Two More Swords

Ben placed first in his weight division for the gi competition and also won the men's gi open weight competition. Denver placed 2nd in the no gi competition for his weight class. Nate placed 2nd in gi for his weight class. Bret placed 3rd in gi for his weight class.

Coach Rob Handley and I with my trophies.

I participated in a submission only grappling tournament on November 14th and ended up doing well. I won the women's Middleweight gi and no gi competitions. I get so nervous before these things that I actually give myself an upset stomach. I really don't have any idea why I get that way, I realize that my competing is only for fun. I've never been involved in a sport where only you are responsible for the outcome. I don't deal with it too well. Aack!

I need to really improve myself before the next tournament. Even though I won, I didn't do it to the best of my ability. I know way more that what I displayed that day. Thanks to Coach Rob for the vote of confidence and for always being proud of me regardless of the outcome.

Click over to Chelsea's blog for more on how the whole team did. Thanks Chelsea, for all the support and encouragement!

Throwdown

A big huge congratulations to Cam, Steve and Eduardo for the awesome display of MMA last Friday night. Eduardo Rivera stepped in the cage first and after standing up with his opponent for a couple of minutes, he threw a hard right hook the guy went right out. KO! He lay on the mat for a good 20 to 30 seconds before he came to.
Camrann came out a few fights later and was up against Eddie Pelczynski. Eddie weighed in 4 pounds heavy and Cam still took the fight, of course. I saw a couple good exchanges and then the fight went to the ground. Eddie got a decent hold on a ankle lock but Cam got out of it. As Eddie tried to get off his back, Cam got to his back, rained down some hit and then sunk a wicked read naked choke. Eddie taps and the crowd went wild. Cam wins and loses graciously.
Steve "Razor" was looking to take the Lightweight title from Rad Martinez. He is one of the most entertaining fighters that you will ever see. The fight pretty much went the same as last year when Rad won the title. Rad is just an amazing wrestler and times the takedowns perfectly. His takedowns were just incredible! Probably the best that I've seen locally. It just seems to me that he has amazing control but doesn't know his submissions too well. Or passing the guard. Or transition from side control to mount. Just saying. I thought that Steve did really well on the ground and got out from Rad a number of times, which I would think is an amazing feat considering that Rad is an absolute monster! He's a chiseled statue of the human body. It's quite easy to identify every muscle group. The fight went for five 5 minute rounds. I can't imagine doing that at that level. You really can't even imagine the athleticism that these fighters have! It's mind blowing. Rad ended up winning by unanimous decision.
There was a great fight between Steve Siler and Enoch "The Animal" Wilson for the Featherweight title. It won Fight of the Night. It also went for five 5 minute rounds and ended in a unanimous decision for Siler. I've never seen so many submission attempts and escapes in one fight. The two of the them did such a great job.
Another fight that I really enjoyed was Jordan Smith vs. Bristol Marunde. Jordan usually fights at 205 lbs, but after totally dominating that weightclass he dropped down to the Middleweight division (185 lbs). He won with an awesome triangle choke in the first round. I talked to him a little bit before the show and asked him if he's going to move on to bigger promotions since he's had so much success locally. He said yes, but he couldn't tell me what it is yet and just to pay attention. I sure will.
Josh Burkman and Brandon Melendez faced off as the main event and Burkman won with a round 1 KO. I wanted to see more of this but it was finished early.
Most of the Absolute team sat together and we all had alot of fun cheering our friends on. The dark part of the night came when the crew brought me to my car and we saw that it was gone! I carpooled down to Orem with Miyo and we met by 90th south exit in Sandy. I parked in an empty lot next to a gas station there and apparently it was a private lot and my car was towed. Argh! It was 2 in the morning and we were trying to track down my car. It cost me $206 to get it out of the impound lot. It is so painful to hand over that kind of money for something so stupid as a parking mistake! Ben got the towing guy to do a little dance as I handed over the cash and we all got a good laugh out of that one. It made it better to be around such good friends that sympathized with me and were there to witness the guy tell me that he likes my coat and thinks that I'm pretty. The comments made by the group after that little exchange made me smile all the way home.

Tomorrow Night!

Come watch Camrann Pacheco, Steve Sharp, and Eduardo win their fights. These boys are looking so good. In the cage, that is. Alright, outside of it too.

"Only mediocre people are at their best all of the time."

Email From My Mother

Hello my darling daughter,

I found this quote from posh dating service ad that was in an airline magazine that I recently perused through.

"Undoubtedly however, if you are an attractive, successful, relatively private and selective individual, you have found that the more you have to offer, the more difficult it seems to find the person who is right for you." (You came to mind immediately.)

Yesterday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. Can you believe that? I asked Dad how he managed to stay married to me for that long?!!!!! He had a big embarrassed grin on his face. I gave him a complete set of all the Three Stooges films for a specific time period, and Dad picked up some frozen berries from Trader Joe's for me.

Keep the faith and keep on going. I love you lots. Mom

Chalk One Up For This Bantamweight

My friend Denver, was supposed to fight in a promotion up in Ogden on Friday night but that show was cancelled due to that fact that none of the other fighters besides Denver and his opponent had their blood tests done. It was disappointing to all of us. I was over at Cam's on Friday night and found out that Denver was offered a fight in the Ultimate Combat Experience. They were going to allow him to use his weigh in results from Thursday night. He won the fight two and a half minutes into the first round by ground and pound. I'm so proud of my pal. This is his start to being at the top of that weight class.
(He's the shorter one in the Sprawl shorts)

I love the takedown at 1:25. We've been working on that a ton in class last week.

FAIL

I know, I know! I'm falling flat on my face with the whole posting every day idea. The weekend was insanely, awesomely busy, but I have some fun posts to share this upcoming week because of it. Thank you for your patience with me and good night.

What Today Was Great For...

Corndogs, Diet Coke, and rhinoceroses (rhinoceroci?).

I left work early because it was WAY too beautiful outside not to, and took my 2 year old nephew to the zoo. I guess the animals were as excited as I was that it was Friday because they were all awake and active and playful. All I ever see them doing is laying on a log with a bored stare. They're all so old and decrepit.

• Denver, one of my teammates at Absolute, is fighting at Teazers in Ogden tomorrow night. He's a Bantamweight (135 lbs) and I can't hardly wait to see the beginnings of his domination in that weight class. I saw him at the gym this morning doing the last of his weight cutting and he looked great. He's confident and ready.


(taken from Denver's Facebook page)

• My abs were really sore last night and I was wondering it felt like someone ran over my mid-section with a motorcycle. And then I remembered the 400 push-ups and sit-ups that we did at the end of our conditioning round the other night after Muay Thai. Yep, that would do it.


• I've been doing morning sessions with Rob and Cam on Tuesdays and Thursdays and they have spent alot of time with me. I've been going in to work early and then leaving for a couple hours to train. On Tuesday, Cam rolled with me the whole time and taught me some of his best go-to submissions from the half man guard. Rob went what felt like a billion rounds with me this morning until I felt sufficiently smashed and exhausted. This is so much fun.
  
• The thought "I need more spandex" was recently on my brain. Yes, I wear little booty shorts and a fitted rash guard under my gi or my fight shorts. It hasn't been doing it's job of keeping me covered though. Quite often my shirt ends up around my armpits when I'm rolling and everything is just all hanging out. It's horribly embarrassing. So a wrestling singlet was purchased. It was sent to Absolute and as I was trying it on in the changing room I hear a chorus of shouts from the front desk telling me to come out and show them. Ha! The show is over guys. I'm keeping it all contained now.

The All Star Dog!

I desperately need to go to bed, so I'll just leave you with this image.
(salivating)...I can't wait for baseball season to start up again.

He's Got Some Moves!

I train at Absolute with Donny "Sleavehead" Raines and not only is he a great fighter but he is a great actor and film producer. Check this out.

Serious talent, I know. That was just an small excerpt from his movie I Know Kung Fu. Check out the full version (it's in two parts) here and here. It's a super fun time!
This is another that I enjoyed from Sleavhead's You Tube collection...

And let's not forget about his MMA highlights. His submissions are awesome! He's pretty sneaky with that armbar...catches me with it all the time.

Don't you wish Donny was your friend? Yeah, I'm the lucky one.

Movie Review - Gentlemen Broncos

My PIC, Ashley, got married and moved to Texas last Spring and left her younger sister, Emily, to fill in for her. If I can't have Ashley, Emily is a GREAT replacement. Emily's birthday was last Thursday and she got tickets to a pre-screening of Gentlemen Broncos, the new Jared Hess film. This is the same writer/director that did Napoleon Dynamite and Nacho Libre. Do you remember seeing Napoleon in the theaters for the first time? Were you thinking what the hell was that? I sure did. Then you saw it a second time because some guys down the street rented the movie and since they were cute you decided to go and then realized that it actually is wicked hilarious and not just because the cute guys thought so. This is the potential that Gentlemen Broncos has. Emily and I walked out of the theater thinking this was the dumbest movie ever to be put into production. On the way home we were making fun of it and started to recall some of the more humorous parts. But the time we got back to her house we were laughing like a couple of crazies. The giggles wouldn't cease. This continued the next day through text messaging. So I think that I would recommend seeing this when it comes to theaters but go with low expectations because it does follow the Hess recipe for success - awkward hero and nerdy cast placed into a ridiculous plot. Enjoy.

There is also a great clip of Jemaine Clement (he's the best part of the movie) in character as Dr. Ronald Chevalier.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

I recently went out with some friends and it came up that I haven't been posting lately and they seemed rather disappointed. I guess that sometimes you get tired of blogging or start running out interesting ideas to write about, then your blog starts losing any kind of momentum and your fan base disintegrates and no motivation to blog exists. Well, let's see if I can resurrect this blog. I will post a new entry everyday during this new month. I can't promise that it will be interesting but something will be up on this site daily. And I never allow comments anymore because I haven't been reading or commenting on the blogs that I subscribe to and don't want others to feel obligated to comment on mine. It's not that I'm not enjoying your blogs, it's just that my job description has changed a bit and I'm in front of a computer for work much of the day and the last thing that I want to do when I come home is sit at a desk. I do appreciate those of you that keep your blogs going strong and someday I will catch up on your posts. But that's going to have to wait until I get sick or something tragic like that. So hold on to your hats, you're going to get sick of VTS by the end of November, I can promise you that.