Day One of Understanding Woodshed Wallace

Posted on 13. May, 2008 by Jeremy in Press On, Sharpening, Writing

Today was my first day of mixed martial arts (MMA) training at the Grand Rapids Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Grand Rapids, MI.

I’ve trained a little before in Judo, Jeet Kune Do & Combat Kempo, a tiny bit of BJJ, and I warm up before every workout with some time on the heavy bag. I’ve also been doing some high-intensity workouts for the past year with lots of bodyweight exercises, interval sprints on the AirDyne, kettlebell swings, and various big-movement lifts.

I wanted to see how all of this prepared me for some serious MMA training.

It was much like microwaving mac & cheese for 15 years then trying to cook a 20-course meal underwater while someone punches you in the face. I got crushed. And I loved it.

Everyone at the gym is great; they’re serious about training and learning but don’t take themselves too seriously, and they are more than happy to teach each other how to better beat each other up. They were all very courteous and stepped around my prone form after 12 minutes of light sparring.

I’m not comfortable sparring on my feet yet, so my partners were nice enough to start on the ground. In the first two 6-minute rounds, I got submitted via armbar, can opener (yeah, I know), and exhaustion on its way to kimura. I’m probably forgetting some due to brain sweat.

During the can opener submission, I distinctly recalled a Joe Rogan UFC commentary in which he was watching a fighter in the guard crank on his opponent’s head, and he said something like, “I don’t know what he’s doing, unless he’s trying to get him with the can opener, but he won’t get caught in that unless he’s a knucklehead.”

I hope the knucklehead belt comes in my size.

I sat out the next two rounds and tried to get some water down my neck. Every time I brought the water bottle up and tried to squeeze it, my hand shook with fatigue. I’m going to have to get a softer water bottle. Do they make them out of Nerf?

I jumped into the last round and sparred with a guy who’d been going the whole time, so the kimura and Von Flue choke he tapped to must be accompanied by an asterisk.

If I had sparred every round, I would have tapped to a frown.

We’ll see how it all feels tomorrow. Right now I’m worn out and happy.

Thanks to everyone at GRBJJ & MMA!

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Tags: BJJ, Jeremy Brown, MMA, Suckerpunch, Woodshed Wallace

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Mightier Than the Sword

"In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor -- by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things. He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness. The story is the man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in. "

— Raymond Chandler

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