update

Started doing the Olympic lifts again in November.

Going 3x per week.
Numbers I am working on.

Best Snatch 51
Best Clean and Jerk 63
Best Front squat 98


I really missed it :(
There are many new people...many new young girls who are doing fantastic and their numbers are kicking  my ass.  It makes for very good motivation, and inspiration though ;)


BJJ is still going strong. 3x per week doing Gi  at the club.
1-2x per week doing No-gi at my BF class.

I kept getting injured over the past few months (maybe even over the year...time is flying!). My neck (trap) over and over again. Turns out it is compensating for tightness/imbalance in my scapula...BUT since lifting, the occurance of injuries has diminished significantly!!

Last week

Thursday Lifts

Back squats
wu
95-3
135-3
145-6
145-6
145-6
145-6
Trying to work back up to a decent weight.  145 feels hard, this sucks!


CDL
Felt like maxing out.
135-1
225-1
230-1
235-0
235-0
230-1
230-1
230-1
230-1
Mehhh...

Dips (lean forward, hits the shoulder a bit more)
Body weight
6
6
6
6

Post dump.

In the last few months I have:

-Tore my upper trap.  No, not strain, not a  pull...an actual TEAR. Had to take a few weeks of any kind of training.
-Did my first competition as a blue belt and won my bracket.
-Switched clubs
-Took 2 months off work for a mental break
-Got an other German Shepherd puppy
-Moved apartments
-Decided to really stay 'Primal' for foodies
-Discovered dates...the food.  Never tried them because I thought they looked like June bugs
-Committed to heavy lifting 2x per week and have been absolutely consistent

Goal setting.

I participated in an Agatsu Level 1 Kettlebell Certification a couple of weeks ago, I am proud to say I survived a weekend of 16+ hours of kettlebell training and I am now a Level 1 certified Kettlebell Instructor!

The weekend was pretty fun, and pretty tiring. At the end of day one, they put us through the Chrissy workout...which I knew had to be coming...and was dearly dreading.

30 Burpees

20 Kettle Bell swings

25 Burpees
25 Kettle Bell swings

20 Burpees
30 Kettle Bell swings

15 Burpees
35 Kettle Bell swings

10 Burpees
40 Kettle Bell swings

5 Burpees
45 Kettle Bell swings

I finished it in just over 21 minutes.  I was also the last one to finish...lol. I suck.



The level 2 certification  is only held once per year.  Once in Los Angles, CA, once in Toronto, ON and once in Ireland...and might I say...it looks pretty tough...

Trainers should be prepared to do some or all of the following:

15 pullups = 90% (Women 10 pullups for 90% and 15 for 100%)
20 pullups = 100%
10 pistols = 100%(Per leg)
15 ring pushups = 100% for men (10 = 100% for women)
20 knees-to-elbows = 90%
25 knees-to-elbows = 100%
2:25 = 75% 3:00 = 100% Bridge
5 min snatch test with 24kg KB (Women can use 16KG)
100 snatches would be 100% - Only one hand switch
2 Kettlebells 24kg jerks for max reps (Women can use 16KG)
25 = 90%, plus 1% per rep, so 35 = 100%



After this weekend I decided to start setting some goals...nothing crazy, nothing that will drive me nuts doing, but something I know I can enjoy and not beat myself up over.

I am going to start with something very simple and attainable.  I am also going to commit to logging it all so that I can hold myself accountable...and put this blog to use! lol


March 19 to April 19 ish
- 30 days of clean eating.   This will be easy as I all ready eat clean 90% of the time
- No booze.  This is the hard one.  You see...I like beer...no, no...you don't understand...I...love...beer.  I had to spend one more night with it last night...not to say  'goodbye' but rather..'see ya later'.
- Kettlebells every Tuesday and Thursday and Sunday.
- 10 strict pull ups by day 30.
- 10 pistol squats per leg by day 30.

Current training schedule for BJJ:

Monday
7:00-8:00pm Boyfriend's Gi class
8:30-10:00pm Gi class at the club

Tuesday
Will be Kettlebells

Wednesday
7:00-8:00pm Boyfriend's No Gi class
8:30-10:00pm Gi class at the club

Thursday
Will be Kettlebells

Friday
OFF

Saturday
9:30am Open mat BJJ

Sunday
9:30 Sometimes this is open mat...depends on who feels like going/opening.
Will be Kettlebells




Seems pretty simple, right?







 

another floater...

ERK...

So... I decided for some crazy reason that I wanted to get a Agatsu Kettlebell certification...It will be this Saturday and Sunday from 930-530.

My conditioning is presently (and always has been) absolute garbagio and I also know Lactic Acid is going to rear its ugly ass face and laugh at me... I really hope I don't fail!
From what I understand, at the tail end of the certification we have to complete the 'chrissy' test.

Workout:
30 Burpees
20 Kettle Bell swings

25 Burpees
25 Kettle Bell swings

20 Burpees
30 Kettle Bell swings

15 Burpees
35 Kettle Bell swings

10 Burpees
40 Kettle Bell swings

5 Burpees
45 Kettle Bell swings

Advanced = burpee exercises are done with a high knee jump
Beginners = burpee exercises can be done without the jump




I tried to prepare myself a little bit this week, Monday after 2.5 hours of BJJ my BF and I completed 3 sets of 20lbs KB (lil' baby kettlebell)

25 burpees
25 swings


I had to stop half way through the burpees on almost every set. My legs just did not want to move.

Again on Wednesday after 2.5 hours of BJJ I did
20lbs KB

30 burpees
30 swings

25 burpees
25 swings

20 burpees
20 swings

I nearly escaped death. I had to stop several times during the burpees... My BF QUIT after the first set of burpees and just watched...jerk. (just kidding!! I lurve you!)

Just because

I wanted to share a little smile...

stereo skifcha from xgabberx on Vimeo.

Cute.

:)

derp

What I have been up to this past few months...

I built a mat room in our second bedroom apt for rolling, techniques, stretching and all that fun stuff...

Yeah...well, that did not work out as I planned.  We did not use it once for months...so I decided to do this instead...

I also just ordered some Hitech plates for Oly technique. 



some 2.5KG



some 5KG



Oh, lookatdat! Its me on the right hand side! :P



 Ever since I've decided to stop Oly lifting...I've had so many injuries.  I don't know if its because I put Oly aside or just because BJJ training has been more focused and whatnot, who knows!!  My elbows hurt...all the time. Protecting the cross face is so painful, creating frames from bottom is also very painful..sometimes if someone even just touches me lightly on the elbow I cringe in pain.  Its very very strange, I have never had this happen before and if it is not one elbow...then it is the other one that is hurting.  It kind of feels like the tricep insertion into the elbow...but I could be wrong. 

Either way, this injury has led me to start doing overhead press, front squat and just over all weight lifting on a regular basis again. Right now its only 3x per week, but its better than none.  I have some depressing strenght gains I need to make in order to get back to where I left off, but Pfffft...whatevs, Ill get there :P

Ill leave you with this little Gem...

Awesome sauce.

Another floater.

Another video floating around facebook.

lil something floating around facebook.

Caution, there is lil bit of man 'bum cleavage' in this video.  lol. 

a little holiday cheer.

Land of bloooh dohm.

I received my blue belt last Thursday!

My BF snuck his old blue belt into the club and gave it to our instructor before class.  After class, before bowing out, our instructor pulled it out of his gi and presented it to me.  Sneaky sneaky little buggers!

Derpy Derp.

ADCC 2011 Highlight. A film by Stuart Cooper.

Ouch! (hhhhaaaaha!)

broken hearts.

I won't go into much detail but we had something sad happen at the club.

We lost one of our 2 black belts, one of our 3 brown belts and one of our 3 purple belts.

It was an amicable split and nothing negative surrounding it.  I was told it was something like falling out of love.
Its just really sad to see people leave and I know it has caused some worries for the blues and purples as they have lost some really great training partners and friends.  Well I mean they are still friends--obviously-- but it sucks when you don't get to hang out with your Friends on a regular basis during class times anymore.

This post has nothing to do with BJJ

Every few years, I get really stir crazy.  I get the urge to see what else is out there for a career. 
Ive been working in the Animation industry for close to 8 years now.  Ive gone from a junior animator to a senior animator, animation supervisor and even director once.  Along the way I have  been responsible for training new recruits fresh out of school and  recently even had the opportunity to go abroad and teach the software that we currently use at our studio.

 Almost 2 years ago I took a break during a bit of down time between contracts and decided that it was a perfect time to see if there was anything else out there for me...I took on Personal training at a local chain gym.  I LOVED IT! but the money was absolutely terrible (big chain gym takes 75% of your session rate...I charge 55$ per hour session, I see about 20$ before taxes) and I ran myself into debt very fast.  About 6 months of suffering, trying to make money doing something that I enjoyed so much...I had to give it up and I came back to my current career.  It is a STABLE, STEADY 9-5 salary job.  I do enjoy it very much and I am good at what I put my mind to.  But something is just missing, I feel unhappy and unsatisfied. Am I not stimulated, not challenged? Often I find myself day dreaming of going back to school, but what would I do? What on earth would I take?  I go back to school and run myself into more debt??!  That really doesn't seem appealing. I would love to teach animation, I would love to go work for that company that contracted me out and sent me away to teach for a month...But I keep finding really stupid excuses...


My BF has one year left of University, he says that is the perfect time to make this shift...to just hold on another 8 months, pay off as much as my debts as possible...and then the window will be wide open for us to make a change together.

We discussed a few things...
-Both go teach English abroad for 6 months
-Go to Brazil for a month or 2.
-Just go travel for 4-6 months and explore




Now, I really just have to wait another 8 months and I have a feeling there will be some amazing and exciting changes, I can not wait for this change!!







(What is wrong with us that we don't or cannot seem pursue the things we really want....I feel like I'm just pissing my life away just dreaming of the things I know in my heart that I would love to do because the current situation is just easier and more stable. I have this internal struggle...this desire to do something different but I just can't do it.) I need to get rid of this negative bad attitude is what is wrong! lol

..

First tournament.

Gold.

I participated in my first competition this weekend.  Our team had 2 girls and 5 boys fighting. 
I was a little stressed about making weight as I wanted to be on the higher weight end of my bracket, so unfortunately I had to quit the boozing (sigh....) for a few weeks to shed a few pounds.  The cap of the bracket was 129 with an allowance of 1lbs over . Weigh ins were right before your first match (with gi) I made weight at 127.6! 
I had 2 fights, both ended with a choke submission within the 5 minute round.  First was Ezekiel from mount and  the second was X choke from high guard. 

Overall I think it was super fun and a great first tournament as it was pretty small (400 competitors).  I was so nervous before my fights, I was so scared to let my teammates and my boyfriend down ( I know they wouldn't care if I lost or won, but..you know how it is...) But once the match starts, its beast mode.  I can honestly say that I will be looking forward to doing it again... now that I know how it feels.


My best girlfriend came and got my fights on HD :)
I am a little scared to see how spazzmaticI looook!