Always Heading West

[TheJewBear]

Bench
215x7
195x8

Weighted Push Ups
+25x20
+25x18

DB Curlz
35'sx10
35'sx8

Rope Pushdown
130x6

Notes

-Left shoulder pain is really weird and bad especially when my arm is over my head. Benching didn't aggravate it but it was aggravated from moving weights around and such. Couldn't do nosebreakers without pain.​

 

[TheJewBear]

Squat
275x8
250x9

Leg Extension
140x8
140x8

Leg Curl
140x8
140x8

Hanging Leg Raises
15
10

Notes

-Low-balling the numbers today.

-This chick friend made me a vegan blueberry pie as a housewarming gift so that kind of fucked up calories the past 2 days.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (no-gi)

25 minutes rolling
There was supposed to be a Wanderlei Silva seminar today but the Axe Murderer no-showed/no-called. So I rolled with a bigger, sharp blue belt. Conditioning was really bad for some reason but moved a lot, hit a very sweet arm drag to single leg.

Was on my back a lot more than I'd like. He tapped me once with an RNC and I got him with an arm bar from bottom kesa gatame and a knee bar off a scramble. Did a few 5-minute rounds and bounced.

No shoulder pain. So weird..​

 

[Obscure Terror]

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

60 minutes no-gi tech & rolling
Huge detail picked up today--When you go for the arm bar from guard, not only are you hitting him hard deep in his arm pit and high on the shoulder with your leg but also use that to actually bring him FORWARD and into your attack. Otherwise his posture will make finishing the arm bar difficult.

Helped my arm bars a TON tonight. Instructor said he didn't learn that detail until 3 months after he had his black belt. Super glad to have picked this up tonight.

​

Guy in my gym (155lb blue belt) does this extremely well and his armbars from guard are deadly. I still haven't quite gotten it down, my armbars from guard suck, but I want to work them and this detail is big.

 

[TheJewBear]

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

2 hrs drilling/rolling
Open mat. Trained with a couple of blues and a strong white belt. Got a good amount of drilling arm bar escapes, arm bars from guard, cross collar chokes and did 5-minute rounds from the feet. Pretty awesome way to start the day.

This week marked my 5th year anniversary of training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Someone remarked when I got my purple in June that I'm now halfway to black but I don't feel that way at all. I feel like brown belt in 4 years and black belt in 3-4 after that. Dependent on training frequency of course but if I'm at my current gym for the foreseeable future, where rank is pretty strict then I'm definitely not halfway there yet. Which is a good thing to me.​

 

[TheJewBear]

Did a deadlift workout today...Strength has taken a HUGE hit. But body comp is getting really good. Veins and abs popping.

Neck has been fucked up for over 4 weeks now and isn't getting better. Deadlifting aggravated it on one of the warm up sets. It's a strange, deep pain whenever I put my chin down towards my chest or rotate my head left or right. The pain is mostly in the right side of my upper back/neck/trap area.

Doctor's appt w/ general practitioner tomorrow for unrelated matter...might as well bring it up.

Feel like I haven't been to jiu-jitsu in forever even though it's only been two days. Ah, a relationship with a never-ending honeymoon period.

 

[TheJewBear]

More updates

Saw a general family doctor for the first time in like a decade. In the military we only saw flight doctors and since then I've always gone directly to specialists. Figured I was overdue and had a ton of shit to get looked at.

We talked about several injuries and the skin infections plus sleep issues. Have a walk-in to get my neck x-rayed because he was concerned about my limited range of motion without pain. Regarding the shoulder he said it was probably a simple sprain that has cleared up by now. Also getting a full blood panel done to include thyroid and test. This was done a while back in NY but never hurts to get checked periodically. Being 26 now I'm actually starting to feel "old" via a drop in libido. Ironically, I'm getting laid more frequently than ever before in my life.

Other than that, I skipped BJJ last night as a combination of mangina and neck pain. Tonight going to no-gi only and have an old ex visiting for the weekend, so training will be present though limited. Will get minimum 3 hrs for the week.

Might have to drop deadlifts from training until neck feels better. Everything besides that feels OK but man did that fuck with my neck last time.

Skin is healthy....At the moment. Every nick and scratch I see on my hands I freak out about now thinking bacteria will invade the crevice and take me off the mat again. Just gotta wash a lot and use this liquid bandage stuff I have.

Work is going very well. Compared to New York the air traffic in Tucson is very light and non-complex. Once I certify in a few months I'll get the "big pay raise" and will officially achieve what I believe is referred to in economic texts as, "baller status". Should be done in about 4 months. After that I'll look to transfer to the TRACON here and make more money. This is on a ~3 year timeline roughly.

That's it for now

 

[TheJewBear]

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (no-gi and then gi)

30 min tech

30 min training


30 min tech

30 min training​

 

[eastNYgoon138]

You've had it pretty rough lately. Keep your chin up. Think you may start Texas Method back again? What did you think of it?

 

[TheJewBear]

Thanks man. Yeah funny timing, I actually started TM up again today.

It's the best program I've used for strength gains. Your help with setting up the 4x/week schedule was much appreciated.

 

[TheJewBear]

Update--

Had a friend visiting for the weekend so didn't get any lifting done. Went to no-gi Saturday then did 2 hours of open mat on Sunday. Jiu-jitsu has felt really fucking good lately.

Went on an 8 mile hike yesterday. I've never hiked in my life nor had the girl I was with and we thought we were going to die. Amazingly no soreness today. I wonder how many calories you burn hiking? I estimated around 1,500 over the course of 4 hours. It was pretty cool.

First day of Texas Method reboot today. Went well but with a weird work schedule this week it's going to be a little all over the place. No biggie, make it work.

 

[TheJewBear]

Another informal update--

Training has been scattered this week due to work schedule and poor sleep. Only trained Thursday gi and no gi but had a great class. Performance-wise my conditioning felt good and I was on fire that particular night. Tapped our best purple belt with a triangle and a toe hold, had an even match with a black belt and worked a lot of different parts of my game the rest of the night. Just felt good to be on the mat.

The Texas Method is feeling good. Recovering from squatting DOMS today and moving the days back a bit to line back up to M/T/Th/F.

Going to open mat tomorrow for two hours of drilling and rolling so that will be good. Four hours of mat time for this week but I want to get more actual classes in. We follow a rough curriculum at my gym where there is an actual method to the madness so getting in more consistently during the week will be helpful.

Awful hangover. Got pulled over last night one block from my house and had to do a field sobriety test and breathalyzer. I have no idea how I didn't get arrested but I should probably buy a lottery ticket today or something.

 

[TheJewBear]

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

2 Hours rolling/drilling
Trained with a couple of blues and a white today. Worked on knee bars, the smash pass, spinning to the back from side control and looked at some arm bar escapes too.

Rolling was good. My conditioning felt AWFUL for the first 20 minutes or so but after that I found my wind and wanted to keep going even after the guys left.

Almost bought a $1000 airdyne bike last night on impulse. Still letting it marinate before I take out the credit card.​

 

[TheJewBear]

Did BJJ two hours last night, an upper volume session and a lower session today with a break from BJJ tonight. Everything is feeling good except that I dropped a dummbell on my finger and scraped some skin off so just being careful with that reference grappling/staph.

Did not buy the airdyne bike.

 

[TheJewBear]

Did squat workout yesterday and introduced deadlifts again. Neck injury is finally, finally kaput. I think the muscle relaxers really did the trick.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (no-gi)

30 minutes tech
I taught today. A bunch of white belts and a blue belt. Went over kimura attack from bottom half guard, finishing it/sweep to side control finish from there. For the guy on top if you get kimura attacked in top half guard, the grip-grab re-kimura from the top and finally finish with that grip to a spinning arm bar (one of my personal favorites).

30 minutes rolling
Had good rounds with bigger, stronger white belts, some smaller ones and the blue belt about my size. Lungs felt a little weak today. Nothing too important to comment on. A purple belt at my gym was showing me the "dog bar" from bottom or top half guard which is basically a knee bar using your feet to trap his leg and controlling his hips.

He pointed me towards a couple of very good video tutorials that I'm going to drill tomorrow at open mat. It's definitely my style of jiu-jitsu which is to say, sneaky.

So fucking stoked for DEAN LISTER seminar in a couple of weeks. Also hope I get a Josh Barnett or Erik Paulson DVD for Christmas. Catch wrestling is definitely a style I want to embrace more as I develop my grappling game. I like how unconventional and brutish it is. Kind of the opposite of the BJJ game that I hate---Sporty, flashy, inverted bullshit that you would never do in a fight. I like my jiu-jitsu to be tough, practical and painful. ​

 

[TheAth-ah-lete]

Hey just caught up on your log, how's it going? Sorry to see you're running into all the skin and injury issues, but it looks like you're turning into kind of a big deal on the mat.lol

How long have you been in AZ? Are you working approach and tower or do they have you doing everything? Here they do it all but I'm not sure how it works at busier airports.

 

[TheAth-ah-lete]

Did a deadlift workout today...Strength has taken a HUGE hit. But body comp is getting really good. Veins and abs popping.

Neck has been fucked up for over 4 weeks now and isn't getting better. Deadlifting aggravated it on one of the warm up sets. It's a strange, deep pain whenever I put my chin down towards my chest or rotate my head left or right. The pain is mostly in the right side of my upper back/neck/trap area.

Doctor's appt w/ general practitioner tomorrow for unrelated matter...might as well bring it up.

Feel like I haven't been to jiu-jitsu in forever even though it's only been two days. Ah, a relationship with a never-ending honeymoon period.

Sounds like my neck issue except mine is on the left side. Get it taken care of ASAP it's been 6 years of neck pain every day of my life and I'm afraid it will be like this forever.

 

[Gfreak]

I put up those notes in my log man, lemme know if there's anything I can explain better lol. Notes are from memory so don't judge me if I skipped details haha

 

[TheJewBear]

Hey just caught up on your log, how's it going? Sorry to see you're running into all the skin and injury issues, but it looks like you're turning into kind of a big deal on the mat.lol

How long have you been in AZ? Are you working approach and tower or do they have you doing everything? Here they do it all but I'm not sure how it works at busier airports.

Damnit Ath!!! You keep ghosting on us. Not even FB anymore to keep up with what you're up to. What's your status been?

Well things are good besides the skin shit as you noted. Been in AZ since early September and just working Tucson Intl. tower here. Clearance delivery, ground and tower freq's only. Getting much more familiar with general aviation. You're the only person I know in the Midland area so whenever people fly TUS-MAF I think of you!

 

[TheJewBear]

The Torah Method

Lower Volume

Squat
(265x5)x5

Hanging Leg Raises
(8)x3

Notes

-Did some sprints afterwards too. Weight is steady around 172 lately but feeling pudgy. Strength is feeling great.

-Did two hours of BJJ last night and obviously haven't been logging religiously.

-Starting this weekend I'll be teaching the Saturday morning no-gi class at my gym. This is pretty major for me since I always wanted to teach back in New York, but had friction with the gym "manager". Here the owner/head instructor reached out and offered me the gig with pay! It'll actually cover all of my monthly gym membership costs so I'll essentially be training for free and get to develop my teaching ability more. Very very very excited about this opportunity.​

 

[TheAth-ah-lete]

Damnit Ath!!! You keep ghosting on us. Not even FB anymore to keep up with what you're up to. What's your status been?

Well things are good besides the skin shit as you noted. Been in AZ since early September and just working Tucson Intl. tower here. Clearance delivery, ground and tower freq's only. Getting much more familiar with general aviation. You're the only person I know in the Midland area so whenever people fly TUS-MAF I think of you!

Yeah my internet presence is much diminished, and I've been crazy busy until just recently. I got a pipeline patrol job, went to the DR for my sisters wedding, then after four months of flying pipe I got offered a job with an awesome charter company. That offer came right before I went to Vegas for a week to get married, and caused some drama with me leaving the pipeline place. I also got back from getting married just to turn right back around,get on another plane to Atlanta where I did King Air 300 school for two weeks. Since I got back though I have hardly been flying. I actually have been sitting at home on call and not flying for the past 10 days.

That's awesome about the teaching gig. I can only imagine how bad you would roll me up at this point.

Meeting lots of loose ladies in Tucson? I've only been there once but I remember lots of hippies. .