I had a few jujutsu matches tonight and I made a silly mistake in one of them and got tossed (thrown) pretty good.I came back in the end and almost won by an arm bar, but time ran out on the clock.But overall it was a good night and I had an excellent shoulder workout at the gym.I am not concerned with this Bally’s closing if Bally’s needs to start closing down some of its gyms.They bought new flat screen televisions, they are renovating the sauna, they added new equipment, and they finally added a pair of 20lb dumbbells (before they only had a single 20).

Here is a video of a similar throw to what I got thrown by:

Tonight I took my Tae Kwon Do Yellow Belt Pre-Test and passed.  The actual Yellow Belt Exam is scheduled for next Thursday.  I have been thinking long and hard about my martial arts training and how I truly want to pursue it since I have specific goals I want to achieve. 

What I have decided on is the following: 

I want to start competing in Jujutsu and Tae Kwon Do Tournaments regularly and then in the next couple of years transition into MMA Full Contact competition like in the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC) but at first in small venues and then hopefully work my way up.

In regards to learning Martial Arts, I will continue practicing Japanese Jujutsu until I reach black belt.  The system I practice in does not go farther than black.  That should take several more years.  In the mean time I will cross-train in Tae Kwon Do until I reach Black Belt which should take a little under three years and then attend once a week as I move up in degrees of black belt. 

After I reach black belt in Japanese Jujutsu I will move onto Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to enhance my ground game.  At that point on I will begin to add other martial arts as time goes by.  Some martial arts styles that interest me are: 

Mauy Thai Kick Boxing (Kickboxing from Thailand)

Krav Maga (Israeli Martial Art)

Karate (Japanese Striking Art)

Kung Fu (Chinese Martial Art)

I had a fantastic weekend.  Even the whole last minute push to get the law review assignment handed in on Friday was actually kind of fun, though I am probably alone on that one.  I have been very pleased with things lately   That’s it for now…maybe I will post a more in depth entry later this week.

 I had a pretty good weekend.  I worked out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and went to Tae Kwon Do on Saturday morning.  On Saturday evening I got together with a bunch of friends to watch the UFC fight.  The Randy Couture fight was awesome.  This is a 44 year old guy beating the living snot out of a guy half basically half his age and 25 pounds heavier than he is.

I saw one of the most amusing things in the gym on Saturday morning.  This is something I’ve only read about prior to Saturday.  A guy was loading a barbell (one of the long bars) on a smith machine (see picture below).

The bar was on those two low bars going across the machine.  Anyhow, he side loaded it.  He put a 45 pound plate the left side, and then instead of putting a 45 pound plate on the other side he put it on the left side again, meaning he put 90 pounds on one side.  That barbell sling shot to the left and shattered the glass wall that was several feet away from the smith machine and put a hole in the wall.  If it would have went the other way it could have literally killed someone.  The guy just stood there and didn’t look like he knew what to do and then slowly walked away.  I thought he was making a break for it, but he told the front desk what happened and they came and cleaned it up.  He looked like he works out regularly but that is such a rookie mistake to do.  It was also pretty amusing.

I had a kinda crappy Tae Kwon Do experience today.  I am getting myself ready for the yellow belt exam and asked one of the instructors to teach me the required self defense techniques for that belt exam.  There were five wrist escapes.  When it comes to self-defense, having a yellow belt in Jujutsu is like having a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, lets just leave it at that.  It is the most primitive stuff, but then again, Tae Kwon Do is known for its kicking not its self defense.  The problem came when I started asking the instructors questions on real application of what they were trying to show me and they really didn't have answers for me.  I told them I wanted to understand the practicality of what they were showing.  The problem with most martial arts other than Jujutsu (Japanese or Brazilian) and Muay Thai is that its practitioners do not know the first thing about real fighting or self defense, because simply put, they don't do it.  The students of most of these other martial arts think that just because they have a black belt around their waste they can handle themselves, but the truth is the average joe could probably knock the shit out of them because there is a difference between doing something pretty and doing something that will work.  Just look at Mixed Martial Arts competitions like the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), when you watch that, you see stuff that works, anything that doesn't people won't use or their ass will get knocked out.  Tae Kwon Do will have its uses for me to better myself as a martial artist, but self-defense definetly will not be one of those uses...I guess it will basically amount to increased flexibility, speed, greater variety of kicks and kicking combinations, balance, and less telegraphing of my kicks.  Just so others can benefit if they like I will post my notes below (since I keep notes of all the hobbies I partake in).  I made a post earlier today that can be found below these self-defense notes.

1) Same Side Wrist Escape

1. Your opponent grabs your left wrist with their right hand.
2. Circle your left hand towards your centerline thereby flexing your arm in front of you at a 90º angle to your body with your palm facing towards your body.
3. Step forward with your left leg and at the same time punch across your body at a 45º angle, palm now facing down.

2) Same Side Wrist Escape

1. Your opponent grabs your left wrist with their right hand.
2. Circle down and to the outside of your opponents right arm and step forward with your left leg and chop forward on a 45º angle to your left.

3) Wrist Escape à Wrist Twist

1. Your opponent grabs your left wrist with their right hand.
2. Circle down and to the outside of your opponents right arm.
3. Pass your opponents right hand to your right hand using your left hand.
4. Place your forearm across your opponents arm pressing down on your opponents elbow.

4) Wrist Escape à Wrist Turn

1. Your opponent grabs your left wrist with their right hand.
2. Circle your left hand towards your centerline thereby flexing your arm in front of you at a 90º angle to your body with your palm facing towards your body.
3. Step in towards your opponent with your right foot.
4. Your opponents right palm will be facing up.
5. Grab the meaty part of your opponents palm from underneath with your right hand.
6. Press your opponents elbow into their side, posting it.
7. With your left hand chop into the back of their hand below your opponents knuckles.
8. Step back with your left leg.

5) Wrist Escape à Wrist Hook and Break

1. Your opponent grabs your left wrist with their right hand.
2. Circle your left hand down and to the outside of your opponent’s right arm and grab your opponents right wrist/forearm with your left hand.
3. With your right hand press your opponents left wrist inwards and up while pressing down on their right wrist with your left hand.|
   

Monday was the first day of classes.  I stayed after class until around 6pm and then headed home to get ready for Jujutsu and after jujutsu I went to the gym.  I noticed that the Rockville Centre Bally Total Fitness replaced their television sets with flat screen televisions.  This seems like a real good use of financial resources for a company that is in debt by a few hundred million dollars, but I suppose what are a few extra thousand bucks here or there with a debt like that?  What really bothers me about it is that there is equipment that can be replaced or purchased instead of wasting money on televisions. 

Tuesday I had two back to back classes, but classes start much later.  I think I will come in early on Tuesdays to get extra work done.  Tae Kwon Do starts in under an hour so I have to go get ready soon and then head to the gym for a leg workout.  I have two goals I am giving myself physically over the next few months, the first is to get past this 85lb barrier on my dumbbell bench press and finally reach 90lbs and the second is to be able to do a split (both side and front), my flexibility is nowhere close to where it should be.  Oh…I locked my television remotes in the safe again, I did that Sunday night, so no more television for me during the weekdays   For those of you that don’t remember that whole setup, I lock the remotes for the television, cable, and DVD player into the safe and take the key and put it in my car.  So if I really want to watch anything I have to overcome the aversion to walking all the way to my car in the parking lot to get the key and then come back.

Friday was the last day of my internship.

I met up with a few friends in the city Friday night and went to Porky’s (http://www.porkysnyc.com/).  I got home a bit late but managed to drag myself out of bed for Tae Kwon Do Saturday morning.  The rest of Saturday will consist of going to the gym and doing school work, since classes begin on Monday for my second year of law school.  On Sunday (tomorrow) I will be going to a picnic with a bunch of people from Tae Kwon Do

For those of you that are unaware, Bally Total Fitness has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.  According to Fitness Business Pro, as a result, Bally’s will have to close a significant number of its clubs.  They have 375 clubs and the article states they up to 200 of them may have to be closed, only retaining Bally’s better performing clubs.

Source:  http://fitnessbusinesspro.com/mag/fitness_waiting_game/

I just hope that those clubs being closed will not be the Staten Island or Rockville Centre clubs, the rest can go as far as I care. lol.

So I just received an e-mail informing me that Lauren, a girl in my research group for law review decided to transfer and not tell any of us about it.  She didn't do any of the assigned work so now I have more work this week to do on top of the 15 page law review paper I have to write that is due by the end of this month and my first homework assignments for class.