Saturday, January 26, 2013

I'm alive!!!



http://drawception.com/pub/panels/2012/4-9/Q6GKZgM2rh-12.png
stolen from DrawCeption.com



Well this sure has been an interesting 48hrs!  As of my last posting (Wednesday night), I was frustrated because I was too tired to do any of my extracurricular workouts.  Thursday morning, I woke up, bright-eyed & bushy-tailed, amazed at how much energy I suddenly had.  Sure, there was a tickle in my throat & Alex had come home from work sick the night before, but who cared?  I was finally over the hump & could start working harder!!

Unfortunately, as the morning progressed, the tickle turn into a scratch, turned into a sore throat & I felt my body temperature rising.  I pushed through to finish the morning's work, told my bosses I felt like crap & went home to self medicate (Zinc, Vitamin C& DayQuil) and sleep.  I had hoped I'd wake up from my nap feeling great.  No dice.  I had to tell Jarrett & Jon that my weak body had betrayed me & I was unable to come in to train.  Not even one week in & I'm already having to skip practices.  Great.

On the plus side, while on my way in to work Thursday morning, I had already called my GP, Dr. Piland, to set up my pre-fight medical screening for 2:30pm the next day.  When I woke up still feeling crummy on Friday, at least I knew I was already on the books to get checked out.  I muddled through the morning (ended up taking a nap), showered & dressed and then headed out to my appointment.  I got there a few minutes early, waited around for awhile, was ushered back to the examination room about 15min late, and 15min later, was cleared to fight!  He also checked my throat & said that a) I was on the down slope of whatever it was that had been bugging me, but b) I still shouldn't go to the gym that night.  Well drat, now I'm bailing on a third of the classes this week.  Weak sauce.

Now comes the kicker: in addition to my 2:30 with Dr. Piland, I also had a 4:20 with Dr. Hong, my optometrist.  I had been really nervous about this particular appointment because I remembered (after that awesome shin-to-face experience AJ introduced me to), that he had found some sort of retina issue with my eyes when I was a kid.  Needless to say, retina issues + blows to the head = bad stuff.

I went in, explained the situation to him & got my vision check.  20/400, AWESOME!  I mean, without glasses.  With glasses, I gotta be at least...what, like 20/390?  Anyhow, then come the eye drops to dilate my pupils, the thirty minute wait while I lose focus & then the flashlight through a magnifying glass into my eye-ball.  No, seriously: he puts on a head lamp, grabs a hand-held lens, and shines that jank DIRECTLY INTO MY EYEBALL!!  I mean, I know that he needs to do this in order to see the inner wall of my retina & stuff, but MAN it sucks!

As he's looking around, he breaks the news to me that I've got Lattice Degeneration.  Turns out that I have with a condition that makes it more likely that I'm going to suffer retinal tears.  Balls.  But then as he's looking all around my eye, he seems to be getting less & less dour.  After he's hit the eight angles on each eye, he actually starts to smile!

"Well, I've got good news, Ben!" he says, "All the little tears and holes I had noted when you were a child have actually completely healed over!  It looks like your eyes are completely - o wait, there's some fresh damage."



You gotta be frakkin' kidding me.

I thought I was home-free & then it comes crashing down just like that.  I won't get into the rest of the visit, but it basically breaks down like this: I'm just naturally at a higher risk for retinal tears than the rest of  the population, and there's no way to know how many tears there are (or how bad they are) during my day to day life until I suddenly start seeing weird spots, a "veil drops over your vision", or just stop seeing stuff.

This makes it sound really terrible & like if I step outside in a rain storm I'm gonna turn into Geordi La Forge.  Dr. Hong says that's worse case scenario (obviously), and that it's perfectly plausible that I could go through this whole fight camp & the tournament itself in March & suffer no ill-effects.  Heck, he even filled out the medical form for me, but he looked my squared in the eyes (at least I assume so, the eye drops still had my pupils wonky) & told me that if I was his son, he'd tell me not to do it & that it wasn't worth the risk.

So now I'm at a cross roads.  In about 30min, I'll be heading to the Saturday afternoon conditioning class led by BJJ brown belt Daniel Frank (did I mention I woke up this morning feeling amazing?), and afterwards, I'll talk to my coaches.  I'll be honest, I'm leaning towards not doing the tournament anymore.  I've always wanted to do at least 1 BJJ competition, 1 Muay Thai fight & 1 MMA fight, but it looks like that might not be the wisest goal to pursue.  It'd be different if I were considering being a pro fighter & making this my career, but since it's just a hobby meant to deepen my understanding & love of these sports, I don't think it's worth it.  Maybe Jarrett & Jon will be able to talk some sense into me after class, but I dunno.

Just to be clear, even if I decide not to fight, I'm still going to be part of Fight Camp.  There are still 5 other guys planning to fight on March 9th & I am still 100% committed helping them & firing them up.  The only piece I'll have to opt-out of is Tuesday/Thrusday hard sparring at the end of the night.  All the other jump roping, shadow boxing, cut kick & pads rounds (plus MWF light-sparring), I'll be right there with 'em.

-------

Well, just got back from the conditioning class.  First things first: screw you, Daniel Frank!  Man, that guy designs one miserable workout!  Ok now that's out of the way:

Second things second: THANK YOU, DANIEL FRANK!!  MAN, that guy designs one MISERABLE workout!!  Whoo-ee, that was no joke!  Lunges, Frog Jumps, Front Jacks, Sprawls & Mountain Climbers, 30secs each and that's just the warm-up!  Then we hit pyramids of push-ups, CrossFit sit-up, burpees, squats & active planks, finished off with jump-roping until all other teams finished.  MISERABLE & AWESOME!  I hated it & can't wait to be back next week!

OK, to wrap-up: I talked to Jon (Jarrett wasn't able to make it today), and he of course was very understanding & supportive.  He's was OK with my plan of stepping back from being a fighter to just a helper, but said to think & pray on it for the weekend & then touch base with him & Jarrett on Monday.

Gotta be honest, having coaches who look out for your well-being & not just the prestige of their program is an amazing blessing that isn't lost on me.  Can't wait to get back in there Monday!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

I've got to admit it's getting better

The only picture I want to post is the one of my Batman-emblem-shaped, CD-sized bruise on my inner thigh, but I can't think of a way to take a picture that doesn't look remarkably lewd & lascivious, so I'll just pass this time.

The hardest part about tonight was actually today: I was exhausted at work.  I could barely keep my eyes open or my head up.  The sudden tax on my energy reserves that I've surprised my body with has really hit me hard.  I'm getting more sleep (10:30p-7:15a instead of 1a-7:45a) & eating a lot better (6 lean protein meals instead of 2 massive fast food/pizza/etc.), but it's still not enough.  I don't know what the solution is, but I've got to find a way to get more rest & more energy.

Here's the biggest reason I need more energy (besides not passing out on my keyboard): I haven't done a minute of roadwork or a strength workout.  I know those are both HUGEly important pieces to the puzzle, but I don't have the time.  I'm sleeping as late as I can get away with while still eating breakfast & getting to work on time (I used to skip breakfast) & when I get home I need to take a nap to make sure I'm up for Fight Camp.  Once I get home, it's a mad rush to eat, wash my sweaty clothes, clean my gear, shower, post this little 10min thing & then crash.  Even now, I'm pushing to get this done ASAP so I can sack out at 10 instead of 10:30 (notice the lack of witty remarks & enlightening links?).  When I'm already pissed at myself for coming in out of shape & being the weak link on the team, it makes it so much worse that now I can't even meet the requirements set out by the coaches.

If I'm still dragging at work tomorrow, I'll have to talk to Jon & Jarrett about it.  I need to have a solution to this.  I can't have this continue.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Still moving

https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=a5105f204b&view=att&th=13c6577585612144&attid=0.1&disp=inline&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P-MlzMQIoJ8AV1D3HS825MI&sadet=1358912030905&sads=MAVAGtVhlLDsI0vrPjvBEaeP6J0 
Anyone want to join me for a rousing game of Guess the Bodily Fluid?

Well, tonight was basically the same as last night, just tougher.  We got an extra round of cut kicks & combos on the Thai pads.  As a personal victory, I didn't skip any burpee rounds.  I was no where close to getting all 15 done, but I was moving all the way through.

Then came sparring.  Tonight was Hard Sparring, but the coaches had mercy on us & didn't require burpees in between.  I don't remember too many specifics.  Caught one of Ricketts' kicks & took him down off it.  Brian got me in the clinch & drilled me with a couple of vicious knees.  My night ended when I was sparring with AJ.  Shocker: my cardio sucks.  Other shocker: sucky cardio = sucky technique.  He was pressuring me HARD & I was trying to circle away.  Next thing I knew, there was a shin bone introducing itself to my nose.  Begin blood faucet.  Missed the next round trying to plug that up & apparently there weren't any rounds after that.

Even barring that, I feel better tonight than I did 24hrs ago & I credit that 100% to my boy Alex.  He's a personal trainer & has laid out a simple but solid diet plan for me.  Being properly fueled was HUGE.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Well that SUCKED




Today was Day 1 of Fight Camp.  I will be competing at the 13th Annual WKA North American Championships amateur kickboxing tournament on March 9th.  I am currently a soft something-over 210 (my guess is 215, but I don't have a reliable scale at home), and I am shooting for the 187-198lbs weight class.  Why have I set myself the task of dropping roughly 20lbs in 6 weeks?  Because the weightclass above this is simply 198-infinity lbs.  I'd rather not be faced with Butterbean in my debut match.

So what was it that sucked so much?  Fight Camp.  Fight Camp sucked so much.  Turns out Jon & Jarrett are kinda taking this thing seriously & aren't planning on letting us get worked over in there.  For that reason, they decided it's best to kill us all now & save our opponents the trouble.  Here's what they put us through tonight:


  • 3 rounds of jump roping
  • 3 rounds of shadow boxing
  • 4 rounds of cut kicks on the Thai shields (2 for you, 2 for your partner)
  • 4 rounds of combos on the Thai pads (2 for you, 2 for your partner)
  • 5 rounds of sparring
All rounds were 2min on, 1min "off".  During your "off" time, you had to do 15 burpees & could then rest for whatever time was left.  As for the sparring, Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays are to be light days, whereas Tuesdays & Thursdays will be KO time.

By the second round of shadow boxing, I was just focusing on keeping my hands up & not being flat footed.  In the third round, I was trying to remember to keep my trap shut & breathe through my nose.  After the first round of cut kicks, I was too busy convincing myself I wasn't going to puke to do the burpees.  Thankfully, after the second round of cut kicks, Marvin got in my ear & talked my indeed doing a measly 3 ugly, ratty burpee wanna-bes.  After two rounds of holding the Thai shield for Gene's cut kicks, my leg was killing me.  During the combo rounds, I could barely think clearly enough to come up a combo to throw.  Like the considerate jerk he is, Gene bum rushed me after every single combo to make me keep my hands up & work on circling away.  In between every round, Gene stood right by me, talking me through those burpees, matching me pace-for-pace, pushing me when I'd slack & hyping me when I was moving.  When I finally made it to sparring, I was struggling.  Fortunately it was a light day, but I swear, I think I could have thrown everything I had into my punches & even Bob Sapp wouldn't have gone down.  Then Jarrett reveals a wonderful surprise: non-fighters no longer have to do burpees between rounds!  Bully for them, now they've got extra energy to murder me while I slow to a pace glaciers would scoff at.

But I did it.  I pushed through.  I hung in there.  And I will be back in there to go through it all again tomorrow.  I have committed myself to the camp and, Lord willing, I will persevere to the end & represent myself, my teammates & my gym well come March 10th.