1.) Hit 169lbs with a 32" waist and 10% Bodyfat by the end of finals week, May 16th. UFC 2009: Undisputed ships on May 19th, and I found out you can use a similar scanning system with the XboxLIVE Camera to make a photorealistic of yourself for the created characters in the game. I’d love to beat the snot out of people with a photorealistic of myself.

 2.) Attend every single class from the start of this week until the end of the year, and turn in every single assignment. On time, nevertheless.

 Yeah. It’s gonna be good.

However, there have been a couple upswings: My girlfriend and I are still pretty much crazy about each other, and I got my red belt.

Yes friends, it’s true, I now have a Red Belt in Cu Ke Tae Kwon Do. And not for kicking higher or good technique. No, I was awarded the belt for being a model student. I haven’t done Tae Kwon Do in about a year and a half, but my teacher knew about what I’ve been doing because we’re pretty damned good friends on top of his teaching me.

To list it, here’s what he said that I’ve made improvements on in the year and a half since I got my blue:

-Fighting Stance greatly improved/Not backing down anymore

-Learned Basic Boxing

-Learned Ground Defense and fighting

-Integrated into knowledge of TKD

-Driver’s Liscense (Joking)

-Approached training on own terms

-Never stopped needing to learn

-Willingness to help others

I told him when he handed me the belt that I couldn’t take it in good conscience. He told me to shut up or he’d kick me into next week (He won that argument).

Then we talked about what to do about me getting to black. Obviously, there’s only two ways to reach that now would be to pull him back into training, then manage to get a certified black belt (Why waste my time on one that’s not confirmed by the WTF?).

Or the other option, find a WTF school in Springfield or wherever I land a job at. The only reason I’m dead set on WTF is knowing three of the eight forms already (The fourth sounds rather familliar). However, it seems that it’s dying out in Missouri, and I don’t know what to do about that.

So likely, I’ll be learning on my own to Black Belt. Perhaps some day I’ll actually be there, but for now, I am at red, and damned nervous about that last belt.

I got owned BAD.

But it was so fun, I didn’t care. Yes, I’m only a newbie in Jiu-Jitsu, but I got to go to a seminar at my friend’s gym with J.W. Wright last Thursday, and man was it awesome.

Most of the Seminar was over conditioning. Mostly because JW, who taught the main guy at the gym, knows that there’s a couple guys there with tournaments and fights coming up, and he seriously kicked everyone’s asses all over the mat for half an hour.

We did a conditioning drill that was two three-minute rounds alternating between partners with pushes, Titos (Modified burpee–Legs go all the way up when you jump), guard jumping, jabbing, rolling, and sprawling all over the place. I never had actually felt every single one of my muscles burn before, but man was it worth it! I got flat out driven up the wall with motivation after that.

After he ran us through all that, we did leglocks. So anklelocks, heel hooks and the basic leglock. On top of all three being completely new to me, along with their escapes, I also learned a new trick: Don’t let your partner keep dropping all of them on the same leg. It’s not a great idea. In fact, it rather sucks after about the third one. Especially the next morning. I can actually feel the tendons running all the way from my butt to the bottom of my foot after this one. That’s unique.

I also woke up this morning feeling my brain literally being squishy, which was kind of new. I have to admit, I want to not front roll that many times again so I don’t have that feeling. I used to when we did Aikido, but it went away, and now it’s back which means I need to front roll more.

So we rolled after all that conditioning and practice, which was fun. I rolled with my friend who’s got at least 130 on me still. He’s why I need to get back into shape–he’s losing a lot of weight fast, so I’ve gotta start making up the difference somehow before he gets faster than me. He, however, fell on top of me hard enough to pull my shoulder wierd. It’s better now, and he helped get it back together, and from my figuring it’ll be back together on Sunday or Monday just from how it feels.

Which actually brings me to my next bit–Doobz0326 is pretty much an awesome guy. If you haven’t stopped by his thread on his progress, do it! It’s inspiring. Literally, just what he’s written has gotten me wanting to get going, and I’ve been chomping at the bit ever since. Well, before that, like back a week or two ago when I got the idea in my head that I’m gonna be in a movie.

Yeah, that’s right, all that LARPing goodness has paid off, I’ve been recruited by an indie film group to help be their LARP Expert for their new film. They’re pretty cool, and I’m gonna be a badass minion at the end of the movie at least, if not one of the main roles if I can learn to act between now and this summer. So I wanna be a scary lookin’ minion with a lot of badassitry and a mohawk. (Gotta love the Hawk).

That’s pretty much that. I can’t wait to get training again on Monday. I’m going to kick a lot of ass!

Presently, I am still not training actively in any martial or physical art outside of Amtgard. I’m planning on taking the last five weeks of school (Starting this sunday) and using them to make a base to start out for next semester on, focusing almost exclusively on improving my Amtgard and Dagohir skills. I’m not bothering with a diet–Here, these have no purpose–but more with realigning my class to Warrior and working on building my fighting skills and strength. I’m going to bulk, end of story. I don’t know what to call it past that.

I’ll put up a plan at some point, but a lot of it relies on working with my roomate who already hits the gym regularly. That should help me get myself there.

I have been experiencing a rash of depression that I had thought was the onset of the normal melancholy that falls on me every autumn. Its truly annoying, let me tell you, and it was causing a substantial amount of stress in me. So much that I experienced a constant stress fever that drove my roomate to seek a warmer climate because of the amount of air conditioning I was using to keep myself cool.

Anyway, in the past few days I have decided to quit the dojo I’m at now and move on. I was really confused as to why I had decided this above and beyond realizing that the amount of time (15 hours) spent going to and from there was more than I was working or in class, and most of that is travel time. So it was diminishing. This however, was not the answer.

I was also concerned: turns out that their fight team is sponsored by a head shop, something that I find a little hypocritical. As far as I’ve learned, martial arts of any stripe are always an improvement in the body mind and spirit, and that lifestyle does not particularly contribute to any of those aspects. (Nothing against stoners–I just don’t think a dojo should be supported by a head shop.)

As I thought about it, I realized that my issue was more in the word than anything. School is what they always called themselves, but I keep saying dojo. I realize that this points to me wanting to be traditional. Not to mention a lot of time in jiu-jitsu I would be staring across at the traditional kenpo class that was going on on the other mat. This marks me deeply.

I realize that my ideal goal is to get back to training with sensei, and that this has never been about winning or losing for me. This was something that was rather emphasized there. It’s always been a matter of learning myself, control, and spiritual building, not a win. I’m not in this to be a tough guy, and I realize how much of an MMA poser I’ve been over the past few months.

I really, deeply am a traditionalist. Perpetuating the traditions of the old days is within me more than anything. I realize this becuase of something I wrote: in reimagining Dante’s Hell from "The Inferno", I placed the second worst sin in the world as betraying tradition, right before betraying the self. That, then, is a straight up indication and I believe I should take heed.

Thus, I am banishing this idea of me fighting MMA. Though it may still happen, it’s definitely not what I’m focused on. Point sparring may not be as exciting, but I do enjoy it. It is a very good thing for me, and lets face it, I’m not in it to win, I’m in it to learn the old ways, to connect with the part of me that still wanders the battlefields of the past, to find the place I held in the past and hopefully that will lead me one day to where I am to be in the present.

I want to thank ElvisC, SenseiD, MMAFanatic and Kevin_Mattison on here for a lot of inspiration. They’re truly committed to their goals and I wish I was half as determined as they were. I will be one day. For now, I need to find myself a proper Dojo and get back where I belong.

Now that means I need to get back in there and do it a couple hundred thousand more times. Sounds good to me, no?

Anyway, so I did pick up an injury (I think) later that night. My shoulder has a twinge in it between the neck and the actual shoulder, and it hurts when streched. I’m going to have it looked at this weekend by my friend who does Accupressure (I see him more than sensei and he learned from sensei) and see what he thinks, because it feels like something that can be moved back in, but if its not, then I’ll take steps to see. Either way, I can’t go back because it was sore enough Wednesday that I decided I had to take off until I got it looked at. Hopefully it’s nothing, because I’ve got momentum.

My flowchart is also progressing nicely. I’ve been scribbling the names down with links between them on a Powerpoint to connect everything and I can see and remember almost everything. I keep seeing it as a sort of menu system, which I know is really geeky, but has been working and adding options to said menu is working wonders for me memorizing where and what happens where and when.

I’m ready to restart weight training soon. I think I’ll be catching up in terms of energy here soon, so I’ll do that. I also did get my contract figured out, so I’m getting to go to something more normal. Plus that means I can go to the MMA based classes now because I’m a full student. That’ll make things much better for me.

 So yeah, that’s what’s up now. I’m also a little concerned now about what body type I am. I mean frame size. I am getting no thinner but things are starting to move towards definition, so does that mean I’m a large framed person? I’ve never been sure. I’m also kind of wondering why it is doing this now and it never did when I was much thinner. That doesn’t make any sense. Any ideas?

Progress is good. I got confused for being 150lbs today, which I think is a good thing. I haven’t been near a scale in over a month so I’ll just assume that I’m probably mid 160’s based on that. I don’t know where body fat is, nor waist size, nor do I truly care at the moment. I think just for record purposes I’ll

I was sick for about a week, and got over it finally, so I’m more or less just happy as a clam that I’m training again and not coughing up parts of my lungs. That’s a good thing. Plus, it seems that things are starting to click. I’m starting to be able to see when things are going south in a hurry, so I don’t get caught as much. Well, I’m still getting caught, but I’m able to put up a better fight cause I’m able to defend against them for longer.

Plus, the guy that’s been sort of coaching me during open mat, Stephen, says that I’m improving. So I’m pleased. I’m not sure what the deal is with me paying money to the school, but at this point, it seems to have become truly a moot point. On top of that, a few people are offering resources to me for training like books and such. I’m going to ask for some of the ones I heard are good next week so hopefully they’ll still be available to me for some time.

Anyway I’ve gotten confident enough to start rolling with the other people.. I rather enjoy it, moreso than just straight up technique. I’m focusing for now on survival time and learning when I’m in trouble, which getting in a lot of it so far, yeah, I can say I’m beginning to learn that. I’m not entirely sure how to keep track of the movements, much less how to actually get to them. The only really identifiable positions I’ve been in have been Rubber Guard and Dogfight, and that’s about it.

I was going to write them down but I always forget my notebook that i had started in back in the dorm, so I don’t have it. So I should either do that or just make up my own names.

 Related: Soda’s down to five today, and I can tell. Can’t wait to get rid of it entirely.

The only major changes on top of the ride to and from jiu jitsu has been dropping the number of sodas a day. I’m down to 8 or less all the way through last week and am working to go down to 7 or less this week. I’m pretty good, and have completely eliminated soda from breakfast. I’ll work the other ones off as I get lower. Probably dinner at 3 and Lunch will be to go to zero, but this is working by far better than just dropping it all at once.

I’m not able to get out to the gym to do full weights tonight–Strange pain in my hamstring from the Lockdown position we worked on Saturday. I don’t want to upset it, so I’ll just be shadowboxing and doing body weight. I’m making changes to this to go a little more full body on the training end. I’m swapping incline bench for straight row to make sure I keep things balanced.

 Also, I’ve made up my mind about my weight–Wherever I am when it’s time to start thinking about fighting is where I’ll fight at. Setting a goal is kind of dumb, especially knowing how fast my weight can shoot up and down.

 So anyway, I’ll be working out at a reduced pace for the time being and getting the hamstring looked at wednesday or saturday. Here’s to progress!

 Oh, and new progress will be up after I get my hair cut. It’s starting to grow ears and have to be combed, and as much as I want to grow it out, I can’t help but get annoyed by that.