My new friend from Bulgaria

Despite an overwhelming workload, a sick baby and life in general doing its best to keep me out of the gym I have gotten some really good training in lately. Let's recap:

Thr 10-20-11

Thursday’s Judo practice was a killer. My intention going in was to skip randori and focus on practicing the throws I will need to demonstrate for my Shodan test (I will be testing for my Judo Black Belt soon). When it came time to randori Ray wanted to do a kind of round robin sparring where everyone faces everyone one after another. I rounded out the group nicely so I took the hint and joined the randori group. The plan was 6 3 minute rounds. Well do to a SNFU with the timer and a time keeper that wasn’t paying close attention each round turned into an unknown time (felt like around 5 – 6 min per round). So 18 min of randori turned into around 30 to 40 min of randori. At first I was a little annoyed by the SNFU but in the end the training was just what I needed. Part of the Shodan test is nonstop rounds of randori against fresh partners every few min, so this was good preparation for that part of the test.

10-22-11

My first attempt at a how made Bulgarian bag. There are plenty of do it yourself videos on youtube if you are interested in making one. There were 2 pieces of advice I stuck to while making my first bag.

1) Don’t fill the bag with sand, it will be too heavy use wood pellets instead
2) Give yourself generous handles

When I got done making filing and taping I picked up the bag and thought “this feels really light”. So I took it inside and put it on the scale….15 lbs CRAP too light. Ok, no problem I will use this one to get used to the exercises then make a heavier one later. I identified 4 swings I liked and attempted to do 100 reps per swing. Let me just say, holly crap that thing will WEAR YOU OUT. I am up to 50 reps per swing and climbing. Ultimately this bag was too light and I made another one last Sat but I can certainly get a hell of a conditioning workout with this thing. Bag number two is 30 pounds and probably still an intermediate stop. My goal is to work myself up to a 50 lbs bag. According to http://www.suples.com/bulgarian-training-bags/ I should be using a 37 lbs bag so the second bag is in the ball park.

10-26-11

No gi team training at JWs. The guys at JWs are all getting ready for no gi worlds so the training there was really intense. I rarely get a chance to work my no gi game so when I do I really try to make the best of it. I was really happy with how I did, both from the feet and on the ground. Off the feet I hit a few cross ankle picks, a few o’uchi garis, one snap down to front headlock takedown and one “almost” koshi guruma. I may give no gi a try in competition next year. The last time I competed in no gi was when I was a White belt so I am definitely overdue.

Crossfit

Won’t go into the details but I have been going and getting better and better.

10-29-11

Weekend workout – I decided on a new routine of 8 min rounds. So far I like it.

1 min jump rope
1 min Bulgarian bag swings in large circles
1 min continuous curls from a Sumo Squat position
1 min Bulgarian bag swings in an arching motion from one foot to the other
1 min Push press jumping jacks
1 min ultra wide grip bent over rows
1 min of sandbag squat, clean and presses
1 min sledge hammer swings (swinging like a baseball bat)

Rest
Repeat