Day 6 - After the event!

Well,

The world ju jitsu champs are over for 2010 and i would be lying if i said that it was as good as i thought it would be.

The organisation of the event was a bit of a let down, there was a venue change, and problems with some logistics but once the comp got momentum it lifted spirits.

I ended up taking a bronze medal home with me, I fought my way and enjoyed myself, it was a great test and a learning experience, and il be back in 2 years to take gold medals.

I had a minor break in my little finger on day 1 of the grappling event, and it put me back a bit going into day 2, the sport ju jitsu event.

However thanks to our physio support i customized my gloves to ensure the finger wouldnt get pulled about. I had my finger taped to the other one and i had to change my fighting style and bring my right leg forward as my lead leg.

My fights were close and i gave some good shots, and took a couple too, I unfortunately got disqualified from the mens individual semi final for 3 warnings....1 excessive contact, 1 illegal target area (punch to the nuts on the floor...oops) and 1 illegal move (a kick whilst lying on my back)

we took a bronze in the team event.

Overall it was a great experience i have learned alot and being my first ever competition event i feel like i have done myself proud. Ive met some great people and had alot of laughs.

I'll be back next time stronger, faster and more experienced, I need to remind myself i have only been doing ju jitsu for a short time...i

The goal has been set...

Tommy

Day 3 - Post Weigh in

Just got back from the weigh in.

Started at 168 pounds,

Target was 165 pounds,

Weighed in at 161 pounds.

Got it!

I'll tell you more later....

Day 3 - weigh in preparation

Just woke up,

7am Thursday morning,

Going to eat a cereal bar, have a shot of coffee and then its down to the gym to dehydrate and make weight.

Weigh in is at 10am, but both myself and alexi want to make sure we make our weight, so cardio and sauna may be neccesary.

Alexi has a bit more to shift to make his weight than me, but i still want to be sure.

The lightest Ive ever weighed in at is 74.9kgs and that was after a hoody run to sweat down.

I'd like to see 74.5kgs on the scales at 10am...So i anticipate a 1.5kg decrease from dehydration...about 3 pounds.
It should be relatively straight forward.

Tommy

Day 2

The hungry day...

The plan was to wake up, train and then have a good breakfast, then go lie by the pool....
But that didnt quite happen that way...

I trained at roughly 8:30 am, just did some bosu squats and some cardio then stretching. I weighed in at 75.7kgs, Worryingly though, i twinged my lower back, it felt like it seized up. I tried to release it through stretching and it kinda worked, but i just wanted to rest it up and chill.

However, when we met the group at 10am, we found out that we were going for a training session!
So there we were in our gloves and feet protectors, out on the grass outside the flamingo, right infront of the outside wedding chapel! training some light combinations.

We drew up an audience and some people were even taking photos. The opposition came down to check us out too!
After that we all went to the pool for some team bonding by having a game of water volleyball....Still no breakfast...I'd had some nuts and some fruit though.

I chilled out by the pool for an hour or so and then i walked into the shopping mall.
I ended up finding some items of clothing that i liked and decided you only live once and im in Vegas! so i went back to the hotel to get my cash and i got them. The guy in the shop was an old guy called Raymond, he was great, and gave me some discount.

I had a smoothie at the same place as the day before, and decided not to eat because we were all meeting at 5pm for a meal.
I raced back to the hotel, got changed and went to meet the others. I was starving hungry! then found out we had to walk about 30 minutes in the heat to get to the food! I wouldnt usually mind, but i had been walking up and down for ages today and i was very hungry! When im hungry im apparently a grumpy dragon according to Kelly.

So we arrived at the restaurant and paid £9.99 for the buffet. The buffet was pretty good and after that we hit the roullette table for about 20 mins.

Then we got a taxi back to the flamingo, and got some supplies ready to chill out before the weigh in tomorrow morning at 10.

Its just gone 9pm here and im in bed! a little bit of weight cutting to do tomorrow morning, so its up early, sweat it out and make the weight.
Its exciting stuff. I have to lose about a kilo (2.2 pounds) so not much but still the pressure is on.
I'm loving the experience and the vegas vibe, but its a very expensive place, regardless if you gamble or not, its expensive.

So goodnight and hopefully next time i write here, i will have made weight and be gearing up to fight the following day!

Tommy

Day 1 - Tuesday

Well its nearly half 7 on Tuesday night.

Day 1 has been very cool, I woke up about 8:30am and went down for breakfast at the hotel. The Flamingo has 5 or 6 restaurants i believe, and we had breakfast at the buffet place.

Its UNREAL! the buffet is huge! and it has everything! meat, fruit, breads and even a chocolate fondu fountain! i mean whats that about!? You can have doughnuts and cakes here for breakfast! Sometimes its hard to think why so many Americans are overweight...Hmmmm.

vegas in the daytime is hot! full of tourists from all over the place.
Myself, Alexi and Martin went on a quest to find some cool shops. We ended up spending 30 minutes just trying to find a way out of the hotel!

We walked through Cesars palace and the Bellagio and then found some very designer and expensive shops. We wandered where the malls were so we kept walking and then sure enough we found a mall.

Its full of shops and boutiques and we all bought some clothes and bits and pieces. I bought the 2nd hat of my trip!
Inside the mall there is a fake sky, it looks like the Truman show, looks so real and freaks you out a bit because I thought it was getting dark and we were late for training! when really it was still 3pm.

We saw a cool looking tattoo shop and joked about getting victory tattoos when we win!

At 4pm we had a stroll down to the pool and it didnt last long because we realised what the time was...
5pm was a squad training session. I had printed off some basic workouts for people to do in the gym. The gym is pretty small, and we filled it, but we got the job done. It was tough making a programme for this session, because i didnt want people to get too much fatigue by trying new exercises. So i had to keep it basic and general. The group was of mixed ages, abilities, sex and gym experience.

I felt good during my workout and had a good stretch after. Im back to full strength now and needed a good pump to relieve my post flight sedentarys!

I had a weigh in today at 76kg, so all good, i plan to sweat down to 75kg on the day and make the weight.

Im now going to have a shower and then its off out to eat.

Reporting back soon...
Tommy

Arrival

We're here!!

Far too tired....

report in tomorrow!

Charlotte International Airport

Hi,
Im sat in Charlotte International Airport. Just landed from Gatwick on a relatively smooth flight.
A touch of travel sickness in the landing but otherwise pretty straight forward and successful.

We were at Gatwick for 6:30am and we met the rest of the team, got issued our tracksuits and did a little bit of shopping.
Myself, Alexi and Martin visited costa and discussed the trip ahead.

We all looked good in the airport with our tracksuits on and were easily identifiable.
The flight was approx 9 hours and i watched a couple of movies and planned the exercise sessions ahead of the week in Vegas.

Ive just eaten a nutritious Chicken Burrito and had a fruit smoothie with a shot of protein powder.
Some of the customer service over here leaves a lot to be desired! and people seem a bit tense...

America is a little daunting, its like being in an American movie or TV programme.

Its 3.35pm here but its 8:35pm back home. Im starting to feel the effects of lack of sleep now.

In a couple of hours it'll be back on the plane en route to VEGAS!!

so until then....

Tommy

Las Vegas part 1

Well,
Its Sunday night and im all packed ready to depart to Las Vegas in the morning.

I will be heading over there with the England Sport Ju Jitsu squad to compete in the World Sport Ju Jitsu Championships.

We will be staying at the Flamingo hotel on the main strip and over the next 8 days i will be blogging about my experiences.

I have been training very hard and been very focused for the last 3/4 months. Going through 2 phases of periodisation in that time, to get myself to 75kg and fighting fit.

The Championships invite countries from all over the world, to compete in the individual, team and grappling events over 4 days of competition.

The bouts are best of 3, 2 minute rounds, and you win by submitting your opponent or scoring more clean strikes whilst standing or on the ground.

I am feeling very excited and feel completely ready to give it my all.
I am really looking forward to seeing what i am capable of.

Stay tuned, I'll keep you all updated!

Goodbye for now!

Tommy