training...

[crash]

Little intro on me...

Just wanted to start out by saying that I have been around the board for a while now, I am just using a different login name.

I have been training for 1.5 years now, in the northwest, at a little gym called Team Quest. End of last year as I was getting ready to fight, I was also in the process of quitting a job, and moving, so my training got interrupted for a little bit. But now I am making the sacrifices to travel so that I can get back in the gym with my friends and training partners up at Quest. Hopefully I can get my groove back, and get in the cage by the end of the fall.

Due to having to travel, I have to make the most of my time. Right now, I train Tue/Wed/Fri for 2hrs in both the morning, and night. If I don't make it up there in the AM on tuesday, I just stay for 3hrs that night, which is brutal (cardio wise). Mainly because I will do 1hr of submission wrestling, 1hr of muay thai, then 1hr of hard sparring. we usually do a few light warm up rounds sparring, then pick the pace up, and you're basically in a muay thai fight (the only thing we don't do in practice is elbows, for obvious reasons). which is especially fun when a few of the top pro guys show up and want to work some extra rounds.

Oh yeah, I'm 5'10", and weigh about 215 right now. I really want to get my weight down some. maybe closer to 200, so that if I get a fight that is day before weigh in, I can fight at 185. but as for now, the amateur shows are all day of weigh ins, so looks like I will be going 205.

[crash]

Last week training....

Gonna try and sum up last weeks training...

Tuesday I didn't make it up in the morning, so I did 3hrs at night. Submission wrestling class we worked on sweeps from butterfly guard. real simple and effective sweep. the set up would be an under hook with the right arm, over hook with the left arm (the over hook prevents them from posting out as you sweep). keep your butterfly hook with the right foot, and the left foot goes behind the right, with the side of your leg on the ground. your head would be on your opponents left side of his head. all in one motion, you start the movement by rolling towards your left, and lifting up with your right under hook. as you get a little momentum, the right butterfly hook kicks up, the left leg shoots straight. your left shoulder should hit the ground first, as it is, switch your hips, putting your right hip to the ground, and you end up in side control. we worked that for a while, then some other stuff that I don't remember right now, then did some grappling rounds for 30mins.
I was going to go to kickboxing, but Matt Horwich asked me to hold pads for him, so I opted to do that. we were in the back part of the front room, so could still partially watch what Chris Wilson was teaching for the day. which was a jab-cross-step while throwing your lead hook. now you have switched stance. the what is now your lead upper cut, stutter step to what is now your rear thai kick. so if you are right handed, it would be a left jab, right cross, left hook while stepping, right upper cut, stutter step, left thai kick. Matt and I held pads back and forth, and worked a few odd combo's that he had picked up from watching some K1 fights.
Then sparring class. warmed up, first actual full speed round, I hit Chris Wilson with a hard hook to the body. He said to me "I like your power. I see that means you want to go some hard rounds today." not really when I'm going against you, but am I really gonna say no, after hitting him with that shot? he's just gonna give me shit, and rip into me about getting in a cheap shot... So I shook my head, said yes, and clamped down on my mouth guard, cause I knew what was coming. he threw a lightning quick jab-cross-lead hook-cross, with the power shot being on the last cross right on my nose. I circled out, and wiped my glove across my nose. then he started taunting me "you're not bleeding..." I shouted back at him, "I wasn't complaining." then he kicked me in the head with a rediculously hard rear thai kick (it was part of a combo, which I can't remember what he set it up with). didn't knock me out, but it rang so fuckin loud in my right ear for a good 30seconds. it was an intense ring. I could see him mouth something to me after the kick, and I just kinda laughed at him and said "I can't hear what you're saying, my ear is ringing." we finished that round. few rounds later, I was going with a friend. I threw a rear thai kick, he stepped back, and it got checked on his elbow. I immediately stopped, worried that maybe i had broke his elbow. Luckily it didn't, but he had to stop for the night, and ice it. I actually stopped as well at that point, as his elbow hit the my ankle, and it swelled up quickly, and was hurting to stand on.

More on that head kick.... I think Chris ruptured my ear drum. Shit still hurts today. I was talking with another friend of mine from the pro team, and was telling him how my jaw was hurting, and that I think my sinus infection was related to it. he said what probably happened, is that my ear drum got punctured, some fluid got in there, and caused an infection. and that it would probably hurt for the next month or so. he popped what little cauliflower ear i had, and I notice a considerable amount of more fluid in my ear now, as oppose to a week ago.

[crash]

Wednesday in the morning, MMA class. we were wearing just small gloves, and using strikes to set up a take down. and then also working take down defense. then were supposed to be doing light rounds (keep in mind we have on small gloves). since I'm a bigger guy (most in the gym are 180ish, and I weigh 215), I picked the biggest guy in there. a new guy, weighed around 240 (just a lot of fat). normally when we go light rounds with small gloves its about 50 - 60% speed. so because I wasn't anticipating it, the guy throws a hard jab right to my mouth. i kinda shook it off, and chalked it up to him being a new guy. I threw a combo, got a take down, some GNP, let him work mount escape, then let him back up. first thing he does, it throw a hard hook to my jaw, probably as hard as he could. so i faked a jab to the head, while loading my right hand, and drilled him in the solar pelxis. it sent him back about 4 feet, gasping for air, I immediately charged, shot a double, then hammer fisted him a couple times, and got up. looked at coach, he was cracking up, and said "these are supposed to be light rounds." (later told me that the guy does it all the time, so he kinda deserved it).

after mma class, we had sub. wrestling. we worked arm bars and triangles. worked on getting the arm bar, and then when the guy stands like he wants to slam, hooking the leg, and switching to a knee bar. from the triangle, worked on when the guy uses the arm that is trapped in the triangle, and digs it into your side. what you do is extend your hips, so you come off the ground, get wrist control with the opposite side hand, and palm strike the back of the elbow. this slides the arm across and tightens up the triangle.

didn't go to night class. by the time it rolled around, my ear was killing me from the day before. plus, my friend was doing some self defense stuff for a magazine. we shot some photo's. We had got Ed Hermon to go. after, we did some light rolling (fabiano scherner was there too). drilled some techinque. fabiano was showing us how to set up an omoplata from an arm bar attempt while in guard. afterwards, Ed lectured me about getting my ass in the cage...

[crash]

Friday went to matt horwich's sub wrestling class. while everyone was warming up with free roll, matt was showing me the technique for the day, and asking what I could counter with. basically it was the sweep that I worked in fabiano's class on tuesday, but instead the guy getting swept, crosses his feet, and it defeats the sweep. so what matt had come up with, was to switch your hips, reach around the back of the guys left leg with the right hand, and grap the guys right foot, and at the same time, use shoot the left hand between the legs and grap the same foot. really wasn't much that could be done. when he did it fast, he just yanked my leg in, and dumped me. when he went slow, and just held the position (both hands on the foot)only thing I could come up with was to dig for an underhook, and do a BJ Penn type sprawl, which most aren't flexible enough to do. we worked that for a while, some arm bar stuff from High Guard, and then rolled.

sparring class was after that. Matt accidentally kicked me in the back of the head, and almost knocked me out. mostly my fault, as I turned my head while checking the kick. dumb move. Wilson lit into me again. It was the last round of the night, and I was already feeling like I could barely hold my hands up, but he called me out. If you back down in class, no matter who it is, you might as well not come back. middle of the round, he had backed me into a corner of the gym, which was no bueno for me, and proceeded to light me up, throwing as fast as he could and hard. first few stunned me, then it hit me that I better circle out, or he would just pummle me, for the next minute and a half, or until he knocked me out. I managed to circle out to my right, and chased me down, I timed it so that as he threw a jab, I threw a head kick. he managed to block it, and then kept coming at me, relentlessly. we had a few good exchanges, i blocked most of what the threw, but he landed some hard shots. not too sure if he was testing me out to see how ready I am to fight, or if he was working on some stuff for his upcoming fight on the 9th, or a little of both. but you don't see him to that to too many other people that aren't on the pro team.


anyways, that was my training for the week. hope you all don't mind reading my stories. its always fun for me to replay them, helps me to think about the things that I may have done wrong, and what I could have done better.

[Polski Byk]

Welcome aboard Crash. What was your old handle?

[JayC]

Welcome Crash.. Team Quest is an excellent place to train.. About how many guys are training at any given time??

[crash]

Originally Posted by Polski Byk

Welcome aboard Crash. What was your old handle?

i'd rather not say. I have been on this board for a couple years though

[crash]

Originally Posted by JayC

Welcome Crash.. Team Quest is an excellent place to train.. About how many guys are training at any given time??

depends on the time of day. for the morninng classes (11am - 1pm M-F) there is usually only 8 to 10 people, including the coach. on Mon/Wed there is a 630am to 830am classes, but haven't been there in a while. night classes, M-F, there is usually a lot of people (except on fridays). it wouldn't be unusual to see upwards of 20 - 30 people in the sub wrestling or the kickboxing classes. sparring and MMA classes are a little different. you have to get permission to go from the coaches. sometimes they are a little more picky than others for the kickboxing sparring. MMA (which is the amateur team) you have to get the OK from both the kickboxing coach (which is Chris Wilson) and a sub wrestling coach. for stand up sparring, there is a consistant group of about 10 that show, and sometimes some of the pro's drop in, same with the MMA. You will see some of them show up for MMA (outside of Team Practice) as fight time comes around, and they want to work on some things.

[MR. BMJ]

Hey buddy, nice having you here posting. Keep up the hard work, and it will all pay off for you. Nice training.

BMJ

[Drag]

Who's training up in the NW these days aside from Lindland? Everyone from the UFC jumped ship.

Couple IFL fighters still there, right?

[JayC]

Nice. Great having you aboard.. I train out of a slightly smaller gym but its a fight team and run very similar to how you describe Quest. Keep the log up and we can feed off eachother..lol

[crash]

Originally Posted by Drag

Who's training up in the NW these days aside from Lindland? Everyone from the UFC jumped ship.

Couple IFL fighters still there, right?

all of the guys that were on the IFL Wolfpack team are still there. (the IFL has actually gone under. Can't remember off hand if it was bought out by WEC of EliteXC. Matt was talking to me about it the other day).

Like you said, Lindland is there. Chael Sonnen (who is contending for the WEC 185 title once Paulo gets out of rehab), Ed Herman from the UFC. IFL guys Ryan Schultz and Matt Horwich. Fabiano Scherner (who faught Gabriel Gonzaga UFC 60 I think it was). Chris Wilson, who just recently lost a decision to John Fitch (Chris locked in a triangle with about 10 seconds to go). Mike Dolce and Gerald Harris, who were on the last episode of the Ultimate Fighter

The gym is definately in a transitional period, and a lot of the up and comers are starting to make a name for themselves. Keep an eye out for Ryan Schultz. Many outside the hardcore MMA fans don't know who he is. He was the 170lb IFL champ. He has fought Hermes Franca (who he lost to), and Roger Huerta, who he beat.

[crash]

Originally Posted by JayC

Nice. Great having you aboard.. I train out of a slightly smaller gym but its a fight team and run very similar to how you describe Quest. Keep the log up and we can feed off eachother..lol

sounds like a plan. if you have any questions about some technique that I try to describe, let me know. Maybe I can try to get a video of it so that it can make more sense.

[mr sinister]

Originally Posted by crash

sounds like a plan. if you have any questions about some technique that I try to describe, let me know. Maybe I can try to get a video of it so that it can make more sense.

glad to have you here br,can i ask why the handle change

[JayC]

Originally Posted by crash

sounds like a plan. if you have any questions about some technique that I try to describe, let me know. Maybe I can try to get a video of it so that it can make more sense.

Very cool. I'll do that. What was your base before going into mma?? ..or did you just start from scratch?? I'm a wrestler so that helped immensly.. although we have several guys on our team that started from nothing and are kicking ass on the am ciruits. Being a wrestler though, I was able to fast track alot of stuff/technique and alot of the BJJ came pretty naturally to me. It's my Mui Thai I've been really working on.

[crash]

tuesday today was messed up. i got to town late (didn't make it to morning class) then got called in to work. so all i made it to was Sub wrestling class. Fabiano was teaching. we started out with 10 arm bars from guard each side, 10 triangles each side from guard, 10 omoplata's each side from guard. then we went over the Side Choke, setting it up from half guard, from back control, and quarters (also known as turtle position). then did about 30mins worth of grappling full speed.
got a really cool transition. from guard went for the kimura, couldn't get it, transitioned to an arm bar, wasn't there, then right to back control, got double under wrist control, then swung into an arm bar from back control


talked with Matt Horwich today. he was all excited because the IFL let him out of his contract, and he just signed a fight with the UFC. He will be fighting Ricardo Almeida (sp?) in October. this might be a boring match up to most, because both guys are very technical on the ground, so this should be a great display of jits.