Wah wah wah

//First off, apologies for the rambling nature of this. It's and unedited steaming shitpile of stream of consciousness self-pity, but I needed to get it out, because it was doing me no good at all in.

I'm familiar enough with depression to recognise the warning signs in myself. It's a terrible feeling to be looking at yourself and find nothing within you to be happy about. Certainly there are things to be satisfied with, but nothing I'm proud of. It's kind of a dark place. I wish I could say I'm surprised that I find myself in this place now, but I'm not. I get bad news and am disappointed, but not surprised. Good news surprises me. 

I have a good job, a wife and child that I love, I live in a nice suburb of a good city in a great country. It's really not that bad. But I am still angry at myself. I look at everything I've squandered over the years, dumb choices, laziness and fear holding me back. I want to say "NO MORE", but am enough of a realist to know it won't be that easy.

So I'm going to break down some of my issues and what I can do:

1) Weight/Fitness - this is pretty simple. Get back on the fucking wagon pal. Eat properly, do the exercise you want to and don't let excuses take over, you've used enough of them to recognise all of them by now.

2) Family - this is easy. I love them already. Reading bed time stories, playing trucks or dinosaurs or even just watching at the park, it's all great. And it helps that when there's an argument it's over the small petty stuff, hard to maintain anger over the way someone packs the dishwasher.

3) Work - this is the killer. When I went to university, I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I did a lot of nothing and a little bit of everything and came out the other side with a BA and an appreciation of a lot of different subjects. Since then it's been a succession of jobs with nothing to them - customer service and office management. And by "nothing to them" I mean that at the start and end of each day you've got nothing to show for your work except paper with a new stamp on it in a new pile. The job mightn't be rewarding, but it's reliable, it pays well and I have plenty of time for family. So I tolerate it and cherish the time I have with the people who make it worthwhile.

My wife encourages me to go back to university, but I don't even know where to start. I'm thirty years old and I still don't know what I want to do with my life. When I was in grade 4 I wrote about how I wanted to be an explorer, going to different planets, the deep sea, into the jungles - in search of lost cities and mythical beasts. Turns out there's not much call for explorers today - and even then, I doubt I'd ever find Mokele Mbembe now. I had wanted to join the Navy, but poor eyesight ended that, sadly the medical reviews for that ended late enough in the piece that I never really got a chance to think on what I wanted to do instead. So I started at University with no clear goal and no real motivation.

I cannot imagine staying in my current job for years more, let alone the decades that coworkers have. Hell, even remaining in the same business holds no appeal. It might be an outdated view, but today I couldn't stop thinking that I'll have nothing to show my son, let alone my grandchildren that I have done. I don't have a job where I can say: show them a building and say "I helped build that" or point to a story in a newspaper and say that I was somehow involved, or even wrote it. This isn't a world where I can build a house from scratch, I can't even renovate, I don't even have a garden to grow (and am a terrible gardener anyway - I didn't get that gene from my family). I'm left wanting a legacy that I know I will never have. It must be the historian in me who's obsessed with such things.

So here I am, browsing job listings, university admissions details and trying to figure out if going back to uni is really worth losing the income for four years and setting ourselves back even further. And even if I do go back - what the fuck do I want to do?

A quick update.

As I mentioned on Facebook, I had been hoping to drop weight before the comp, but a dose of gastro/food poisoning wasn't my preferred method.  But there you go.


However, while recovering from it I've been taking the time to do some solo drills of my own devising just to keep some skills up.


1) With punching bag hanging, I put a gi jacket on it (so it's roughly the same height as me) and set it swinging.  I then am trying to catch grips (collar ties, cuff grips, lapel grips) for takedown entries on the moving target. 

2) Same as above, but then going into the footwork and motions for that takedown. 

3) Holding punching bag with gi jacket on in closed guard (holding the bag elevated as if it's someone who's postured up in guard, but without the bag touching the floor so your legs and core are working), sitting/reaching up to get grips and pulling the bag down towards you so it becomes a battle between your upper and lower body. 

4) Laying bag flat on floor, in a sprawled side control on one side, to knee ride that side, to knee ride other side to sprawl and continue.... 

5) Stand bag up and go into a wrestling style "clinch" (head to one side, with a theoretical "head control" of the bag with one hand) and then practice sprawls and then "sitting out" to capture the back. 

And then a theoretical one that I'm trying to find a place to do it: 

Need a long "fence" (the metal or wood kind with a post every few metres and a single long bar inbetween with no cyclone fencing underneath), sling a gi jacket over that, hook your ankles over it in a "closed guard" and do pull ups in this position to improve grip strength and upper body and core strength (and half of it would be keeping yourself stable). 

You are only as good as your last opponent.

First of all I need to say how great the academy's temporary location is.  It's not convenient for me and the mat layout can best be described as hazardous, but it somehow makes it feel much more awesome that it's above a tyre and rims shop down a side street.


It was my first evening training in a while though and going up against Dieter, who I hadn't rolled with for ages showed me that you need a lot of variety.  Because he smashed me in a variety of ways.  There is a saying in chess of "you can only get better by playing people who are better than you".  And this is completely true with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.  Whenever I have the opportunity to roll with those who are much more experienced than me I come out of the session feeling like I have learned so much.  Having someone highlighting every issue with your game by capitalising on it can be demoralising, but it is also such an important part of learning.


If you only ever rolled with people who couldn't show you what you were doing wrong, the you're never going to make corrections or improvements to your game.  But when someone destroys you and subs you once a minute for the duration of your sparring, you realise quickly what mistakes led to that in an effort to avoid the pain again.  Then you get the chance to make a whole new set of mistakes, or have existing ones highlighted by another sparring partner.


To be sure it's nasty to be so utterly thrashed by someone, but it's far better to have a glaring issue with your game highlighted in some sparring than in a comp.  And at least someone in your club should be willing to take time out after the roll to discuss it with you.

When is nothing the right answer?

I've been talking and thinking a lot about BJJ gameplans recently as try and design a plan which I can reliably train and then execute.  As I trial new ideas, refine techniques and learn from my mistakes and mis-steps I have come across a point which has puzzled me.


Is there ever a situation where the right move to do nothing?  This was prompted by a roll with Ben on Friday where he caught me in a knee-ride setup for an armbar, which as soon as I started to defend I realised was also a choke setup.  If I defended one, I'd be giving up the other.  And so I've been thinking hard about these "no-win" scenarios.  In training, it is obviously the best time to try something, make mistakes and learn from them, but what about in a competition?  Do you stall and defend and hope that you've mentally been tabulating points right?  Or do you just go for it and hope that the other person makes a mistake?  Obviously there are many different scenarios to be had, and if you were clearly in the lead then stalling would be the preferred (in terms of winning) choice.  


Assume for a moment that you find yourself in a similar "no-win" setup in competition.  You know that roughly a minute is left and you are behind on points.  Is it better to go for broke and risk it now, or wait and hope that your opponent gives you that bit of space or opportunity?


During some other rolls with people I've been able to win the positional battles, but their submission awareness and defense has been great and I've not been able to even go for, let alone apply a sub.  Stalling in a controlling position is never the morally right option, but it is a great way to win a fight.  But when your opponent has such good defense that chasing a submission is putting your position and lead at risk, is it better to choose to just stall?


I don't know what the right answer here is.  But I think I know what I'll be trying.

Losing weight. The easy way.

Every time you look at TV, newspapers or any other media today you see ads filled with dietologists talking to you about how to turn yourself from a fatty into some guy with abs you could use as a xylophone or in the case of ladies into someone who has clearly just had all the fat from the lipo dumped into the boobs and lips. All these nutritioneers talk about miracle formulations that turn your fat into cash or exercise secrets that not only burn calories but also brings burning desire into those of the opposite sex.


By drinking deep of their custom branded protein shake which they have somehow configured to make it taste completely awful (I suppose to prevent some people from gorging ourselves on protein shake binges) we are supposed to magically transform ourselves. And all for the low, low cost of only $50 a week to learn these secrets. And then another $50 for the supplies. And another $50 for the supplements. And another $50 for the rest of the food that the menu calls for. But by the time you get to the last one, you've already said "fuck it, and skipped the fruit and veg at the supermarket and picked up the biggest serve of chocolate you can find and are heading to the deli to see if they have a 1kg serve of the pasta salad there to go with your 2L chocolate milk. Really, it's just like a pyramid scheme run by skinny people to have a laugh at the expense of the desperate, gullible and overweight.


This isn't to say that you'll never have success with it, because some people do. But let me clue you in on the big secret to losing weight. It's six words. Two sentences. I can't be bothered counting the syllables.


Don't eat shit. Do some exercise.


Holy shit. Did I just blow your mind then? Now, as a guy who is admittedly a complete fatty nerd, who am I to tell you this? Well, perhaps there needs to be an addendum.


Have some willpower.


This is where I've traditionally fallen down. I get going and then suddenly I get an overwhelming craving to jam something unhealthy down my throat. Repeatedly. If I was a flippant person I could say something like: "But now that I've acknowledged that failing, I have taken away it's power." But that would be the kind of bullshit that you'd usually have to pay some jack-arse with a degree from some online university $200 an hour to hear. And believe me, a burger talks a hell of a lot louder than that guy. It's almost unfair, like having a debate between Dr Buddy Rydell and Mike Brady in your head. You know that one of them is being completely sensible and reasonable, and to top it all off is probably right. But then the other one throws a bag of golf clubs at your head and screams like a crazy man about how he's jonesing for a pizza. Tell me which one you'd placate.


I'm not going to go down the road of saying: "Oh, it's an addiction." Because that just seems like a cop-out. Instead I'll say that it's a case of GODDAMN are burgers and chocolate and pizza and coconut cream based curries tasty. Because I'll admit that I love to eat. It's just finding ways of making food that you're happy with and works for you. I've been working on a meal plan and though it's certainly no Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle or some other specialist plan, it is being sensibly constructed with the intent of balancing nutrition with weightloss while maintaining good variety. And even more important, it's economically viable. On first doing calculations for that Venuto at the start of 2009 I came to the conclusion that I'd be eating about 4kg worth of chicken breast every week. To say nothing of the egg whites and other items. Not exactly a sustainable practice, for my wallet or chicken-kind.


Onto other matters. Customer service first. On entering a footwear retailer and encountering a wait time, you shouldn't be surprised. What should surprise you is when none of the staff even acknowledge you or your wait and then go on to serve someone else who came in after you. Thank you Athlete's Foot Camberwell. You truly are a shining example of bad service.


However, on reconsidering my footwear requirements I decided to go back to my Launceston roots and picked up some KT20s (K-Mart Trainers 20 dollars for those who are wondering). Some wonderful no-name brand for $15. Not even 20 bucks anymore! Bargain. If they hold up well I may have to reconsider my long love affair with ASICS. However, if they fall apart after a fortnight, then I think that I'll be back on the ASICS bandwagon. I think I know which one is more likely here.


Second. What the hell is up with getting wrist-locked three times in one training session? It just seems uncalled for. I guess it means that I've either graduated to the next level where wrist-locking is acceptable, or if it was just one of those days. Either way, I'm bringing some koto-gaeshi to the next session now that I know it's on the table.


Third. Rolling with a black belt. I had a chance to roll with Ben for the first time in a long while today and it was eye opening. On the one hand I think that I did OK on some fronts as I got the compliment of "you're a good person to practice sweeps on as you have to get it right to sweep you." On the other hand I also had some face palm moments, like thinking that I'd passed guard and was about to get side control, only to suddenly realise that Ben was no longer there and was in fact on my back with hooks in. Though I don't think I made any massive mistakes, I also completely changed my game when facing him, being very slow and conservative in my movements as to not give him any more kinetic energy and inertia to work with than was possibly necessary. And still he did a hell of a lot with it. I love jits.

The start line

I had a a great roll during the lunchtime session today - especially with Fletch, a relative newcomer to the school, but who is at least as tall as me and tips the scales at about 120kg. And it was great to roll with someone of comparable size as it gave me an idea of what in my game will work come competition time. After all, usually when someone at the academy gets back mount I can easily turtle up and then roll. With combined 290kg to lift off the mat, suddenly that move becomes quite a bit more challenging. I really look forward to rolling more with Fletch in the future as I feel that we both were able to take a lot away from it.


I also rolled with another guy from San Diego who I cannot recall the name of. He had some grappling experience and it was a good challenging roll. As he has a few weeks before his work visa kicks in and he can commence paid employment he's intending to roll quite a bit and I look forward to more sessions with him as he had some good new tricks that I want to steal.


Add to this two good walks today and a planned shopping trip tomorrow to pick up some new shoes, I should be able to expand my training a bit more. Can't wait.

It's been a while.

I decided to come back to this after about 18 months because I've made the decision to go into a fairly intensive training regime to prepare for the upcoming Pan Pacific BJJ Championships being held a the end of November.


First, a quick update on how things have gone.


Not well would be the short answer. I missed all the goals, but for several good reasons.

First is a baby. Hector, who was born on 24 November last year. So many of my plans for the year were thrown out by just how massive a disruption a pregnancy and then a baby are.

Second is the unfortunate fact that I completely axed my knee in training in March last year, tearing my lateral cruciate ligament, hamstring tendon and the cartilage in the knee. I didn't realise that I'd done anything that bad at the time and it wasn't until a few weeks later when I made it even worse that the problems really set in. Turns out that being unable to even walk reliably isn't conducive to maintaining your goals for fitness and weight loss.


Cue depression, anxiety and chronic overeating as a coping mechanism. A wonderfully bad combination. It's only been in the past few months that I've felt that I have regained at least 80% function in the knee and can now reliably weight-bear on it and not instantly collapse when I jog or have other impacts on it.


For all that though, I still have had a few good achievements. I got one stripe in a grading in November last year. I've roughly maintained my weight at about 170 (certainly nothing to be proud of, but given some of the other circumstances I'll take what I can get). And in February I won Gold in my division at the Inter Gracie Oceania Competition hosted by Gracie Oceania in Sydney.

So, with the Pan Pacs coming up, I've decided that I might as well go back to the plan I had last year. I'll be putting up more details in the next few days and will be putting up daily updates as well. Lets just hope that no potential opponents read this.

If you are, then I have a totally awesome open guard and have no interest whatsoever in pursuing an arm triangle or kimura.

Take responsibility

Sometimes when you are wondering why you aren't getting anywhere, you want to make an excuse - and too often you do. And in this case, I'd love to say that it is just me making an excuse, but it's not. It is a reason. Work sucks right now. And every now and then you get a day dropped in your lap like a meteor into the Cretaceous.

Yesterday I get up at 5am to go and have a morning training session for BJJ. No one shows. I wander back to where I parked and get changed into my work clothes in an underground carpark at 6:20 in the morning. Not a great start to the day. I then manage to spend 12 hours at work - somehow not going completely mad in the process, despite spending 3 hours in meetings. Finally I get home at nearly 8pm. Some 14 hours plus since I left home. Neither my wife or I can be bothered cooking when we arrive home and didn't have any back-up plan, so we order pizza, eat it, feel like shit and then go to bed.

That, is not a day that is great for weight-loss. But with the exception of missing training that has been a fairly accurate represenation of many of my days of late. Long hours, rarely at home and eating shit because you're too tired to do anything good. My job is sedentary. And no matter how many times you walk to the printer, it's just not what the body needs. You can try and get out at lunchtime for a quick walk, but it is usually barely enough to get you through the day. And with the training session you were counting on being mysteriously vacant from your schedule then - we'll, you're fucked is the long and the short of it.

But then you have to take responsibility some time. Did I have to order pizza? No. I could have made something - but I chose not to. Could I have gone out and done some other excercise at the end of the day? Yes. But again, I chose not to.

So I'm structuring a new plan.

Each day I'll have a set number of tasks which I must complete before going to bed. This will include not just excercise but also basic household chores etc to make sure that at the very least our weekends aren't spent catching up on laundry and dishes left over from the week. I'll also go back to keeping a food diary as a "second thought"/"guilt inducing" method of keeping track of what's going in.

Weekly, I'll be posting updates on my progress as well as no doubt raving about how much I hate it.

But as I said at the very start. I've got to do it. And this isn't something that you can delegate. And I'm sick of procrastinating.

It's not the heat - well, actually yes. Yes, it is the heat.

Is there anything that motivates you less to get up and train than having a night of little to no sleep as the temperature has resolved to not dip below 25 overnight, there's no breeze and you know that it's forecast to hit the mid to high 30s or worse again that day? You're already sweaty and tired, so why should you be bothered to get up and and add dehydrated and even sweatier and more tired to that list?

It's just not an enjoyable experience training when it's really hot. Sure, sometimes the inspiration will just hit you and you'll really feel like going for a run, or doing some other workout - but for the most part, especially when it gets really hot, your body and mind will both be telling you to ignore it all, go somewhere nice and airconditioned and just relax. I know that's how it is for me.

Yesterday I ran headlong into the other issue associated with training in hot weather - dehydration. Despite downing nearly 2L of water over the course of a one and a half hour session I'd dehydrated myself badly enough that my skin had lost much of it's elasticity and I split my middle finger open along one side while carrying my bag back from training (the simple act of fingers rubbing together did this). The severe dehydration also made itself known through the other side-effects of reduced cognitive function and motor skills as well as very dry eyes and other symptoms.

After an experience along those lines it's easy to say: "bugger that", and simply put off any training until it's not as hot, but the fact of the matter is that once you find an excuse to skip one session, you'll find it easier and easier to come up with more along the track.

I know that I'll often think about not training or search for reasons not to go, and it takes a conscious effort to over-ride such thoughts and recover the motivation. For everyone reason that you can think of not to go, try and think of a reason why you should. Most of the time you'll run out of reasons not to go far before you run out of the reasons to go.

And if you do crack and skip a session of training for whatever reason - make up for it somehow. Even if you do something that isn't as intense or as long, make sure that you still do something. I've found that inertia is my biggest friend on the training path - as long as you can keep on doing something, it makes it easier to keep on doing the right thing.

You've got to sprawl before you can walk.

Well, I'm now about a fortnight and seven lessons into my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experience, training with Ben Hall at Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Australia and I'm covered in bruises, have a sore throat from being choked and am generally sore all over from the workout. Because, contrary to what some people will say - it is a workout. Especially if you are like me; after all it takes a lot more effort to bridge or switch when you are built like the Michelin Man.

I've watched a lot of MMA and I've watched BJJ competitions, instructionals and seminars before, so I am reasonably familiar with the theories of BJJ. But the practice was a whole other animal. You have to retrain your body to move in ways which seem completely alien initially, but soon the inherent advantage of these motions becomes clear and you wonder how you ever rolled over in bed or scooted under a desk to check something without doing it this way. To use some slightly elaborate terminology - it's a whole new set of grammatical rules for your body language to follow. You have to understand the new cause and effect relationships for every movement that you make. And make no mistake, it's hard to unlearn some of the things that you do without thinking.

Already I've learnt some important lessons - the biggest one being an insight into controlling an opponent through your own behaviour. The lesson was focused on keeping the guard when your opponent is standing and looking to pass. For a while it was just confusing and despite the occassional (wholly accidental at the time) success, it usually ended with Ben's knee firmly planted in my solar plexus. Then it came time to swap positions and after a few failed attempts Ben asked me the question: "How did I know that you were going to try to grab that leg?"
"Because I'd been watching it."
"That's only a part of it. I knew you'd go for that leg, because I'd put my other leg out of your reach."

With that simple revelation I felt like I jumped way above my previous skill level. Sure, there had been a lot of useful advice before and since, such as: "Don't extend an arm too far or you'll get armbarred", "Don't put just one arm in, you'll get triangled", but this advice gave my experience a whole new clarity. For the rest of the lesson I was feeling much more confident, I now understood what had been meant by the statement "You have to control your opponent no matter what, and the best way to do this is to control what options they have."

It's a lesson which I put to use in a later class doing takedown drills. By playing "big dumb lug" (when in fact, I am merely a big lug), and leaving a leg too far forward or something similar, I could be confident that my opponent would take that opportunity. After all, that's the only option I had given them. Each and every time as it turned out, the person would go for what I'd given them - and most of the time because I knew what to expect, I was able to do what I'd planned. Sure, there were a few times where someone did something I'd never seen before - but damnit, they did it to the limb that I knew they would.

The 7.5 stuff.

I've just returned from my benchmark setting 1.2km run. The time for me to beat and keep on beating is 7:57 - not a bad time considering that I haven't done any running for a while. I also ended up walking near enough to 400m of it, which while disappointing is certainly less than it could have been. Walking, is not really a problem for me now - during the holiday I was averaging probably 12-15km a day on the streets when I measured it on Google Maps, but probably closer to 20km when all the incidentals (like wandering museums etc) are factored in. Not really great aerobic exercise, but it did a bit for me obviously as by the end of the trip I'd lost 7.5kg, taking me to 169.1 which is below my stated aim for 01 Jan 2009, so that's a damn good start.

As for other things - I'm going to sign up with Gary Wagner again, who helped myself and Sarah greatly with the Original Bootcamp program, but whether it's individual sessions or just the online planning for the moment, I'm yet to decide.

A spanner has been thrown in the works with regards to picking a BJJ school to train with - there's rumblings that I may be moving offices with work, so depending on where I get landed, there may be a completely different set of schools to train with. But hopefully I should know about all that before too long.

In the meantime I'm also planning to see a doctor to get a full checkup to make sure that everything is still in working order, as well as to get things like bodyfat percentages properly tested.

Introducing the contestant

I'm starting this blog to chronicle several things. My training in BJJ and MMA (from scratch), my conditioning training, my diet and the outcomes that I'm getting from all of these. It's also to give me a sense of accountability for the duration of my training.

In the past I had played a lot of sport and done a lot of exercise. In my later years at school I generally had 2-3 training sessions a day for various sports and jobs (rowing, field hockey, boundary umpiring and gym sessions). When I went to uni, this fell off to no training sessions a day, but I made the mistake of keeping on with the same calorie intake. So, in no time I went from someone who was still never going to win Mr Olympia or fit into size M clothing to a slowly self-inflating fat-arse.

This stopped for a time when I got heavily involved with Rugby at university for several years. Then a full time job followed by glandular fever put me back on the bad path. Only in the past year or so with a lot of training with the Original Boot Camp program in Melbourne did I get back to anywhere near where I had been. Even then, old habits proved hard to kick and following a move in address and a change in the regular trainers at that group my wife (who had put me onto it in the first place) and myself lost motivation to attend.

Since then, I've trained at home and alone. Which is no way to do it. I hadn't set goals, I hadn't diligently trained or practiced and doing a few random sessions a week with little direct motivation isn't really going to do anyone any good.

Now, with a big overseas trip looming, I'm faced with being the fat, stereotypical tourist. Not a role that I ever really wanted to play under any circumstances. But I've worked hard to build some endurance for this trip (mainly by doing as much walking and mid-level cardio as I can, so that walking all day won't be a strain).

I keep getting told that goal setting is very important. My bodyweight has been sliding between 172 and 177kg of late (with an average of 175kg - that's about 385lb), which is more than I want to carry about. It's not comfortable, it's not enjoyable, clothing in my size is generally not really that great and damnit, I miss being fit. My long term goal for bodweight is to make it down to 120kg (265lb). I'm around 6'6" and have a fairly solid build (the widest part of me are still my shoulders, despite my diet's worst efforts) and I would rather still have a strong build than go down to stick figure type proportions.

In terms of the BJJ and MMA training - I am going to work on getting graded to White with 1 stripe. For MMA? Well, I think that's all about the learning experience - and given that there isn't really aren't many finite points within that experience beyond competing and winning. On the conditioning side of things - I want to be able to run 4km without having to slow to a walk by the time things are done. Short term? I'll be happy when I can do 1.2km (3 laps of a track) without having to slow. So, to set it out clearly,

MY GOALS
in 12 months (by 1 Dec 2009)

1. Get down to 120kg within 1 year
2. Get graded to Whitebelt with 2 stripes in BJJ
3. Be able to run a 4km time trial without slowing to a walk

in 1 month (by 01 Jan 2008)

1. To get under 170kg (there's X-mas in there don't forget)
2. Start BJJ training (find a school I can work with)
3. Shave 30 seconds off my starting 1.2km time trial time.

Now, this isn't all about just weight loss for the sake of health and fitness, there's also a big lifestyle part of it too. My wife and I want to have children, and I don't want to be the kind of dad who has to do a fatty grunt every time I bend down to pick them up. Not to mention all the potential issues that obesity can have on things like sperm production, motility and health.

Once I come back from the trip, I'll be starting my introduction sessions at the two local BJJ groups to see which one I'd prefer to train with. So, the next post can be expected by 07 Dec 2008.