Me and my big mouth...

The week before last our big resident Swede Andreas suffered the misfortune of getting one of his toes trapped in someones gi and quite nastly and funnily dislocated it into a shape not too far removed from the beloved chocolate of my childhood, The Curly Wirly... Now after he had gone to hospital to get his Curly Wirly toe straightened out me and a couple of the guys started talking about injuries sustained whilst training. Now the usual stuff came up about hyperextended joints, the stubbing of toes etc etc but I then realised that apart from popping a cartilage between my ribs about 3 years ago nothing has ever happened to me and this is when the curse of the jinx struck me down... The following week I got punched and elbowed in the face more times than I care to remember and am now sporting a rather fetching black eye a tongue that nearly got bitten off and a swollen cheek! Now if I was doing my Thai boxing this is part and parcel of the training but when your training BJJ this is quite funny! Still, Not one to moan I accepted that this is part of training even without any striking and im sure i've accidently knocked people when training myself!

Now this is when it gets a bit weird... After the final sparring on Friday me and a couple of the lads stay quite late and do some skipping, Medicine ball drills and general fitness work and it was whilst skipping that I experienced one of the most bizarre feelings ever.
With 20 seconds left on the timer I gave the shout to finish with a sprint finish and after 10 seconds of sprinting I literally felt as though someone had come up behind me and punched me in the base of my skull which resulted in all my neck and base of skull going stiff and numb! Now this freaked me out and all night I was in pain and didn't know what to do so just decided to have a bath take some tablets go to bed and hope it would be ok in the morning! I suffered from a real deep painful throbbing in the base of my skull all weekend but at 1:30 in the morning of monday it got horendous and after going white, getting into a cold sweat and nearly passing out 3 times due to pain it was decided that medical treatment may be required... On arrival at the local hospital I was in agony and was lucky that all the pissheads and drug addicts had decided to have a quiet night in and was seen within 30 minutes of arrival... I told the doctor what happened and seeing my black eye he kept asking me if I had been struck to the face which I hadn't, So after some blood pressure readings and observations my diagnosis was made.
I have somehow managed to strain the ligaments at the base of my skull and due to the weight of my head the skull is pressing down on the strained ligaments which is causing all the pain and throbbing... So now this grappling addict has to do what hurts him the most and miss training for a while to give them time to heal, Which if you knew me I guarentee the prospect of training will get the better of me and I'll be back on the mats too soon...

The moral of this stroy? Keep your mouth shut when it comes to injuries or you too will suffer from the curse of the jinx...

Closed minded instructors

Yesterday something unusual happened to me. Due to a big up and coming gi competition in Reading I have been training extra hard and trying to get into my gi on days I would normally be playing PS2 or lounging on facebook. So me and my good friend and training partner Brian have been getting together on a Sunday and sharing the mat space with the RGDA MMA students and a rather bizarre Pencak Silat Martial arts group. Now this Silat instructor is a bit of a dickhead and is one of those close minded instructors who you can always see putting down bjj and mma to his students etc... With RGDA UK's head instructor Eddie Kone currently teaching a seminar in Romania the classes have been left to the senior and willing students to run and look out for everyone...

Today this Silat instructor came up to me whilst his class and our class were training and stepped right into my personal space and more or less insisted that I rolled with him! At the time I was standing next to Brian and we were both a little taken back by this... I looked at him and asked him why he wanted to roll with me and if he had ever done any floor work, to which he replied he just wanted to roll and he done some a while back... Now I really did not want to roll with this guy for a few reasons and I was thinking why has this guy come up to me in front of everyone?, Why did this guy ask me when HIS students were there? And where would this end up?! This guy obviously thought he was better than me and wanted to smash me in front of his students so instantly I said ok... Now never being in this position before I decided that this knob was taking the piss as he had stepped out of his training environment stepped into mine and not so blatently challenged me! This is where it gets complicated, Do I smash him for taking the piss and being so disrespectful or do I play around and go easy with him? If I had played around with him he is the sort of guy who would of not realised and thought bjj was shit so I decided to give it to this f***er in a humane way... We began rolling and straight away everyone started watching and instantly I put this guy in a rock solid armbar but soon realised this guy was not going to tap as I had this arm at breaking point so I let go because if I broke his arm I would have lost control of myself and the situation... After letting go I flipped this guy round like a rag doll got his back and sunk in a rear naked choke but then I realised the guy had gone limp so released the choke as I thought he was out (which people said he was!) and straight away he came round and started struggling so this time I sank it in tighter and he was wise enough to tap this time... I proceded to throw this guy round like the arsehole he is and tapped him 3 times and when the timer went he got up without saying anything or shaking my hand and walked off !!!!! I could of tapped this guy 15 times if I wanted to and I was more or less tap dancing on him...! I then saw this guy talking bjj down to his students but I decided not to carry the situation on as it may have got silly.... Afterwards I felt REALLY bad and I dont know why! I mean this guy disrespected me, our club, our style and even though I gave this dick a true bjj lesson in respect I FELT BAD! This guy pissed me off and I dont know why I feel so bad!

After a day of thinking im still trying to figure out if I handled the situation in the right way or decide if there was another way a more experienced Martial Artist would have handled the senario?!

Should I have been confident enough in my own ability and egoless enough to just say NO? If I work it out i'll let you know but until then train hard, train safe and keep away from Silat instructors! (Joke!)

At last it begins....

After years of wanting to start one, Years of reading other peoples and years of being behind the rest of the techno world I have finally decided to start and hopefully continue to update my very own blog. As my blog title indicates I am not too unlike an alcoholic or drug addict and can only live a happy and everyday life with my Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Submission grappling or Muay Thai training. I like many other people have been training in Martial arts for the large portion of my life and took the same route as probably 90% of martial artists with a few Karate lessons at the local YMCA then proceded to plough my way through many different Martial Art styles with a feeling of incompleteness or lack of faith and trust in what I was practising, Until I discovered Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ)!. It was 3 years and 1 month ago that my Martial Arts path would change forever and take me on a journey that has truley changed the person I have become and open my eyes to a such a powerful vision that I can never return to my roots.... Sounds crazy I know and the majority of people will never truley understand what a loyal follower of BJJ will be talking about or find it impossible to understand why getting so excited about spending 3-4 days a week rolling around on the floor with another man and the resident female is all about but I tell you this, There is no better feeling than applying a technique on a resisting partner and feeling the sweaty palm of their hand tapping on the closest part of your body..!!