Knee Part II with more updatedness!

Went to the doc yesterday. Got some x-rays. We talked, we had times, it was emotional.
Diagnosis:
Sublexed proximal Tibia-Fibula joint. (I'm pretty sure it was dislocated, and not just sublexed. Either way it's back in now so who cares)

Prognosis:
Pretty good IF I don't turn a stable joint into a mobile joint by sublexing it a whole bunch of times before it can heal up.
Treatment:
Whole lotta nuthin. for 4 weeks (week 1 in the books! whoopee). No deep flexion, no loading of the hamstring (lateral hamstring tendon of the long head of the biceps femoris attaches to the fibular head) So yay.
Hand bike and battle ropes for a month.
I'm going to end up doing kind of a push-pull split just so I can train more often.
This week I did pretty much nothing, and next week I'm going to keep doing just about nothing. While against my nature, a two week break probably isn't a bad thing.
Then a slow re-introduction of grappling related activity and loading of the lower body.

The upside is this: easily could have been a MCL/ACL/PCL blow out. which would have been 6-9 months of surgery and rehab. I have to keep that in mind, but the jiu jitsu junkie in me is already jonesing after a week of inactivity. The worst of it is it doesn't hurt. If it hurt, then I'd have incentive to prop it up and leave it be. It's a lot easier to not train when it is painful to do so. This is only going to get worse as it heals up and I get more and more bored.
In all the time that I've trained, I've taken a two week break once.. when the grizzly was born. On one hand I'm due. On the other hand, I have no frame of reference for what time off looks like, and as a competitive person I really wanted to reach black belt having never taken any time off.. control is an illusion.. I do not have control.

Bleh.. oh well. More family time over the Holidays.
Mahalo.

Knee

Saturday, I screwed my knee. I attempted a sweep from open guard, my femur went one way, my Tib/fib went the other and it just stuck there, out of joint. I cannot explain how much it hurt. I gently put it back in place (at least mostly). I was able to walk on it, though it was pretty uncomfortable. Range of motion is a 'use it or lose it' proposition especially after injury like this, so I kept working the range of motion. Monday afternoon I was on my couch passively flexing my knee, when there was a POP and I felt the knee shift. Apparently it wasn't quite back in. Now it feels reasonably good. I have no idea if the laxity in that knee came from torn ligaments, or if they are just sprained and stretched. I'm not going to risk a major blow out either way. No rolling till after I get it checked out. Some light work in the gym with very little knee flexion/extension. I will update you folks more when I get it checked.
I am dreading facing down a knee operation at 38, and with two small kids. My jiu jitsu training was going really well. My body was functioning great. I was entertaining ideas of competing again..  Hopefully this is just a small setback and not a sidetrack. I don't want to have to sit on my butt for 6 months. Ugh. There isn't much swelling, and really very little pain (once I got the damn thing back in place) so I'm trying to keep my head in the game, don't panic you don't know what's going on in there, might be nothing. It is hard though. I know what is involved with surgery. Months of rehab. Months of training around that knee. Mat rust, time away from the family. A knee you never really trust again. I don't want to go through all that. I hate it. I hate that my body is so unreliable. Made of such flimsy materials. I hate that I can't count on it to train and train and train. Mentally I am a machine, but human flesh and anatomy are finite. It breaks, it breaks down, it dies. Facing the facts, its complicated, its emotional and quite frankly I don't like it.

Mahalo.

TUF 18 finale

Lots of interesting stuff here.. so lets get into it.

Walter Harris was straight up robbed against Jared Rosholt.
I like Rosholt, and as a prospect; he's as good as they get: NCAA champ with heavy hands. Harris is a terrible match up for him right now: He's a fast southpaw with heavy-heavy hands (5 wins all by KO/TKO). For a wrestling heavy raw prospect doesn't get much worse. It was pretty obvious Harris won the first, and Rosholt won the third. The only thing I can think is sometimes if a fighter is getting dominated in a previous round and does markedly less badly in the following round s/he will get the nod from the judges. It ain't right, but it happens.
I look forward to seeing both of these guys going forward.

Tom Niinimaki has been on my radar for a bit, but he's better than I realized. His grappling was outstanding. He showed toughness when he gutted through a tough guillotine in the second. His stand up was solid. He throughly dominated Rani Yahya in all facets (one choke attempt aside) throwing cold water on the brazilian's recent surge. Rani was making a push, but now it's back to the middle of the pack.

Poor Akira Corassani. That dude can't catch a break. After s
ome injury issues and a long layoff the team Renzo fighter was back on track until Maxi Blanco's knee broke his nose into tiny pieces. Hopefully he'll get his act together.

Roxy.. where to start. She looked great on the feet (Yay!).. but she lost (awww). It is painfully obvious to me after this fight that training part time to perform as a professional athlete was hampering Roxanne's development. The sport has come too far. You just can't do that and be successful. If her coaches are smart (and I think they are) they will mold Modafferi into a female version of the Diaz brothers. High volume boxing based striking, using her jiu-jitsu as a means to finish fighters once they've been peppered with punches, and as a deterrent to keep opponents leery of taking her down. In order to do this they need to keep working on her ring craft and movement, which they already appear to be doing. However this high volume approach means that Roxy's fair to middling conditioning is no longer going to suffice. Conditioning has to become a weapon. She has to be fit enough to drag her opponent into deep deep water and still be able to drown them. If she was smart (I know she is) she would got to Phillipi Sports Institute. Mark Phillipi is a former WSM competitor and UNLV strength and conditioning coach. The guy makes monsters and 'the happy warrior' could use a heavy dose of monster. At 31, and now training full time for the first time there is plenty of time for her to work her way back to the upper echelon especially with the massive improvements she made in a single training camp. Hopefully Dana White and the UFC will give her a chance to do that.

Raquel Pennington has the yips. She flinches, and just doesn't let her hands go. That is going to be a big problem. When she doesn't, she's lethal. When she does, she's in trouble.

Peggy Morgan is a great potential fighter, but she needs to get to a better camp. Having read her blog, she seems a very loyal person, so I don't think she will. Which is too bad. Her skill level just isn't on the same level as the women fighting and training with other professionals.

Jessamyn Duke has bounced back from her illegal knee KO/no contest with Miriam Nakamoto (possibly the best bantam female not in the UFC). Training with the champ, the Queen of Spades and the rest of team Hayastan have 'the Gun' (who needs a new nickname) looking like a stone cold killer.

Chris Holdsworth was head and shoulders above the rest of the cast on the men's side. That guy has some real potential, he's 26 years old, a legit BJJ black belt with good hands and decent wrestling. First real prospect to come out of TUF in a while.

Davey Grant made one mistake. His defensive wrestling looked good, the guy has 7 wins by submission himself, but Holdsworth made him look terrible on the ground. Hopefully the UFC will keep the guy around. He's likeable and has a very casual fan friendly style.

Jessica Rakoczy has a future in the UFC.. at strawweight. She is too small to fight these women who weight 140-160 pounds on fight day. They just walk right through her jab and maul her. She's 1 and 4. Learn to cut.

Julianna Pena.. where to start.. She's a fairly big bantam. Athletic. She fights ugly, but that can work in a women's division where true KO power is rare, but she needs to get a filter and a publicist. She came off as easily the least likable least professional cast member since Junie Browning.. on a season where TWO guys didn't make weight. That's saying something.
I don't think she can compete with the top women in the UFC, but then I thought she'd get steamrolled by Shayna Baszler.. been wrong before.. probably will again too.

And finally, the weight cut thing.
There was an article out a couple days ago sensationalizing the weight cuts in the TUF house. It is

completely off the mark. Yes, it sucks to have to make weight 3 times in 6 weeks. You can't cut as much as you normally would and you have to be extra diligent with your diet and hydration. However, these are professional athletes. They should be able to do this standing on their heads. I have heard high level wrestlers talking about pulling garbage bags out of airport trash cans and running in the airport because their plane was delayed and they suddenly wouldn't have time to cut when they landed. That is how you handle your business. When your teammates, housemates, and coaches are all telling you you are eating like an asshole, you're probably eating like an asshole. If you went to bed over, don't sleep in, don't drink a high carb "sports beverage" (buy eet hwitch your money) on the way to the gym. These are stupid, bad ideas that will lead you to running out of time to make weight (Gutierrez).  If you've fought your whole career at 145 you should be super extra careful with your food (Bollinger).
It's not complicated, it's not easy, but it's also not a mystery. Everyone knows entering the house this is how it goes. There are no surprises. It's what high level athletes do. The Iowa Hawkeye wrestling team from 12/1 to 1/12 (six weeks) will make weight at least 9 times. Oh and notice christmas and New Years fall in the middle of that. These are college kids, most cutting similar amounts of weight as these so called professionals, making weight three times as often in 6 weeks. All the while going to school and balancing life with athletics. Gutierrez and Bollenger had to get up, train and make weight, maybe give a couple interviews.
No excuses.
They crapped the bed, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Mahalo.

EDIT:
Holy CARP.. did I really go through that whole card without talking about the main event. Short version is Gray Maynard has been KTFO in successive fights. This last time by a volume puncher who had 3 knockouts in 25 fights. I really like the guy, but it's time to hang them up.
Sorry for that failing folks.. left my notes at home.

Christmas Lights

In our household we are pretty enamored with christmas. My wife and I point out christmas lights to one another whenever we are in the car. Driving the other night with the grizzly in the back seat, I pointed out some christmas lights almost out of habit.
"Hey bub, look christmas."

"Ohhhhhhh Bee-YOU-ti-FUL!"

First, that is the best response ever.
Second, it gave me pause. I looked at the lights with a new perspective. They are beautiful, aren't they. Intellectually I knew they were just some LEDs covered in colored plastic wired up, and stapled to the front of someone's house. Kind of gaudy, and silly. But when you look at it from the kid's perspective, who the hell cares? they're shiny and bright and colorful and lovely. It's one of the few altruistic things people do these days. Spend an afternoon on a ladder stapling gaudy lights to our house for the enjoyment of others. A gesture of kindness.
I began to think of all of the other moments of beauty and kindness we overlook simply because they are so readily and often available to us. This lack of mindfulness is terrible.
Our experiences are finite. We don't go on forever. To look past these moments is to look past our own lives. We live in a time of incredible availability. The food, art and knowledge we have available to us at this time in history is incredible, and yet most people don't appreciate any of it. We blindly trudge through our lives.

I am asking you not to just stop and smell the roses, but to appreciate the beauty of the rose, and the thorns. To marvel at the diversity and similarity of all the roses. To think about your interactions with people.
This is one of the greatest vices that I have, and is the source of my greatest problems. I have pounded down food like it's an unpleasant chore. I have neglected books, and overlooked moments of beauty to get somewhere or move on to the next whatever. Living life like a skipping stone. I am breaking these habits. I eat slower. I walk slower with my head up. I stop and breathe deeper. What's more I pay attention to what I feel. When I talk to someone, how do I feel in their presence? Do I really want to have this conversation? If not, I don't. If so, why?
I've always been a good observer of the behavior of other people, but now I'm turning that lens in. Focusing on myself. It's not easy.
I am not suggesting you dive headlong into your own navel. To become absorbed with the patina of our interactions, but to actually seek some depth of your own experience. Sitting there right now, how is your posture? How are your feet positioned? What was the last book you read? Did you read it or skim through it? What was the last thing you ate? How did it taste? What did it feel like in your mouth? To whom did you last speak? Did you listen, or wait for your turn to ejaculate words at them?

I am not suggesting that I am a leading example of how to behave in this respect. It is something that I struggle to do, but it's one of the best lessons I've learned as a parent.

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced.
-J.J. Van der Leeuw

Mahalo.

UFC 167

This was a doozie.. but first some quick thoughts from fight nights 31 and 32.

Fight night the 31st.
(I'm skipping a lot of these fights and fighters, but this post is already going to be a monster and quite frankly lets just keep this train rolling)

Germaine De Randamie has some very clean and vicious thai boxing, but she is flat terrible on the ground. An AKA product after the exit of Dave Camarillo and it shows. She did not have any fundamental Jiu jitsu and got tooled.

Amanda Nunes looked great in the fight. In the brief stand up portion she did not look out of her depth against De Randamie, and was the better grappler by an order of magnatude. Nunes seems to be hit or miss. She has wins over Julia Budd and Vannessa Porto who are solid fighters, but has lost to Alexis Davis and Sarah D'Alelio. I'm not sure if she's inconsistent, or just not quite ready for the next level. Either way, at 25 she has time to grow into a very formidable fighter.

Steven Siler needs to work on converting submissions against guys trying to power out of them. He had Dennis Bermudez in trouble a couple times, but couldn't control the TUF 14 finalist.

James Krause vs Bobby Green fight.. good grief. This one is tough. When a guy has been belted in the groin twice he's going to be sensitive. So that even if the final kick grazed the top of the cup it would have felt like complete hell for Krause. However.. it was a technically legal kick. So you can't call it against Green (probably resulting in a DQ). So this is an unfair one, but sometimes life isn't fair.

Colton Smith is a rarity. A wrestling based fighter that I can't stand. I think he tends to fight cheap, and his non-wrestling grappling is terrible. Evidenced by his inability to defend the Harai Goshi by Chiesa, and his very sloppy back control and attempted RNC finish in the first round. Staff Sargent get thee in a gi.

Tim Kennedy looked great in his fight, and can be officially said to be surging.

Fight night thirty-duce!

Jeremy Stephens looks tough at 145. He has some serious power, and is going to be a problem for a lot of folks.

Rony Bezerra needs to lighten up. He got caught with a head kick. You are not a rock star.. don't destroy the dressing room.

Brandon Thatch is 11-1 and hasn't lost in 5 years. It's time to get the guy a fight of some note.

I like Paulo Thiago, but I think he's past his sell by date.  He's 2-7 since he choked out Mike Swick in 2010 and he did not look like he was in the fight against Thatch. A good ground game and heavy hands just wont cut it in the twenty teens.

Feijao rights the ship all be it against a guy who has no wins in his last 4 fights (one no contest). It will be interesting to see if the UFC feeds him a couple more cans to build him up as a contender, or if they drop him in the deep end and ask him to sink or swim.

The Daniel Sarafian vs Cezar Ferreira fight was a beaut. I am happy to see both of these guys in the UFC. I was hoping the more wrestling oriented Sarafian would win, but Ferreira was just too big too physical. Be interesting to see how the UFC treats each guy coming off this fight.

Hendo.. you got nothing left to prove. Just call it a day.

Vitor.. at this point you have to say he's the #3 guy at middleweight. The guy irritates me something fierce, and it's not the TRT or the god bothering.. ok it's mostly those things, but it's also this air of entitlement. How dare you ask me about TRT and the fact that I popped positive in 2006, I am Vitor! Yecch.

ok enough of that.

167

Sergio Pettis makes his debut against the unspectacular Will Campuzano. Wins unspectacular decision. At 20 years old. The guy is undeniably talented. We shall see if he can convert that talent into success.

Brian Ebersole does nothing great, but he does everything pretty well. Too young for the MMA senior circuit I think he's one more loss from the bus leagues.

Rick Story looked great. The guy is very hot and cold, so it's hard to say if Story has turned a corner and actually gotten a bit more polish on his striking, or if it was just a good match up for him. I'm more likely to think the latter.

I was impressed by the resurgent Thales Leites. He's actually put a good amount of effort into shoring up his weaknesses. We'll see where it leads. Kim Winslow's stand-up in this fight was terrible. Leites was on top in half guard working to pass and fishing for an arm triangle when suddenly and with little warning Referee Winslow stood them up. A shocking display of grappling ignorance. This could have easily pitched the fight in Herman's favor. Just terrible.

The on again off again Cowboy is on once again. He looked great against Evan Dunham. The guy is

an enigma. I don't think the answer lies at 145 for him, I think it's underneath that cowboy hat of his.

I like Tyron Woodley. He has all the tools to be one of the top fighters at 170. I worry that he's not in a challenging enough camp. He need to be be at ATT training with the room full of killers down in Florida. Instead he's got his own affiliate in my home town of St. Louis, Missouri. It's too soon.

With four losses of his last 6 fights. Josh Koshcheck's time would look to be over, but he's lost to one of the most promising guys in the division (Woodley), a surging veteran (Robbie Lawler), the people's champion (Bigg Rigg himself) and the belt holding real deal champ (GSP). Is he going to be happy being at the bottom of the top? Probably not. At 35 years old, and having fallen out with the AKA brass. I believe him when he says it's time to retire.

Speaking of Lawler, the move to ATT has him nearing his potential.. FINALLY. At only 31 he's got a few more years of his prime left. As much as I think Pat Miletich is a good coach and for grappling oriented fighters (Matt Hughes) a great one. The MFS camp was all wrong for Lawler. He needed more technical coaching than the meat grinder of MFS. Now he's getting it and it shows.

Rory MacDonald.. where has he gone?  Where is the guy who battered B.J. Penn pillar to post? Where is the guy who knocked out Mike Pyle and literally and figuratively battered Nate Diaz into the ground? Before the BJ fight MacDonald was 12-1 with 1 decision (the aforementioned battering of Diaz). Dana White likened his last two fights to "staring contests." Warlike Ares has become Mercury. Look, I'm no Tapout wearing 'just bleed' MMA fan, but I'm still in favor of fighting. I'm all for being technical, but the most important and impressive part of 'hit and don't get hit' is the hitting part. Couple more stinkers like this and this young Canadian may end up finding another line of work.

Uncle Chael, why did you pick a fight with a guy who is better than you at the thing you do well, and is bigger, faster and more athletic? Just a bad idea.

Ok.. lets get into it. I think Johny Henricks won that fight, but not by much. Knowing that the fight was in Nevada. Knowing that most of the judges are "converted boxing judges." I can see how round 1 went to GSP.. not that I think it should have, but how it did. 2 reasons. Thing the first: early takedown for GSP. Nevada judges tend to overvalue takedowns. Even though no damage was done and Hendricks got up quickly, he still got taken to the ground. Thing the second is more subjective and more problematic. In close rounds, with these judges who cut their teeth on boxing, the rounds tend to go to the guy who looks more polished. In this case you have the very classic GSP, and the clubbing Johny Hendricks, the round went to the pugilist and not the brawler. This is a major problem with the 10 point must system. If I absolutely clobber you for 2 rounds, and you eek out strategic wins of the other 3, you win the fight. It's not fair, but I don't know what a better system is unless you want to go back to PRIDE type rules.

As far as GSP goes. I hope his problems truely are as trivial as Dana White makes them to be, and I hope he does what he needs to do.  He doesn't owe me, Dana White, Hendricks, or anyone else a damn thing.

Mahalo.