an ezekyl choke. I wasn't looking forward to fighting Vlavena again as last time when we had to fight standup for 6 minutes. This time it was equally hard she got the 2 points for the take down and was in my guard for the rest of the fight which was about a minute and a half. I was kind of gutted to loose just by 2 points but it was still a good fight.
For the absolute i got a bye in the first match when Rachel fought camilla and won. The match was going pretty much the same and I was about to try for the ezekyl choke again when she started screaming and tapping, i think as she was trying to buck and turn she had hurt her rib? So I won that match which meant winning the absolute as Vlavena had dropped out as her lip had split when we were fighting.
couple of pics from this grab and pull and the last one
All in all another good competition and we came back with a few medals and a lot more experience as a team, which will help to improve everyones game and I'm sure we will all be training harder and working on new things. I bumped into Jadon who writes The tapping like riverdance blog (see my blog list) and he was updating me on his travels to all the different BJJ schools, Also bumped into Emma Leavy who i fought at the British open, it seemed like a few of the girls I know are injured atm so i hope everyone gets better soon! If anyone is looking for pictures of the event I think there will be some on combat-bjj.co.uk and coyotewebgallery.com within the next week.
Today now equals sitting around blogging having a nice hot bath and doing some yoga and will probably be the calm before the storm as I have my graduation on Wednesday and then my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary in Scotland followed by a quick trip to Spain, where we might check out a club where out friend Isaac from btt trains.
I think my training in the next few months will involve drilling
the hell out of a couple of takedowns, practicing my guard game, seeking out a few more girls to train with, (need to talk to meg about when to have another ladies open mat)and maybe a bit of strength training now my cardio is back on track.
The next competition I'm thinking of doing is the Bristol open on the 6th of September which gives me lots of time to train and be ready for that.
Saturday, 18 July 2009
competition preparation
Well the third grab and pull competition is less than week away, this will be my 4rth big comp so I thought i would post my thoughts on what to expect if its your first competition.
Competitions generally start in the morning at around 9, when you get there you will need to register and try find out what time you will be fighting. This is sometimes posted up on the wall, if not just bug someone till you find out when because if its right away you'll want to go warm up and if its alot later on you can think about when to eat, and maybe chill out and nap for a bit.
White belts are typically on first usually in order of weight. The order of purple, blue, brown varies with any black belt fights near the end however this varies from comp to comp. You will be weighed just before you fight, so make sure if your a white belt you make weight the day before as there is unlikely to be any time to run around and sweat it out.
Most competitions are elimination style i.e. if you lose your first fight then you'll only get to fight once, to get to the finals you may have to have about 8 fights especially in popular categories such as white and blue belt light-middle weight.
For all us female competitors we usually all compete at roughly the same time in the afternoon. You will usually have a couple of people in your weight category with the option to fight in an absolute later in the day. Be aware that sometimes if theres smaller numbers it can feel a bit unfair when theres no one to compete against and you have to move up and fight heavier competitors especially if you've worked hard to cut weight, or conversly have someone heavier grouped with you.
Its for that reason that i wouldn't recommend making huge cuts in weight particularly at white belt level. To me I would rather maybe fight someone a bit bigger and have eaten a good amount of food and kept my strength up the week before than be starving and grumpy the day of the competition. I would expect about 1-3 fights in your weight category and possibly more in the absolute division if its not held too much later in the day.
what to bring?
Food: Brazilian jiujitsu competitions usually start early and finish late! you don't want to be running around trying to find food while your there, with the exception of a cheeky 5 quid acai berry shake, so its important to bring enough with you.
fruit - bananas and oranges grapes always go down well and are good to eat before your fight as they are quickly digested and provide an immediate source of energy
A nice carb meal to refuel after your fight particularly if you have been cutting weight all week
Plenty of water and a couple of carb drinks if you prefer a quick drink over food
Clothes: as competitions tend to be a drive or a train away i usually wear something comfy and loose and bring along a pair of flip flops for once you've changed into your gi
Music: if its your first comp its nice to chill out and drown out the sound of people frantically talking bout last minute game plans. You should go into the mat feeling as calm as possible with a clear mind if you've trained hard then stick to what you know
You might want to bring a pillow/sleeping mask to have a quick nap if you got up early and arnt fighting till later on.
Camera: to get some some pics of your fight, sometimes professional photographers take pictures and film the fights check out http://www.cagefilm.com/ and efnsport.com for info about pictures of competitions
The week before
This week i'm planning on going to training on Monday and Wednesday and going over escapes and positions with maybe a few light rolls, try and avoid rolling with some of the heavier crazier people in the run up to a competition, the last thing you want is someone messing you up with a week to go!
Intense exercise increases the stress hormone cortisol, which can decrease our immune system functioning, this is another reason to go easy the run up to the competition as you don't want to get a cold or,, dun dun dun the dreaded swine flu.
As alot of people are still cutting weight the week before competition your body probably isn't getting all the nutrients it needs which is another reason to take a good multivitamin.
Make sure you get plenty of sleep and rest maybe do some yoga or go get a sports massage, in my mind with a week to go I've trained as hard as I can so i like to give my body and mind a few days to chill so I'll have plenty of energy on the day.
Peace 4 now, i'll leave you with this Rickson Gracie clip
Competitions generally start in the morning at around 9, when you get there you will need to register and try find out what time you will be fighting. This is sometimes posted up on the wall, if not just bug someone till you find out when because if its right away you'll want to go warm up and if its alot later on you can think about when to eat, and maybe chill out and nap for a bit.
White belts are typically on first usually in order of weight. The order of purple, blue, brown varies with any black belt fights near the end however this varies from comp to comp. You will be weighed just before you fight, so make sure if your a white belt you make weight the day before as there is unlikely to be any time to run around and sweat it out.
Most competitions are elimination style i.e. if you lose your first fight then you'll only get to fight once, to get to the finals you may have to have about 8 fights especially in popular categories such as white and blue belt light-middle weight.
For all us female competitors we usually all compete at roughly the same time in the afternoon. You will usually have a couple of people in your weight category with the option to fight in an absolute later in the day. Be aware that sometimes if theres smaller numbers it can feel a bit unfair when theres no one to compete against and you have to move up and fight heavier competitors especially if you've worked hard to cut weight, or conversly have someone heavier grouped with you.
Its for that reason that i wouldn't recommend making huge cuts in weight particularly at white belt level. To me I would rather maybe fight someone a bit bigger and have eaten a good amount of food and kept my strength up the week before than be starving and grumpy the day of the competition. I would expect about 1-3 fights in your weight category and possibly more in the absolute division if its not held too much later in the day.
what to bring?
Food: Brazilian jiujitsu competitions usually start early and finish late! you don't want to be running around trying to find food while your there, with the exception of a cheeky 5 quid acai berry shake, so its important to bring enough with you.
fruit - bananas and oranges grapes always go down well and are good to eat before your fight as they are quickly digested and provide an immediate source of energy
A nice carb meal to refuel after your fight particularly if you have been cutting weight all week
Plenty of water and a couple of carb drinks if you prefer a quick drink over food
Clothes: as competitions tend to be a drive or a train away i usually wear something comfy and loose and bring along a pair of flip flops for once you've changed into your gi
Music: if its your first comp its nice to chill out and drown out the sound of people frantically talking bout last minute game plans. You should go into the mat feeling as calm as possible with a clear mind if you've trained hard then stick to what you know
You might want to bring a pillow/sleeping mask to have a quick nap if you got up early and arnt fighting till later on.
Camera: to get some some pics of your fight, sometimes professional photographers take pictures and film the fights check out http://www.cagefilm.com/ and efnsport.com for info about pictures of competitions
The week before
This week i'm planning on going to training on Monday and Wednesday and going over escapes and positions with maybe a few light rolls, try and avoid rolling with some of the heavier crazier people in the run up to a competition, the last thing you want is someone messing you up with a week to go!
Intense exercise increases the stress hormone cortisol, which can decrease our immune system functioning, this is another reason to go easy the run up to the competition as you don't want to get a cold or,, dun dun dun the dreaded swine flu.
As alot of people are still cutting weight the week before competition your body probably isn't getting all the nutrients it needs which is another reason to take a good multivitamin.
Make sure you get plenty of sleep and rest maybe do some yoga or go get a sports massage, in my mind with a week to go I've trained as hard as I can so i like to give my body and mind a few days to chill so I'll have plenty of energy on the day.
Peace 4 now, i'll leave you with this Rickson Gracie clip
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Ladies open mat and lots of training
The ladies open mat in dartford was a great day, there was some amazing blue belts there who were really strong and pretty much killed me rolling but it was a good experience and made me realise i still need to work on armbar/triangle escapes before the Brighton comp. Hopefully going to ask Richard if we can host one at our club maybe a week after the grapplers showdown in August so will post when i know more.
Training has been pretty intense the last few weeks
modays bjj 8.30-10 @ Canton
Tuesdays bjj 8.30-10 @ BTT Slough
wed bjj 8.30-10 @ Canton
Thursday rest
Friday rest
Saturday bjj 12.30-2 @ caton 2.30-4 @ Sparta
Sunday bjj 12-2 @ BTT Slough
I run most days as I'm training Elliot on 3 days a week and will hopefully get some more clients soon!
In terms of nutrition my diet most days is
breakfast: oatmeal with fruit,
lunch: fish rice and veggies
pre training smoothie (frozen berries, banana, milk, some pine nuts or seeds to get efa's)
Dinner: 2 scrambled eggs and 2 veggie sausages or soup with a pitta pocket or chicken salad
I snack on things like tesco cereal bars, fruit, nuts, activia yogurt, dark choc, oatcakes and low fat philly, if my diet is good 80% of the time I'm happy, Italian and Indian food are my weaknesses although I'm trying to chose the healthiest thing like chicken tikka instead of a curry with a creamy sauce and poppadoms instead of yummy nan bread.
I recently started taking a good multivitamin and have a couple of those fizzy vitamin c tablets and glucosamine sulphate religiously for about a week now and I notice the difference in my mood and energy levels. Late night training does mean I find it so hard to wake up in the morning but luckily for me I'm only working part time so unless temp work comes up i work mainly in the afternoons and evenings.
Last nights training was really good, warm up and drills as usual and then tolly taught us a take down and had us drill it for ages. He then put all of us smaller guys in the middle with 1 minute of trying to get the take down with 5 different people, some of the new guys slammed me a bit but i got revenge by sweeping them when we got to the floor haha. It was the smaller guys first so we got to rest while the bigger guys had their turn killing each other. I do admit i looked at the clock and it was already 5 past ten and I thought hmm don't think we'll be rolling tonight and for once i felt vaguely relieved as every muscle in my body felt pumped. My relief was short lived as tolly shouted everyone to get a drink and put in mouth guards. I can only remeber rolling with joe, didnt work for submission worked on escaping half gaurd and getting to mount. I'm pretty knackered today but i think alex wanted to go do the cross fit work out later so might be up for that after a nice hot bath!
some random pics, you can see a bit more of what our training area is like is easbourne at Canton martial arts
Training has been pretty intense the last few weeks
modays bjj 8.30-10 @ Canton
Tuesdays bjj 8.30-10 @ BTT Slough
wed bjj 8.30-10 @ Canton
Thursday rest
Friday rest
Saturday bjj 12.30-2 @ caton 2.30-4 @ Sparta
Sunday bjj 12-2 @ BTT Slough
I run most days as I'm training Elliot on 3 days a week and will hopefully get some more clients soon!
In terms of nutrition my diet most days is
breakfast: oatmeal with fruit,
lunch: fish rice and veggies
pre training smoothie (frozen berries, banana, milk, some pine nuts or seeds to get efa's)
Dinner: 2 scrambled eggs and 2 veggie sausages or soup with a pitta pocket or chicken salad
I snack on things like tesco cereal bars, fruit, nuts, activia yogurt, dark choc, oatcakes and low fat philly, if my diet is good 80% of the time I'm happy, Italian and Indian food are my weaknesses although I'm trying to chose the healthiest thing like chicken tikka instead of a curry with a creamy sauce and poppadoms instead of yummy nan bread.
I recently started taking a good multivitamin and have a couple of those fizzy vitamin c tablets and glucosamine sulphate religiously for about a week now and I notice the difference in my mood and energy levels. Late night training does mean I find it so hard to wake up in the morning but luckily for me I'm only working part time so unless temp work comes up i work mainly in the afternoons and evenings.
Last nights training was really good, warm up and drills as usual and then tolly taught us a take down and had us drill it for ages. He then put all of us smaller guys in the middle with 1 minute of trying to get the take down with 5 different people, some of the new guys slammed me a bit but i got revenge by sweeping them when we got to the floor haha. It was the smaller guys first so we got to rest while the bigger guys had their turn killing each other. I do admit i looked at the clock and it was already 5 past ten and I thought hmm don't think we'll be rolling tonight and for once i felt vaguely relieved as every muscle in my body felt pumped. My relief was short lived as tolly shouted everyone to get a drink and put in mouth guards. I can only remeber rolling with joe, didnt work for submission worked on escaping half gaurd and getting to mount. I'm pretty knackered today but i think alex wanted to go do the cross fit work out later so might be up for that after a nice hot bath!
some random pics, you can see a bit more of what our training area is like is easbourne at Canton martial arts
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Busy Times!
Well i am officially a graduate in sports science, well health and exercise science to be precise! I'm going to be pretty busy the next few weeks with the Brighton grab and pull comp on the 25th followed by graduation on the 29th then a quick trip to Scotland for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary on the 30th to the 2nd and then and the London comp on the 8th August! I have been training allot for the upcoming competitions and feel a lot more prepared than the British open, I've been eating fairly healthy, apart from all the nice meals out with Alex and my mum and dad who are over visiting.
On the work front temping is going rubbish, I did a 3 hour shift at my Friends bar today but to be honest bar work kills me as I'm not 2 much of a people person and clumsy as hell, so I'm sure that it will be pretty short lived haha. I'm enjoying doing personal training with Elliot and if I get a few more clients then that would probably keep me in the money. The plan at the minute is still to head back to Bahrain in mid September to go back home and be able to hopefully save more money than I would here.
Ah well I'm looking forward to tomorrow, heading down to the open mat at dartford mma which will hopefully help improve my game for the comp! I'm also dragging my mum down with me to keep me company on the train and maybe persuade her to try some bjj haha
On the work front temping is going rubbish, I did a 3 hour shift at my Friends bar today but to be honest bar work kills me as I'm not 2 much of a people person and clumsy as hell, so I'm sure that it will be pretty short lived haha. I'm enjoying doing personal training with Elliot and if I get a few more clients then that would probably keep me in the money. The plan at the minute is still to head back to Bahrain in mid September to go back home and be able to hopefully save more money than I would here.
Ah well I'm looking forward to tomorrow, heading down to the open mat at dartford mma which will hopefully help improve my game for the comp! I'm also dragging my mum down with me to keep me company on the train and maybe persuade her to try some bjj haha
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