Ups and Downs

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Well not really, but living here if you can't train it gets boring pretty fast....
So I had a few small injuries that kept me out of the gym for a bit and I started going clinically insane. But things heal up and training resumes and Dan is happy again. Yay!
I did and MMA class where the focus was alot more on ground and pound rather than wrestling. Man thats like an all new sport. It was crazy, coach really pushed us to our limits. It was great and i definitely learnt alot, and as coach said it is important to push your limits. During the the ground and pound drills/ sparring I was submitted a bunch of times when I was on top throwing punches, and I have a nice bruise on my head from being on the bottom defending punches.
And jiu jitsu has been incredible. I love it. I had this big monster sitting in my guard and he was trying to work. I was doing something but whatever it was Silvio was watching and called out to me to switch to an arm bar. I flicked my leg over the guys head to grab the arm bar, but the guy rolled and I ended up face down on the ground but I still had the arm tight. I gave it a crank and I got the tap, it was beautiful. Silvio was happy with me, and it made me proud to get the thumbs up from him...

Ah Rest Day

Yesterday was sunday, my day off. And it felt great to be incredibly lazy for a day. I added it up and I spent 19.5 hours training last week, mostly classes but also including hill sprints and some conditioning work to prevent injuries to my cannon ball like shoulders.
So after this big week it was great to head to Phuket spa with a couple of pals and kill a few hours going back and forth between the herbal sauna and the pool.

Over the last couple of weeks my goals ad priorities in training have changed quite a bit. Just taking there natural course I guess, as I find what suits me the most. Initially I had planned on training mostly muay thai and western boxing, but it's just not happening like that now. I am totally addicted to jiu jitsu now. Every class is better than the last. Maybe it's because the learning curve is so big right now, but I'm finding it so satisfying. I lie in bed at night running through moves in my head.... haha. I think alot has to do with professor Silvio who teaches the class. He loves to teach and he brings alot of enthusiasm and charisma.

The jiu jitsu classes have a good crew in them, a few French guys who all got skills and me and a couple of other Aussie boys who don't got skills but we are learning. There is a few things that are starting to click for me, I love taking the back and i'm always looking for it. Every time I roll with French guy Romain, he always grabs my back and then transitions around to an arm bar. I'm going to get Romain to show me this after class today so I can try it when I can't sink a choke in.
And then there was the Gi class. It was like starting all over again wearing a Gi. I had that same feeling of being a little kid and getting messed around with and not being able to do anything about it..... Ahhh love it!

I never really got it back at work when people would ask 'are you living the dream?' I thought it must be some kind of cruel joke that everyone else got except me.... Well now I am living the dream. At night I am looking forward to the morning so I can wake up and learn some more.... It's great.

Dan is happy!