That’s What She Said at Vanguard Gym

That’s What She Said, a NoVa sports show, stopped by Vanguard Gym a few weeks ago to film a segment on MMA/grappling. 

Pretty cool stuff!

MMA Ban in New York

Just saw this on Yahoo Sports – Maggie Hendricks’ blog post about the ignorance of NY legislators regarding MMA. This is more egregious in my mind than Leonard Shapiro’s hand wringing in the Washington Post about MMA and the lost purity of network television (are you kidding me with this, Lenny? Really??) – these people are actually making laws based on self-admitted flat out ignorance. I tell you, this kind of crap really gets my panties in a wad…

Congrats to Vanguard and Dalla MMA fighters

Battlefield Fighting Championships went down last night, and it was a good night for the team. Both Vanguard fighters, Country and Favio, demolished their opponents convincingly in their first ever MMA fights. Country’s opponent looked like he’d been training too much Tae Kwon Do and not enough MMA, and spent most of the fight with a shocked look on his face. Favio was impressive too – this was his first fight and his opponent had eight. Favio took the guy down early in the first round, passed his guard, got the mount, and not even a minute into the first round, got the win with the ground and pound. 

 

Dalla’s guys had a mixed night – Chris won his fight by RNC and looked strong against a bit of a spazzy opponent. However, Dave’s fight barely got started before they landed against the cage door during a takedown attempt and the door busted open – both fighters flew out and hit the ground hard. The fight was called a no contest, because neither fighter could continue. I haven’t gotten any updates yet, but hopefully everyone is ok. 

 

Since I was at the local fights, I missed the EliteXC fights, but I managed to catch a video of Carano v. Kobold. All I can say is that three minute rounds for professional fights is ridiculous. Kobold was robbed of a great position in the second round when she finally brought Carano down and had her on the defensive. Too bad she couldn’t do that more than once, but I have to wonder how that one opportunity would have played out in the additional two minutes. I didn’t see the Kimbo/Petruzelli fight, but apparently there wasn’t much to it. And hey, not bad for a guy who probably thought he’d be watching the fights on TV that night! 

Rusty. Really Rusty.

I’ve made it to only a few BJJ classes so far, with several days in between for recovery. It’s going to be a slow process. This has become pretty evident – I turned into jello for the entire next day after my first two classes, and on Friday, I was at work all day, but all I really wanted to do was eat a huge meal and take a nap. 

I did manage to do a few rounds of the positional drills and pull a collar choke off against a white belt who didn’t know to protect his neck. It was a very small victory, but I felt bad at the same time; I probably should have stopped and told him that if someone gets their grips on your collar like that, stop trying to pass and defend the choke.

The strangest part of being so rusty, though, is that I seem to be reacting very slowly. For instance, we were working open guard drills and at one point, I was on the bottom with one leg in and one out (not quite half guard). I remember thinking, “I should try to duck under and take his back.” But for some reason, I didn’t, and he passed. 

On the other hand, I was able to stay awake to watch the Shayna Baszler – Christiane Cyborg fight on EliteXC last night. Shayna was working some interesting submission attempts in the first round, but she gassed pretty bad in the second. My guess is it was the adrenaline dump from being on live network TV for the first time, not a lack of conditioning. Either way, though, it didn’t end well for her, which was a bit of a disappointment – I tend to root for the underdog, and it was clear that Cyborg outweighed and out muscled her. 

Don’t get me wrong, though. When I say disappointment, I mean in the result, not in the fight itself. That was a really entertaining fight and I think it did a lot to continue the advance of women’s MMA. It was also gratifying to hear the announcers discuss the fact that the women should be fighting five minute rounds, not three. Maybe the powers that be will hear that and realize how ridiculous and sexist it is that they’re having women fight shorter bouts when they are just as serious fighters, and in many cases, more technical fighters, than the men. Stepping off my soap box now…

So anyway, my goal for this week is to get to three classes without falling apart, and to do a couple gentle, slow swims. I realize this may be unrealistic, especially since I’m really not in control of how I feel on a given day. So my other goal is to listen to my body and if I’m not up for training, to go home and rest instead.

The Post-Fight Newbie Phenomenon – or – Spot the Newbie

I’ve noticed more and more these days that following a big MMA fight, there will be at least one or two brand new newbies at our academy – sometimes more. This held true for class last night, although it wasn’t as easy to spot due to my current lack of knowledge of the slightly broken in newbies. However, using my newbie spotting techniques, I feel relatively confident that I did, in fact, spot at least one. Here’s how I evaluate the species – feel free to critique or add to the list:

1. The brand newbies’ plumage more often than not is thin and unprotective; they do not have a gi, or they will wear an borrowed gi top provided by the instructor.
2. Brand newbies wander about in a small, confused circles at the end of class when the students line up to bow out. This random pattern is widely believed to be a defense mechanism.
3. One lesser known variety of the brand newbie will line up at the front of the class with the upper belts, one of whom will have to explain that they should be at the back. Slightly broken in newbies have the lining up technique down cold.
4. When the class is circled up to do situps, the brand newbie will invariably break the counting chain when it comes to his turn by sitting up, looking around, and asking which situps come next. The slightly broken in newbie will kindly help him by explaining that it doesn’t matter, just pick one and start counting, please.
5. Brand newbies often start drills or rolling sessions with the phrase “I don’t know what I’m doing.” This call is echoed by the slightly broken in newbie’s warble, “What do I do from this position?”

 

For the sake of full disclosure, as a newbie, I was guilty of at least numbers one, three, and five. I’m still guilty of the second part of number five on occasion.

Now, as stated earlier, many newbies are flushed out by an MMA event that lures them into the academy with the temptation of octagons surrounded by crowds cheering their name. Others migrate from different martial arts or wrestling. Some make the long trip from their couch. Whatever the origin of the newbie, some just don’t stick. Some of the newbies who did stick, however, have become excellent grapplers and some of my best friends. Long live the newbie!

Bruises and Whatnot

I knew I was back to BJJ when I woke up this morning and saw a few bruises on my legs. Sigh… I missed looking like someone was abusing me. I’m planning to start swimming again next week, so it will be fun to walk out on the deck in a swimsuit like that – I really enjoyed the odd looks I got from the lifeguards and the other women in the locker room. Ok, ‘enjoyed’ is too a strong word. I’m a bit self conscious about it, but I do get a chuckle every once in a while when I catch someone eyeballing me oddly. I just smile sweetly at them and pretend there’s nothing for them to notice.

 

I was planning to attend ‘no-gi Saturday’ today, but I’m a bit tired and I’m not going to push things just yet. So instead, I’m going to spend my day doing some cleanup from the construction on our house – there’s random crap everywhere, but mostly in the basement. Then I’ll see if there’s anyone getting the Affliction fights. Speaking of MMA, you can catch a couple of my articles here and here, and I’m working on a new one – stay tuned for that.

 

The Olympics start soon – I’m so excited! I will be parked in front of the TV at all possible moments watching the swimming, gymnastics, judo, track and field, the triathlon, and whatever else happens to be on. I’m such an Olympics nerd.  There are two stories I’m really interested in, at least in swimming – Dara Torres, who is still kicking ass in her 40s after having a kid, and Eric Shanteau, who was diagnosed with testicular cancer just before making the Olympic team. Talk about bittersweet!