An Up and Down Day, But More Up Than Down

I got back yesterday from a Jiu Jitsu tournament outside of Seoul.  In true Korean fashion, I wasn't informed of the tournament until the week before.  Also in true Korean fashion I wasn't told that this tournament was the Korean Pro Abu Dhabi qualifier and the biggest BJJ tourny of the year in Korea until I got in the van to go to the tournament.  Since I've been focusing on my upcoming fight I haven't really been training in the gi at all and I asked our coach if I could enter the no gi tournament only.  He wasn't buying it and entered me into the gi, gi absolute and no gi divisions.  Tough luck for me.
The tournament was on Sunday in a city called Bucheon which is about a three and a half hour drive from Daegu.  We left from the club at 5:30 am to get there in time to weigh in and start competing at 10:00.  Once our team was weighed in I put my gi on for the first time in three weeks and headed down to the mat where I was the second match of the day.  My first match was against a guy I had beaten handily at an earlier tournament.  I proceeded to get flying armbarred less than 10 seconds into the match.  I'm not sure if I've ever been that embarrassed at a tournament before.  Not only did I lose, I was out of the tournament and had to watch as a guy I've beat before worked his way through the bracket and won the division.  It was frustrating, but I earned that loss.  I simply was not ready for that match. Luckily I still had the gi absolute division coming up.  What chance would I have against the monsters and winners from all of the other weight classes if I couldn't even last 10 seconds in my own weight class?  Plenty it turns out.  I think I just needed a good kick in the pants to get going and that first loss was just what the doctor ordered.
In my first absolute match I fought a guy who had competed in the heavyweight (100 kg) division.  He smirked at me when the drawmaster put us together, kind of like he thought it was funny.  He thought it was a lot less funny when I rolled up an 8-0 lead before submitting him with a north/south choke.  If the first guy I fought was big, the next guy was an absolute terror.  He was a member of the U.S. Airforce and was a superheavyweight who probably had the same body fat percentage that I did.  To say he was intimidating was an understatement.  I heard someone refer to him as "Black Hercules".  Luckily he was considerably less intimidating when he put his gi on.

I don't think many people gave me much of a chance to beat him (he steamrolled a pretty tough dude in his previous match) but I had a decent game plan.  I had watched a few of his matches through out the day.  He had pretty much bullied his way through the tournament by using a bull rush double leg, leaning on people until they collapsed and doing nothing on top except not get submitted.  I knew that as hard as he pushed on his opponents he would be in trouble if he ever came up against anyone who could throw well.  It never occurred to me that it might be me.  Sure enough, about a minute into the match I caught him pushing too hard and launched him with a hip toss going out of bounds.  He got up, dusted himself off and said "good job".  Then he came at me even harder.  He blasted me out of bounds and into some spectators 3 or 4 times, but I kept my feet moving and didn't let him in on my legs.  At one point he shot a double and had me scrambling. In desperation I turned and threw my hips into a whizzer as hard as I could and threw him onto his back again.  This time he did not tell me "good job".  He was getting pretty cheezed at losing to a 68 kg. geek.   I tried my luck one more time and tried to hit him with a shoulder throw. I was very close to scoring the takedown but we went out of bounds.  I thought.  You can't see it on the tape, but I landed with both knees and feet completely on the wood floor.  Little did I know that one of his feet was still on the edge of the mat, making us still in bounds.  I stopped fighting and he took the opportunity to take back mount.  We eventually went out of bounds and got re started in the center with him in back mount.  I knew if I could sneak my way out of danger and hold him off for under a minute I'd win on points.  I managed to do just that.


After that match I had exactly  5 minutes to get ready for the final.  In the final I fought one of my teammates who competed at and won the 90kg. division.  The match was a little slow but I ended up submitting him with an Americana.

What I Really Came For
After the gi portion was done I suited up for the no gi open division which was what I was really excited for.  getting to test myself against the best grapplers in the country in the style that I like best appealed to me.  In my first match I submitted a blue belt with a D'arce choke and in my second match I beat a purple belt on points, 10-2.  In the final I met a very strong blue belt that sometimes comes to our club to train.  I was leading for a good chunk of the match but eventually got my back taken in a scramble and submitted to a choke after fighting it off for what felt like an hour.
A gold in the Gi absolute and a silver in open no-gi was a good way to finish off the day after a tanking out of my first division.

Mfight (a Korean MMA website) was at the event taking video and pictures.  They also handed out a "Fighter of the Day" award. They apparently thought that my win in the absolute division was worthy of the award.  I was honored to get the award but I know there were lots of better performances and better fighters at the event.  For example, my buddy Bo Kue won the Abu Dhabi Trials and the absolute no-gi tournament.  In the semi final he got caught in a deep triangle choke that looked like game over.  He somehow fought it off for over 2 minutes (he told me later that he was very close to going to sleep) before storming back and wining on points.  In the final he dug himself an 11-0 deficit (which I'm sure had something to do with being gassed from his last match) before submitting his opponent with a kimura.  To me that kind of fighting spirit is what should earn "Fighter of the Day".  But the trophy sure is nice and shiny.

Champions One and All

Daegu MMA won the team title, even without Heung Kul and Un Sik, our two best jiu jitsu players competing.  As far as grappling goes, we've won everything in sight this year.  Looking at all of the studs in the team picture below makes me realize what a stacked team Daegu MMA actually is.  Lots of guys train at different times and you rarely see all of the best guys together in one place, but when you do it's a hell of a team to deal with.

Our team with some hardware

It's Not Mother's Day But... 

It's my mom's birthday!  Happy Birthday Mom!

Monsoon Season is here. It's Raining Fights.

It's Raining men Fights!
Saying "when it rains, it pours" is about as cliched as it gets, but sometimes the cliche fits. The actual monsoon season is approaching in Korea and along with it I've been flooded with fight opportunities.  First I was offered a spot in the Sengoku Asian Bantamweight Grand Prix, but was pulled because I wasn't Korean.  Then I was offered a very tough fight in DEEP at the end of August which I accepted.  Last week I was offered another fight in DEEP: Grachan to fight on the same card as my friend and training partner Un Sik.  I had to decline because of previous commitments that couldn't be changed.  saturday I was offered a spot as a short notice opponent for Ikuo Usuda on the Sengoku 13 card.  The event is this coming Sunday. Even though I initially jumped at the chance to fight in Sengoku the more I thought about this fight, the more I didn't like it.  First of all it is a very big fight on very short notice and I have only been training hard again for a little over a month.  As much as I'd like to think that my athleticism would carry me through I know that there are lots of things I need to iron out before I fight a high level fight.  I fought once on a lot less preparation than I should have had and told myself I would never do it again.  The next thing is that the fight is at 65 kg.  This is the weight I have fought at before but I am much leaner right now and will be fighting at a lower weight in the future.  After practice today I was 66.5 kg.  Usuda on the other hand is coming down for his first fight at 65 kgs. after going 6-0 in Shooto and Sengoku as a 70 kg. fighter.  He would be a huge 65 kg fighter and I would be pretty small for that weight. This is the kind of fight I am looking for in the future, but I don't think is a good decision for me right now.  Coincidentally, Usuda's original opponent was suposed to be a guy I fought and beat at the East Asian Sambo Championships. On the plus side, it's good to know that I am finally on the radar of some of the bigger Asian promotions.


Some things never change.
Jim Liguori, who owns and coaches Ho Shin Sool MMA used to go crazy because I would leave my stuff all over the place.  I would forget my shirt on the floor, leave my hand-wraps hanging on a doorknob, leave my mouthguard on the windowsill... you name it, I forgot it at the club.  Well, Jim will be happy to know that it's just not him, I do it to the coach/owner at Daegu MMA too.  Usually it's not a big deal because I can pick it up the next day, but about a month ago I lost my custom fit mouthguard that my dentist friend Riley made for me.  I finally found it today and was super pumped; I never knew how much better a custom mouthguard was until I tried one.  While I'm on the topic, it's great to have a friend as your dentist.  How many times have you wanted to swear at your dentist?  I can do it freely.  When she says dentist-y things like "Hmmm, your gums are bleeding a little bit."  I can say things like "No kidding, you just stabbed them with a sharp metal poker; I'm pretty sure I'd bleed anywhere if you did that."

Where Am I and How Did I Get Here?
After a few amateur MMA fights I decided it was time to step things up and fight as a pro.  In two years I racked up a 4-1 record as a pro.  I can honestly say that none of the opponents I fought were particular studs, even the one opponent I lost to.  All of my wins came via TKO or submission stoppage, with none of my opponents making it past the 3rd minute of the first round.  The lone loss on my record was disappointing but I don't think reflects on my skills as a fighter.  It was a fight I took unprepared.  I went into the fight in not great shape and without having put in the training time I should have.  Even still, I was dominating my opponent for most of the fight.  I picked him up and took him down with a slam and was delivering some ground and pound.  As I was standing in his guard I got sloppy (overconfident?) and hung my head lazily, getting caught in a guillotine in the process. I got back on the winning track shortly after, but promised myself I would never fight unprepared like that again. Regardless of the results, I felt like it was time to step up the level of my competition.  I had a tough time doing so, in large part because of the expense of getting me from Sault Ste. Marie to a place where big fights happen.  Sault Ste. Marie is not exactly a travel hub and organizations weren't very willing to spend big money to fly me to their fights.  That's why I decided to temporarily relocate to a place where bigger fights might come my way.  Hence, Korea.
While some people might think I'm jumping into the deep end of the pool with my upcoming fight, that was exactly my goal in coming here.  I always felt like I could compete at  a much higher level than I was and now I'm getting the chance to prove it. I've always thought that testing your limits is an important part of life.  How can you really know who you are if you don't know what you're capable of?


Picnic Time!
The Daegu MMA family often goes on weekend outings together and this weekend I was lucky enough to attend my first team/family outing.  We drove a ways out of town and hiked up a mountain towards a stream and some mountain top pools.  This place was amazing.  There were dozens of pools of crystal clear cold mountain water and you could slide down the rocks into them.  Here's some pics of the main pool that we spent most of our time at.

View from above the main pool.

Left to right: Po Kue, Jae Hoon and Me.

At one point Jae Hoon dove down to the bottom of the pool and came up saying "pink hat! pink hat!".  I wasn't sure why he was so amazed about a hat at the bottom of a pool of water but he eventually said "I get it!" and dove down to retrieve the object in question.  When he came back up he was holding a SEVERED PIG'S HEAD.   No joke.   "Pig head", not "pink hat".  Then he threw it at someone.

After swimming we set up our grill and proceeded to eat ridiculous amounts of samguipsal and galbi.  If we had twice as many people as were actually there we still would have had way too much food,  but that's pretty typical of eating with Koreans.

Quick Question

Who doesn't have a story that starts with "So I'm juggling cans of paint in class..".  I'll let you guess how that turned out.

Wow.

SENGOKU, DEEP, DREAM;  It's been a Crazy Ride

For the last three and a half weeks I've been sitting on the knowledge that I would soon be fighting in one of the biggest MMA organizations in the world and competing in their bantamweight Grand Prix.  I had been accepted as one of the participants in the tournament and was set to compete in SENGOKU on July 4th.  I almost spilled the beans last week, but decided to hold off because SENGOKU hadn't officially announced the participant list.  It's a good thing I did hold off because when I got to the club today for training I found out that I was out of the tournament.  Someone somewhere along the line had complained that even though I trained and fought out of a Korean gym I didn't meet the criteria to compete in the Asian Grand Prix.  That thought had crossed my mind but I was reassured that it would be no problem when I brought it up.  Apparently it was a problem.

All is not lost however.  I've been offered a fight with a very good fighter later in the summer. The fight offer is against Daiki Hata, a very good kickboxer with a 11-6-3 MMA record.  He has beaten some big name fighters, but his last two losses came to opponents who were 7-7 and 3-4 at the time of their fights.  He has much more experience than I do, but style wise, the match up is good.  He seems to have trouble with grinding type wrestlers.  He also looks like an anime character from some kind of Japanese neo-samurai cartoon.  The fight will be in late August for the DEEP organization. The bonus is that the winner of the fight earns a spot on the nest DREAM event.  DREAM is arguably the second largest MMA organization in the world.  It's where the big dogs live.  Some people spend their whole careers waiting for an opportunity like this.  It's pretty crazy now that it's here.  TopMMAnews posted a story about the fight on their main page. Go check it out.

Submission of the year?

Some people have been talking about this submission by Dan Hornbuckle at a recent Bellator event as a potential submission of the year. It's a nice Kimura into a modified armbar. Go to the 45 second mark of the video and then...

... look at this picture.

This was one of my matches at the Korea Machado Open. Look familiar? I know, I know, I didn't do it to  professional fighter in a major event... I'm just saying.  What am I saying?  I don't know, probably something about me being awesome.

Un Sik Song
Un Sik lost his fight at DEEP: Cage Impact last night.  He lost what sounds like a boring decision to someone who mostly pressed him against the cage.  I knew that cage skills might be an issue for Un Sik.  His wrestling is getting much better, but there is absolutely nowhere to practice anything against a cage or wall.  We don't even have any padded walls right now.  People have been saying for quite a while but Asian fighters who want to fight in a cage have to practice in a cage.  I think it makes a much bigger impact than people think.  So many techniques change next to the cage, and learning to use it and get off of it is a skill you have to practice, it does happen magically.

New Ho Shin Sool Website
Ray started a new Ho Shin Sool website and it's pretty awesome.  It has lots of cool stuff on it, go check it out.

Squatters, Gymnastics and Tough Training

Gymnastics in Wrestling, MMA, Jiu Jitsu
I stumbled across the video below by chance, but it reinforces what I've always believed.  Athletes with gymnastics backgrounds or skills have an enormous advantage in any sport that requires balance, kinesthethic awareness, agility and explosiveness.  When I run gymnastic type warm ups when I coach wrestling or grappling at home lots of people complain.  Some people cop out and don't even try.  It's frustrating because those people can't see the benefits of these types of skills.  I'm fond of telling those people "If you can't control your own body, how in hell are you going to control your opponents body?"
When people say "Why are we doing this?  We're not going to do a cartwheel or handstand in a match."
I respond with "Why do you lift weights? You're not going to bench press or clean and jerk in a match."  The answer is the same for both activities.  They both develop and enhance physical characteristics that are important to wrestling, jiu jitsu and fighting.  I would go so far as to say that if you had to pick only one, gymnastics training trumps weightlifting.  My girlfriend used to coach at the National Training center for mens gymnastics.  Some of the guys there were the most jacked guys I've ever seen and they never lifted a weight in their life.  
Consider the following

• In Russia and Turkey (where wrestling is the national sport and athletes start in the sport at a very young age) youth programs focus mostly on gymnastics before introducing much actual wrestling technique.  They believe it's important to develop a strong physical foundation before trying to learn things that your body is not prepared to do.
• Most big time BJJ dudes from Brazil practice what they call "gymnastica naturel"  which is basically just tumbling.  They say it gives them a much better awareness of their body.
• The sheer number of high level wrestlers I have met that have some sort of gymnastics background is staggering.  It can't be a coincidence.

A little background... AACC is a wrestling and MMA school.  Lots of top MMA guys (and girls ie. Megumi Fuji) train there.  It's one of the places that lots of pros stop in to train when they are in Jaoan for fights.  The youth wrestling club is also world famous, having produced world and Olympic medalists.



New Gym, Hard Work
The new gym has been up and running for a few weeks now.  It's a smaller space, but there is much less wasted space.  The main mat area is bigger than at the old club, but we don't have a ring at the new location.  We still have a bag area, weight area, an office and (a big improvement) showers with hot water.

View of the new club

Un Sik has a big fight coming up in DEEP against a very tough Yasuaki Kishimoto (10-3) and the two of us have been working out together a lot lately. We've been working on lots of wrestling and lots of situational sparring.  I've been getting as much out of it as he has, which is good as I'm looking to fight sooner than later.  My body is definitely feeling it.  Today is Sunday, and my 7th day in a row of training with Un Sik.  We'll go in tomorrow and do some work and then I'm going to take Tuesday off and try to explain the concept of "tapering" to him.  Hopefully someone with decent English will be there to help translate.
There are a few young guys that train at Daegu MMA that have really enjoy the wrestling training and are getting pretty good.  A few of them heard Un Sik and I were training on the weekend they came in to work on their wrestling too.  The smaller guy in the video is only 15 and has better jiu jitsu technique than I do. When we roll I have to be a bully and muscle him around to avoid getting beat. Add in some solid takedowns and defense and that's a tough kid to beat. The bigger guy is about 20 and has a great single leg.  When we scrimmage he can score if I'm not really focused on defending the leg hard.   I think I've been able to leave a few of the older guys and two or three of the younger kids with some much improved takedowns and takedown defense and I think that makes them a lot more dangerous, whether in Jiu Jitsu or MMA

Korean Crappers
This is a "squatter".  If you can't see why it's called that please use your browser's back button and go back to whatever internet hole you crawled out of, your presence alone is hurting the average IQ of visitors to this blog and I have standards to uphold around here.

Squatters are a bit intimidating at first.  Which direction do you face?  What do you hold on to?  It's a bit like the old "grab a tree in the woods and squat", but with no tree to grab.  For these reasons I was pretty apprehensive of squatters during my first few months in Korea.  Sometimes there just isn't a regular toilet to be found though.  In these cases I usually just take my pants right off to avoid a stain that would be very tough to explain to your friends.  Everyone's heard the story of the guy who answered nature's call in the woods and ended up with a present in the hood of his snow-suit right?  Nobody wants to be that guy.
Despite the awkwardness and potential danger of using a squatter there are some benefits.  My friend Margot mentioned a while ago that there is absolutely no skin to seat contact and you flush with your shoe covered foot, not your bare hand. Hygienic!  I guess if you're a germophobe using a squatter is the way to go, although it definitely takes some getting used to.

Has Anyone Seen my Battle Pants?

The Bolt Strikes Daegu
The Daegu "World Challenge" Track meet was here on Wednesday and a stack of world and Olympic stars showed up.  Daegu didn't disappoint and put a LOT of people in the stands for this event. Without a doubt, Usain Bolt was the biggest star.  He looked like he barely broke a sweat in winning with a time of 9.84 seconds.  Crazy to think that in 1996 that time would have not only won him an Olympic gold, but also broken the world record.  These days that's not even in the ballpark when compared to the mind-bending 9.58s that Bolt ran last year.  For my money Bolt is one of the best pure athletes living on this planet right now.  The funny thing is, I read an interesting article about how if Bolt had grown up in the U.S. he would never had been a 100m/200m runner.  The thinking that his height put him at a huge disadvantage in the starting blocks would have pushed him into the 400m and 800m races where the effects of a bad start are a bit less.  Interesting stuff.  Here's a video of the race I shot on my camera.  I wasn't sure if I got it all because the display on the camera bit the dust, so no chirps about the bad angle. At least we had pretty good seats near the finish line.


 Usain Bolt in Daegu from Brent Fryia on Vimeo.

Crowd Shot.  Good turnout.

Missing Gloves and "Battle Pants"
I brought a nice pair of red Twins sparring gloves to Korea with me.  A few weeks before we moved the gym they disappeared.  I had been leaving them around for some of the other fighters and sparring partners to use in their preparation (there's really only 2 other pairs of gloves you can spar with at the club).  The problem is that, like every MMA gym, there's a revolving door of highschool and college kids who come in thinking they're tough and leave after a few weeks of getting their limbs tied in knots and their bottoms spanked like toddlers. At least in Korea they don't show up in TAPOUT and Affliction gear to show how serious they are about MMA.  I'm sure one of these wannabes took the gloves. Given the family environment at Daegu MMA I can't imagine any of the regulars touching them.   On Monday I was hitting pads with Un Sik and he asked where my gloves were.  When he heard what happened he was pissed.  He pulled all of the highschool kids to the side as a group and absolutely reamed them out.  I'm not sure what he said, but they looked scared.  I felt a bit bad because all of the kids that were there are regulars and I'm sure they didn't touch the gloves.  I hope he was just mobilizing the troops to find out where the gloves ended up.
Side Note: While I was looking on the net for some replacement gloves that would ship from inside Korea I noticed that Koreans use the term "Battle Pants" instead of "Fight Shorts".  I think that sounds way cooler and, effective immediately, I will be referring to all of my shorts as "Battle Pants".

New GYM Location
The new Daegu MMA location is set up ad we've been using it all week.  It's a little smaller than the last place but much nicer, a little more open and in a much better location to attract traffic.  Being on the fourth floor with no air conditioning makes the new gym a bit of a sweat box. Temperatures are hitting 30 + degrees these days and it's only going to get hotter.  When you're training in a gi it's not such a big deal, because the gi soaks up most of the sweat, but no-gi, MMA or kickboxing is a different story.  The mats get pretty slick and I've seen a few cases of "bambi legs" already.  I'm not looking forward to the temperature in there during the hot and humid monsoon season.  I'll post some pics of training at the new place in the next week.

Cans, Bottles, Pets.

Increased Training
I've picked up my training again in the last few weeks.  I have an injury that limits what I can do in certain situations but certainly does not prevent me from training.  I got a little caught up in feeling sorry for myself and was letting the things I couldn't do get in the way of the things I could do, and that should never happen.  I'm not sure what shook me out of it but my workouts have been a lot better lately.  I've been doing a lot more stand up sparring lately, especially because a lot of the guys have had kickboxing fights to get ready for.  There are a lot more opportunities to fight for our club right now and I think that I'll take a fight before I leave.  I won't be fighting at 100%, but no one really ever does and I've competed with worse injuries.  I think if I went home without fighting at least once I'd be mad at myself for a long time.


Usain Bolt and Company
The World Track and Field Championships are coming to Daegu in 2011 and to lead up to it the venue is hosting a few preparation meets to get the logistics ironed out.  The last of these meets is this Wednesday.  The lineup for the meet is pretty wild.  4 former Olympic Champions and about a bazillion world champs, olympic medalists and world medalists.  Usain Bolt will be here to run the 100m which should be pretty awesome.  I'm pretty excited for this.  I love track and field and I love watching people who are the best at what they do. Watching the best track athletes in the world is double +++ in my books.

ENGRISHEE!
I found a few more good Konglish signs lately.  These are two of my favourites.

Man, they recycle everything here.

This is either a place where a dude can get his hair cut by another dude, or one of `those` barbershops.

New club, New Weekend Job
Daegu MMA is moving it's location to an area that is a little more advantageous as far as visibility and passing traffic.  Daegu MMA is also starting a weekend kids program for elementary school students.  A little bit of wrestling, a little bit of jiu jitsu, and a little bit of kickboxing.  In Korea having English speaking instructors is a big deal and a major draw so they asked if I would coach the program. I really like coaching kids, especially in an environment where we can run around, roll around and play combative games. and said yes before I even knew they were going to pay me.


Things Koreans are Awesome at: Parking
Because space is at such a premium in Korea Koreans are amazing at parking.  They fit cars vans and trucks ito spaces you would never even attempt in the western world, and they usually do it on the first try.
Today I saw a guy park his van so close to a wall he couldn't even open the sliding door.  No joke.  Fact is, if you can't park like this, you proabably can't drive in Korea.
Things Koreans Suck at: Signaling
Koreans don't feel the need to signal anything.  Instead they just fly their car into the smallest opening and lay on the horn if someone looks like they're coming too close or weren't able to telepathically anticipate the lane change or turn.  If you see someone with their blinker on it simply means "Hey loser, quit riding my bumper and go around."

The Tornado is Back... Big Time
Un Sik "Tornado" Song (8-0) finished his mandatory military service about a month ago.  It didn't take him long to get back in the action. Un Sik fought two weeks ago in DEEP: Grachan against Atsushi Ueda (8-3) and won via unanimous decision.  He said he had his opponent in a deep triangle and an armbar and had the guy fully mounted but couldn't finish him.  He seemed a bit embarassed that he gassed towards the end of the fight, but give the guy a break, he hadn't fought in two years.  Now that he's back to training full time his conditioning shouldn't be a factor for long.  Un Sik isn't working a part time job, and is instead focusing on fighting.  He has set himself a pretty tough schedule for his first months back.  After his last fight he has a pro kickboxing match next month and then another fight in DEEP the month after that.  If he wins that fight it looks like he'll be getting a title shot against Katsunori Kikuno (13-2), who also fights in DREAM.  The return of 'Tornado San" has been getting some decent attention on the interwebs, with articles and people commenting about his fight here, here and here.

Un Sik has really been working on his wrestling a lot lately.  I haven't been able to scrimmage with him lately but we work technique together and then I run him through drills and situational scrimmaging with other guys.  the speed that he picks up techniques is mind blowing.  His kinesthetic memory is probably the best I've ever seen.  He can see a complicated technique once and use it in a live situation almost immediately. Scary.  he's really jacked about the improvement in his wrestling.  Yesterday he told me that in 20 amateur and professional fights he has never scored a takedown on a leg attack and that is going to do it in his next fight.  We've also been doing a lot of pummeling and clinch work, especially against the wall.  His last fight and his next one are in a cage and it's an area of MMA he's never really worked on before.  It seems like more and more Japanese organizations are starting to use cages and Asian fighters definitely need to learn that part of the game.

Here's a video of me, Heung Kol and Un Sik in between matches at a tournament.

Un Sik and John warming up before some kickboxing sparring.

In other Daegu MMA news "Little GSP" as he's known, has his first kcikboxing match coming up next month.  he's been working pretty hard with a lot of the older guys.  It's kind of fun to watch a 16 year old kid go from total goofball to focused fighter training for a fight.  This kid has really stepped up his training in the last while and I'll be keeping my eye on him when I leave Korea.

Engrishee!
I spotted a good piece of Konglish on my drink the other day. Koreans love their vitamin drinks. I don't even know what kind of vitamins are in these drinks but they must be good right?  Even if there's nothing in it at least I'll feel more confident, at least according to the copy on the can.

Ho Shin Sool, KING OF THE CAGE and XCC


The boys are ready to rock again.  Jeff, Ray, Trevor and Johnny are going to represent Ho Shin Sool at King of the Cage on May 8th at the Dreamakes Theater.  Everything I heard about the last event was great, here's hoping this one is just as good and better.  My brother, Mitch, and Adrian Vilaca are also going to be fighting soon in Birch Run, under the MUTT MMA banner.  Here's the poster for the KOTC event, with Trevor and Jeff on it.  I heard that there are some renovations coming up at Ho Shin Sool.  After seeing that poster I hope they put a tanning bed in the basement.





Genki Sudo Appreciation

Living in Asia I've really learned a lot about the Asian MMA scene.  I've learned a lot about a lot of differnt fighters and seen a lot of awesome fights that have never been broadcasted in North America.  One fighterthat I've become a huge fan of is Genki Sudo.  I always knew who he was, but never knew much about him until  recently.  The guy is a phenomenal fighter, carries a positive message with him all the time and is very interesting to listen to in his inerviews.  Sudo started as a wrestler, but developed all around MMA skills so quickly that he was soon taking on and beating World Class kickboxers in Striking only K1 matches.  His fighting style is impossible to pin down.  He might switch from a pure grappling style into drunken boxing before throwing in "the robot" and using his Muay Thai to finish a fight.  That's to say nothing of his ring entrances that make Mayhem Miller look like he's walking in off the street in jeans and a T Shirt. Genki Sudo fought in the UFC three times, going 2-1 but fought most of his fights in Asia, which is too bad for North American fans.  Do yourself a favour and watch the documentary that I posted at the top right.  It's about 40 minutes long and split into 5 parts.  I posted the first two.  It's a cool documentary with good fight highlights and interviews and it's well produced.  I have a tough time imagining that any MMA fan could watch the documentary and not be a fan of the guy.  As a matter of fact I think everyone, fight fan or not, would appreciate a lot of the interview sections.  After all, Sudo mentions that to him MMA was a in many ways just the medium to get his message across to as large an audience as possible.

DREAMing?
DREAM FC is having their first event outside of Japan in April and luckily for me it's going to be in Seoul.  Daegu MMA is planning a big "family trip" to go watch which should be tons of fun.  No idea yet about who's on the card but hopefully they put some of the big names on it.

Real Korean Dinner
On Friday I stayed and trained at the club pretty late.  As I was leaving some of the Koreans asked if I wanted to go for family dinner with them.  They took me to a little restaurant down the street.  The word restaurant is a bit flattering.  The place had two actual walls while the other two were made from a heavy duty clear plastic tarp.  The tables were old oil drums flipped upside down with a coal burner in the middle.  These places are pretty common in Korea, but it's hard to go in and order if you don;t speak Korean very well.  I like having Korean friends who take me to legitimately Korean places.  I know some people here who pretty much stick to the foreign community and never experience a lot of the cool things Korea has to offer.

Monkey Boy
There are four 15 and 16 year old kids that train at Daegu MMA everyday.  They're pretty damn good.  Before I leave I`ll be writing down their names to keep for future reference; I think we might be hearing from some of them in the future.  One kid in particular cracks me up.  He calls himself `little GSP`.  I call him `monkey boy`.  He loves the UFC more than anything and makes me laugh all the time.  He does some hilarious impressions of some UFC fighters.   I tried to get him to do a few but he was a little camera shy and only did two of them.  Check it out, I think his Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson takes are pretty on point.

Lil' Korean buddy from Brent Fryia on Vimeo.


 
Belt Testing
For the last few months all of the guys from Daegu MMA have been telling me that I should test for my blue belt before I leave to go home.  I thought that would be a great idea and told them that I would do it.  Then they kept hassling me about.  Again.        And again.       And.       Again.     At least once a week someone would remind me about it.  I know there are belt tests every two months so I wasn't too worried about it.  Last Tuesday they told me that there was a test on Sunday that I should go to.  I told them that I didn't think I was ready to test for my blue belt at which point they informed me that I had to test for my FIRST STRIPE on my white belt.  Silly me, I was under the impression that you tested for your blue belt and if you didn't get it you were awarded however many stripes the instructors thought you deserved.  I don't know why I thought that, but i did.  I should have known there was no cutting the line here, especially since there's guys here who have been white belts for over two years.
The belt test was administered by a visiting black belt, Jae Hoon (brown belt) and Un Sik (purple belt).  There were a few guys from our club testing for various stripes and my friend Yeung Sey testing for his blue belt.  there were also 8 or 10 guys from other clubs who were testing for various stripes of white and another guy who was testing for his blue belt.  The group was split into 2.  The first group was for anyone testing for their first or second stripe white belt and everyone else was in the second group.  Each group had about a half hour technique session where they were asked by the upper belts to demonstrate various guard passes, sweeps, submission and proper positional control.  Even thought the test for one stripe was very basic it was actually nice to spend that much time working on some fundamental stuff.
After the technique session each group had a 25 minute sparring session with rotating partners.  This is where Being with the lower level group I felt a little bit like Adam Sandler in 'Billy Madison'.  You know that scene where he says `now you`re all in BIG, BIG trouble!`   That`s how I felt.  When I spar with the younger or less experienced guys I usually give up some positions and work from a disadvantage.  This day was a little different because of the testing. I went pretty hard and didn`t cut anybody any slack.  When my group was finished the evaluators moved me into the more advanced group for sparring.  That was fine by me as I wasn`t too keen to sit around watching for a half hour and I usually spar with the upper level belts anyways.
After the evaluation the instructors conferred for a while while we layed around and stretched out.  Eventually they called everyone t line up for the awarding of belts and stripes.  There was a lot of bowing and traditional stuff going on that I had no idea about.  I did my best to just follow what the guys next to me were doing and not look like a pumpkin in a watermelon patch.  When I was awarded my sad, lonely little stripe on my belt all of the older guys from the club laughed at me.  Fair enough, I think most of the guys that I tested with were more concerned about their 10th grade math test than their jiu jitsu belt test.  When Un Sik gave me the stripe on my belt he said Ì think you four stripes but today one stripe`, which at least let me know were I stood in terms of actual ability.  At least if I test every two months until I leave I`ll have all 4 stripes and will be able to test for my blue belt as soon as I get back to Canada.
It`s interesting to note that not everyone was awarded the rank they were testing for.  Yeung Sey did get his blue belt which was a pretty big deal, but the guy who came from one of the other clubs did not.  It`s nice to know that it isn`t a `pay and get your belt`kind of deal and that everything has to be earned.

Something I love about Korea.
Dedicated space to run and play.  Space is at a premium in Korea.  The country is about the size of southern Ontario, is 70% mountains and has 50 million people.  Needless to say buildings expand vertically, not horizontally.  Despite this, almost every middle and high school has beautiful full sized turf fields and fully rubberized tracks.  When not being used by the schools these playgrounds are a freee for al for anyone to play whatever game or sport they choose.  There are always young kids with their parents playing some games, old folks walking the track and some serious athletes training all in the same place.  it`s pretty cool to see a country recognize the importance of physical activity and set aside space specifically for that purpose, even when it would be wildly profitable to use the space for something else.

 

A typical school field near my house where I occasionally go to run, kick a ball or throw a frisbee.

Something I hate about Korea

Bath towels.  Towels here are about the size of a dollar bill and just as absorbent.  That`s fine if you`re Korean.  Koreans have less body hair as adults than I did  when I was born.  Most of them could probably just dry themselves with a squeegee, so the tiny towels are probably ok.  If, on the other hand, youve ever been mistaken for a throw rug, like I have, these things just don`t cut it.  I`m glad we brought a few regular towels when we came.

Good Action!

After not competing for the first four months of being in Korea I've now competed twice in a month.  It feels good to get back into a competitive environment and let everything fly.
This weekend was the Korean Machado Open. The tournament was mostly the Jiu Jitsu teams affiliated with Team Machado in Korea (there are six) but there was a smattering of guys form other clubs as well.  As a sidebar, the word "Machado" was misspelled on one of the main tournament banners as "Machdo".  I am coming to expect things like this from Korea.   Luckily for me this tournament was in Daegu which meant no late night/early morning weight cutting and no having to pull our coach out of a gentleman's club before the tournament like last time.  It also meant I could get home at a reasonable hour instead of going to bed at 2:30 am after fighting all day and then having to work in the morning.

A little more Konglish.. you can't escape it.

The tournament was held in a large school gym, like most tournaments in North America. One of the big differences is that in Korea they tend not to heat a lot places that we heat at home.  Places like bathrooms, hallways and, you guessed it, school gyms. The tournament was generally well organized but the lack of heat made things tough.  The mats were so hard we might as well have been fighting on the gym floor.  Getting warmed up for a matches was a major challenge.  If you look at the pictures and video you can see that just about everybody is wearing a winter coats in the gym, even the referees and most of the guys warming up.  I'm surprised there weren't more injuries with guys jumping in to action with cold and stiff muscles.
I competed in the gi and no-gi divisions, with this being the first time I ever competed in the gi.   I won my first match by armbar after two quick takedowns for points. That would be the last takedown I scored all day.  It turns out my first opponent had a reputation as being pretty decent in the takedown department.  After my match with him not one single opponent would fight me on the feet.  Every guy "buttflopped' as soon as the ref said "fight"  They just sat right down and tried to pull me into their guard to avoid being taken down and giving up points.  It got so ridiculous at one point that when one of my opponents in no gi sat down I sat down too.  We looked pretty stupid sitting there facing each other.  He stood up, I stood up.  He sat back down, I sat back down.  I was trying to make  a point but I think it got lost in translation.

My first ever Gi Jiu Jitsu match

I won my first two matches in the gi and then lost in the semi final.  The match was very close, but I eventually got caught in a triangle after fending off a half dozen submission attempts.  I wasn't altogether happy with the match as I got caught being a little lazy. I was also rushing things.  Every time I would get an advantage position I was in such a hurry to score that I made careless mistakes and missed my opportunity.  That was the end of my day in the gi.  I was awarded the bronze medal as they simply give bronze medals to the losers of the semi finals.  I would much rather have fought to declare a true bronze medalist.
When the no gi division started I made a conscious effort to try and finish all of my opponents as opposed to try and outwrestle them and hang on for a points victory. I wanted to attack with submissions and really see where I was i that department.  I was at the tournament to test my jiu jitsu after all, not my wrestling.
I won my first no gi match by north-south choke fairly quickly, my second by armbar, and my third by D'arce choke.  I was on a roll.  I was especially happy with my second match.  even thought the score was 0-0 when I submitted him I had threatened with an armbar, triangle and kimura before finishing with an armbar. The video of the match is posted in the top right corner.  You can also see how impressed I was after the guy buttflopped 0.01 seconds into the match.
My third match irked me a little bit. I was winning 5-0 when we got into a scramble.  I ended up on top in half guard.  I set up the D'arce and hit it just the way I wanted to.  I heard the guy say "tap, tap" so I let go and rolled off. When I rolled off of him, the guy tackled me and tried to take me down.  I looked up at the ref with the universal expression for "What the....?". He shrugged his shoulders and gave me the universal look for "What? Keep fighting."  Luckily for me we were right beside the chair judge when the guy verbally submitted.  The chair judge came over and explained to the ref that the other guy definitely submitted. Even though I won I was a little cheezed.  That's dirty pool where I come from, especially at a tournament where all of the teams are loosely affiliated.
Three wins put me in the finals against the same guy who beat me in the gi division.  This time I knew his game a little bit and came with a much better game plan of my own.  I was patient while still pressuring him for most of the match.  When I was able to gain a slight advantage I kept the pressure on without rushing.  I was eventually able to win the match by a score of 6-0 with one solid submission attempt. Sweet redemption.
On the whole I finished the tournament 6-1 with four submissions.  The level of competition wasn't ridiculously high, but I managed to have some good scraps and was pretty happy overall.  Finishing off the day by avenging my loss from earlier was a nice cherry to top it off.

Most of Team Machado Korea (Those who were still around after the awards ceremony).

Tournament notes
It was cool to have some friends come out to watch. I've never been the kind of guy to say "come out and watch me compete" but when people show up it's always nice.

Extra limbs? It's hard not to stereotype physical traits to an ethnic group when every single Korean I've trained with or competed against has a kind of flexibility that boggles my mind.  Sometimes I have an opponent down and think I know exactly what's going on only to have an unaccounted for leg creep around into a dangerous position.  I can clearly remember thinking "where the hell is that leg coming from?"  during a match this weekend.

Team Wayguk.  There are four foreigners (waygukins) who train regularly at Daegu MMA.  All four of us competed.  I think if we would have entered simply as "Team Wayguk" we would have done pretty well in the No Gi division.  We finished with 3 golds and one silver.
There were a couple of other foreigners who came to the tournament from Gwanju.  One of them was a blue belt from the Gracie Orlando school.  I talked to him for a while and was glad to hear him echo my sentiments regarding the quality of competitors in Korea.  He agreed that the standards for advancing in rank here seem very high compared to North America.


Where are the wrestlers?  Jiu Jitsu is a growing sport in Korea.  I wonder when Korean wrestlers are going to start crossing over like they have in North America.  Korean wrestles have a reputation for being as tough as nails, they could do some serious damage in the sport.



Something awesome about Korea:
Sports on TV.  Since I've been here I've watched the World Handball Championships, World Weightlifting (Olympic lifting) Championships, Korean Ssirrum (traditional wrestling) championships, Asian Table Tennis Championships and every major MMA event free on cable TV.  Don't get me wrong, I love watching football and can be convinced to watch playoff hockey, baseball or basketball but the variety of sports that air here is awesome.
Something not awesome about Korea:
My apartment.  Brutally cold, heat and water that breaks in the middle of winter, no air conditioning for the monsoon season and mold on the walls.

Special Shout Out:
To my buddy Jim Alers. Jim and I met when working at Camp Cayuga a few years ago.  Jim is a 4-0 pro fighter and recently won the East Coast Abu Dhabi trials in the purple belt division. Way to go dude, have fun in Dubai.

Just a Shorty

Even tough guys aren't immune to Konglish
Just a quick note today...
After a slow week last week (I took a few days off to heal my body after the Sambo championships) I've been back at it hard this week.  I think I'll be travelling to a jiu jitsu tournament in a few weeks so I'm trying to get as much mat time as possible.

Yesterday "Nuna", the club manager, gave me a bunch of patches to wear on my gi.  I guess I've finally made the cut and can now represent the club with their logo on my back.  One of my other teammates actually asked me a little while ago why I didn't have any Machado Jiu Jitsu or Daegu MMA patches on my gi.  I told him that he would know better that me since I don't speak Korean and had no idea how to get some.  The best part about the patches though is the "Konglish" phrase on one of them.  It's a pretty typical English translation from Korea.  Check it out.

I can see what they're getting at, but I think they were after something like "Those who desire victory must be willing to pay the price."

I'll be heading out of Daegu again for another tournament on Feb. 7th.  After not competing for so long it's nice to get two tournaments in a month.  They are calling this tournament the National Championships, but it's really only the National Championships for jiu jitsu clubs that are affiliated with Machado Jiu Jitsu.  From what I hear, the quality of competition is quite high, as I would imagine. In the gi tournament There are two divisions for white belt (basic and advanced), the blue belts get their own division and purple, brown and black belts all compete together.  In No-Gi there are beginner, intermediate and advanced divisions.  I'll be competing in the advanced white belt (gi) category and making a big jump to the advanced division in no gi.  Even in the white belt division I'm sure to have some trouble. It's possible that I wouldn't even win my weight class if there was a white belt tournament just for Daegu MMA members.  There's a few guys around my weight who give me tons of trouble everyday in training.

Something Awesome about Korea:

The city bus system.  I know I've talked about transit here before but the bus system here puts most North American bus systems to shame.  The buses run every ten minutes, but that's not even the best part. Every bus has 3 identifying numbers.  Each number corresponds to a part of town.  For example: I live in Siji. Siji is #9 on the bus routes. That means I can get on the 459, 938, 129, 396 or any bus that has the #9 anywhere in it's number.  You don;t have to know the bus route or schedules at all.  It's so easy it's almost ridiculous.

Something not so Awesome about Korea:

Sidewalks made of marble and smooth stone.  When it rains the sidewalks are mega slippery.  You know those slippery shoes that curlers wear on one foot to glide down the ice?  Try wearing two of them and then getting to work on an ice rink.  That's what it's like when it rains here.  It's extra dangerous when you are stepping from a surface with good grip to the smooth stone.  You're lucky if your lead foot doesn't go shooting ahead of you and split you in half for your troubles.

I'm just a wrestler who's trying to learn Jiu-Jitsu but my coach took me to a Judo practice because I have a Sambo tournmanent coming up. Capiche?

I'm finally going to get to compete in Korea.  Not in MMA, not in Jiu Jitsu, but in the sport of Sambo. Sambo is a Russian martial art closely related to Judo, Jiu Jitsu and Wrestling.  I actually think my skills are a little more suited to Sambo competition than Jiu Jitsu.  Sambo emphasizes takedowns and, like wrestling if noting is happening on the ground the referee will stand you back up to fight from the feet.  If you throw your opponent off of his feet onto his back you win automatically, like in Judo.  You can also submit your opponent for the win, but there are no chokes allowed.  Sambo practitioners are well known for their leg locks.   In Sambo you wear a Gi top with some shorty-shorts, half way between a wrestling and Jiu Jitsu/Judo uniform.  Here's a Sambo highlight of a guy who is apparently one of the best Samboists of all time.

Only 5 guys from the club going to the tournament in Seoul; me, Po Ku, Hyon Gul, Un Sik and Yeong Sai.  These guys are pretty much the studs of the club so I feel like I'm in pretty good company.  When I showed up to Jiu Jitsu tonight Jae Hoon told me "No Jiu Jitsu.  Tournament team, Judo training."  It took me a while to figure out that we were actually driving across town to a Judo club to work on our takedowns in the Gi with the Judo guys.  They probably told me yesterday. Then again, they probably told me in Korean. Funny that we drove all the way across town when there's a Judo club across the street. Martial Arts politics rears it's head again;  across the street.. not friends.  Across town... friends.

Doing Judo again was pretty cool.  Judo is a takedown based sport like wrestling, but the gi changes things a lot.  Being a lot more comfortable in the Gi these days made the transition a lot easier than the first time I tried it back when I was in University in Thunder Bay.  I dare to say that I held my own with the black belts and even scored some decent throws. I think the Judo guys were a bit surprised as they were expecting a bunch of Jiu Jitsu players.  Yeong Sai is also a very good Ssirum (Korean wrestling) wrestler and he was chucking guys around as well.  Ssirum is a very traditional sport, dating back to at least 65 BC.  In Korea the big national tournaments are still a pretty big deal and are televised.  All of the Ssirum dudes I've met are tough customers and can throw like crazy.  I'd like to find a place to give it a try.  Check it out.


Anywho, I'll bring my camera and try to get lots of pictures and video of the tournament.  If I get thrown or armbarred, you will see noting.

My Life is so Cold.

S.. S..S.. So C.. C.. Cold
I've been back to regular training for a little while now.  While it's great being back, the conditions at the club are not ideal for training right now.  The club is extremely cold.  People who are not training are usually wearing coats and tuques and you can see your breath when training.  The temperature makes it really hard to get warmed up and loosened out.  If you do manage to get a good sweat on it takes about one minute of rest for your body to cool down and your muscles tighten up.  This is the kind of environment that leads to injuries pretty easily.  I'm doing my best to stay warm (I wear tights and long sleeves under my gi) but it sure isn't easy. 

It's possible to keep most of your body relatively warm if you keep moving but it's your feet that are the problem.  Everything in Korea is heated with floor heat but because Daegu MMA has mats from wall to wall they can't heat that way.  The heated floors would soften the mats and make them useless and dangerous in a hurry.  Instead of floor heat we've got a big space heater that is about five feet tall and four feet wide.  You'd think it would keep the place warm, but not so.  There's a radius of about 4 feet around the heater that is warm and the rest of the place is freezing.  The mats are so cold that after training last night I had to walk to the subway extra slow because I felt like my feet were going to shatter.  I think it's time to break out the wrestling shoes.  The only cool (pun intended)  thing about the situation is that after a sparring session everyone is steaming and it looks pretty rad.

I`ve been battling a cold the last week or so too.  It`s pretty much done with now but let me tell ya, when your sinuses are congested getting caught in a triangle choke is one of the worst feelings imaginable.  I felt like my head was going to explode like a a green snot bomb.  

Speaking of freezing,  the heat and water in our apartment stopped working on Friday and still isn`t fixed. This has been one of the oldest winters that people in Daegu can remember.  Korea is a lot warmer than Canada but my life here is freezing, I can never get warm. I think I`ll be spending a lot more time at the jimjilbang this week.
  
Seoul and The DMZ
Lisa`s family came for a visit over the holidays which was great.  We spent some time in Daegu, Seoul and went to the DMZ.  The DMZ was awesome. Learned a lot of history and got to see some interesting things.  Our tour guides were American airborn infantry and they were pretty awesome. It`s pretty crazy to stand on the border of two countries that are still at war and have soldiers from the other side watch you with binoculars. Here`s few pictures.

In this picture you can see one of our guides and behind him are South Korean soldiers keeping an eye on the North Korean`s.  You can see the North Koreans shoveling snow in the background.

If you look closely enough in this picture you can see the North Korean guard looking at us with his binoculars.  Intense.

This is a cargo train that got caught in a crossfire during the war.  It has over 1200 bullet holes in it and never reached it`s destination, obviously.  It was stopped on what ended up being the border between North and South Korea and had a memorial built around it.

Things I love about Korea...
History at your fingertips.  Korea has a bunch of UNESCO world heritage sites and all kinds of historic temples and artifacts that are easy to get to.  The history and culture of Korea is very interesting and very accessible to anyone who`s even moderately motivated to check things out.

Things I hate about Korea...
The Anti English Spectrum.  This is a real beauty of an organization who`s goal is to rid Korea of all foreigners.  They like to send press releases to the Korean media with fantastically researched claims.  Here`s a few gems from the spectrum.  The vast majority of foreigners in Korea are HIV positive.  Most foreign men are sexual predators with a particular interest in underage girls.  I know, I know, I was as surprised to learn it as you.  The worst part about it is the Korean media is not real big on fact checking and often runs with these stories.


Misc...
I`ve been contacted to write a column for TopMMANews.com.  They are the biggest Canadian MMA site on the web.    My next article should be up within the next two days.

High Standards or Sandbaggers?

I want to start off by saying that the jiu jitsu standards at Daegu MMA are extremely high.  I've rolled with some really tough dudes back at home. I've rolled with belts of all colours including black and brown.  I've been successful in grappling tournaments.  I trained with the National no-gi champ right before I left for Korea and didn't feel the least bit out of my element.  Things are different here.  Every blue belt in the place will choke me out quick if I'm not right on my game.  There are white belts who give me heaps of trouble.  Purple belts?  Forget about it.  When I'm at my best and they're at their worst I can keep it pretty even... in no-gi at least.

To put hings in perspective, there's an American guy here who had a blue belt from his club in the states.  After a few weeks at Daegu MMA he started wearing a white belt again.  One of the purple belts here won the Korean Abu Dhabi Trials against black and brown belts.  As I said, standards are high. The Jiu Jitsu curriculum here is centered around competition.  Sport Jiu Jitsu takes precedence over self defense techniques, although there is obviously lots of overlap.  It takes a long, long time to advance your belt ranking here.  There are people who have been white belts for years and train almost everyday.

One of the good things about Jiu Jitsu is that a Jiu Jitsu blackbelt still symbolizes years of study nd true mastery of the sport.  Jiu Jitsu rankings haven't been corroded by the money making McDojo's who hand out belts for cash like many other of the traditional martial arts.  The Jiu Jitsu community polices itself constantly and is absolutely ruthless with those who fake or embelish their credentials or Jiu Jitsu lineage.  Daegu MMA seems to hold true to that ideal.  A blue belt from this club really means something. 

The flip side of the coin is that some of the competitors here probably could move up in ranking but haven't taken their belt test.  Having to move into the blue/purple belt division in competition is a major deterent for some people.  At home, people would probably call this sandbagging; competing in a division that you probably should have moved out of so that you can still win.  The Koreans definitely don't look at this as a negative thing the way it's looked at at home.  The common belief is that it keeps the standards for progrssign throught the belts high.  This is true, but at the same time I think it might hold some promising grapplers back a little bit by keeping them from stepping up to tougher competition.

I waffle back-and-forth about whether or not these very high standards hurt or help in the long run.  In the end, I usually settle on the fact that regardless of belt ranking I get to roll every day with a lot of tough dudes and will be much better for it.

Me and one of my homies, Po Kue.  He is a 90 kg stud and one of my favourite training partners.

Notice the blood on me and not Po Kue.

New Vision Quest Movie?!?!

I've posted the dramatic conclusion to "Vision Quest".  Louden Swain's showdown with Shute is pretty awesome, but I wonder what it would look like in an updated version.  We may just get a chance to find out.  Rumour has it the guy who plays the werewolf in the Twilight movies wants to play the role of Louden Swain.  Check it out.

Daegu, Daegu, FIGHTING!

Daegu MMA in Action
The last week has been pretty empty inside Daegu MMA.  There have still been lots of people training but the studs have either been away fighting or helping to corner the fighters.  The intensity of training has been a little lower this week, but to be honest, I feel like my body needed the rest.  I feel refreshed and ready to get back at it full tilt.

Un Sik "The Tornado" Song won his kickboxing fight at "W" by second round KO.  He scored two knockdowns before putting his guy away for good.  Un Sik's fight was the main event, getting top billing over a fighter who has competed in K1.  It sounds like he was all over his opponent from start to finish.  After watching him train and spar (and getting punched around by him a lot) I'm glad to know that his Kickboxing is as good as I thought.

Un Sik re-aranging some facial features

Across the sea, Heung Gull lost a very tough split decision to Akihiko Mori in Tokyo, Japan.  I haven't talked to him yet but it sounds like he dominated the first round with striking and almost finished the fight from the bottom when he got taken down at the end of the round.  The second round was a toss up and in the third Heung Gull got taken down and couldn't get anything going from the bottom.  He didn't take any real damage but he was down there for the whole round.  Sounds like the fight could have gone either way, but I wish I could have seen it since the only info I have is second hand from some biased sources.  As mainly a Jiu Jitsu practitioner, Heung Gull has different ideas about cutting weight than I do.   His Jiu Jitsu competition weight is 62 kg.  while the fight against Mori was at 70 kg.  I was worried that a weight disadvantage might hurt him in the later rounds if the fight went long... I don't know if this was the case or not but I personally wouldn't fight at 70 kg and I'm a bit bigger than Heung Gull.  The cool thing is that I think Heung Gull fights for fun.  He is first and foremost a Jiu Jitsu player and is now busy preparing for the Asian Abhu Dhabi trials, having already won the Korean trials.

The best thing about Un Sik and Heung Gull is that neither guy missed a single day of training after their fights.  They were both right back at it the day they got back to Daegu.  Tough dudes.


Competition on the Horizon
There's a little more than three weeks until  I compete in my first Jiu Jitsu tournament in Korea.  I don't know if it's a big tournament or a small one, if the divisions are separated by belt or if they lump everyone together.  I do know that the weight class is 68 kg.   This is pretty much my natural weight right now, so that's where I'll compete.. there's no way I'm cutting to 62 kg.  I've picked up the amount of weight training that I've been doing and would like to get back up to a solid 70 kg and cut to 68 for grappling and 66/65 for MMA.  There is also the off chance that I might end up fighting an amateur Kickboxing fight at some point.  When Jae Hoon (The owner and coach at Daegu MMA) talked to me about fighting he said "Amateur Kickboxing, no probrem". I trust him, but I'd still rather fight MMA where I can take I guy down if need be. And get paid.
Over the next few weeks I'll be doing the regular jiu jitsu classes as well as splitting time with Un Sik and Jae Hoon, working on my kickboxing and Un Sik's wrestling.


Unrelated...
Last week I went into my regular coffee shop, the one I stop in at just about every morning on my way to work.  There were some guys there putting in a new, bigger front window.  As I was leaving one of the guys was blocking my way.  I couldn't help but think "Hey buddy, you make a better window than a door...".   Gold!

Lost in Daegu, Turkey Day and a Bit of Payback Wrestling Style.

There's no 'Bed Bath & Beyond' in Korea... But a nice little Saturday nonetheless.

Saturday I got up early and headed out to meet up with a friend. Armed with the most basic Korean language skills, a couple of dollars in my pocket and some directions written in Korean that I copied off the interent I set out for my rendezvous. If you know me and my sense of direction you probably already know I never found the place or the person I was looking for. No matter though, I decided to cash in the silver lining and explore a cool new part of Daegu that I had never seen. I walked through a lot of interesting traditional shops and found the Daegu music district where I priced out a few guitars for a later date. Eventually I stumbled across a subway station which meant I was home free. Good thing too, 'cause I had no phone, was lost and had apparently copied my directions down wrong. I decided to hit the Seomun Market where you can buy just about anything for really cheap. The place is huge and there are different sections for produce, textiles, shoes, clothing, seafood, housewares, hats, bags and all sorts of other stuff. You could easily spend all day there just walking around, checking out the cool foods and vendors (check out the video of the pig "snack bar"). After a while I made my way back to Daegu MMA where I had a good Saturday workout and then hit the neighbourhood Jimjillbang, something I'm glad to say is becoming a Saturday tradition with some of the boys.



Picking up the pace at Daegu MMA
Everyday at Daegu MMA Heung Gull tests the limits of the connective tissue in my arms, neck and legs. I get submitted a lot. Without the gi I'm happy to keep it even, in the gi I have to set smaller goals such as "don't die". Wednesday was different. Heung Gull is fighting a wrestler soon so we've been doing more wrestling. On Wednesday we scrimmaged. Just the two of us. Ten 3 minute sessions. I beat him like he was the bully who picked on me and stole my lunch money in elementary school and we were meeting 10 years later after I grew two feet, hit the weights and figured out that I was good at inflicting pain on people. I tried to steal his soul. Heung Gull is just good enough at wrestling that I can use some of my really good stuff on him. He reacts properly, which allows me to set up and hit some of my best techniques. I threw everything in my repertoire at him and then some. Doubles, singles, high crotch, shoulder throw, front headlock, stepper, hip toss, whizzer, over under, inside leg trip. I hit them all and I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel gooooooooooood. Unfortunately, as every fighter knows, Some days you're the hammer and some days you're the nail. The next day was back to Gi Jiu Jitsu. With Heung Gull I'm more often the nail than the hammer.
Things have been ramping up at Daegu MMA. Un Sik has a kickboxing fight on Halloween night, Heung Gull is fighting in DEEP in November and there is a Jiu Jitsu tournament in early December. There are a lot more guys training a lot harder these days and more sparring partners to choose from. Wednesdays no gi class has had more of an MMA slant to it lately and people have been doing more MMA based drills and conditioning during open mat. It's a good atmosphere.
Heung Gall's opponent in DEEP is Mori Akihiko. Akihiko's record of 7-6 doesn't tell the whole story. He's fought in Sengoku, DEEP, K1 and many other quality promotions in Asia. He's been in the ring with some some very tough hombres. I've been working on the wresting clinch with Heung Gall quite a bit as Akihiko seems to like to bully people into the corner, tie them up and try to drag them down to the ground. From what I've sen I think Heung Gull's Jiu Jitsu and striking are better than Akihiko's. Even if Heung Gull does get taken down, this might not be a bad thing as long as he doesn't end up mounted or in side control. It's an interesting fight, I hope I can make the trip to watch.



Turkey Day & Pumpkin Carving
Being away from home on the holidays is never great, but lucky for us we have some awesome friends that hosted a Canadian Thanksgiving Day to make everyone feel a little more at home. Karen and Brian prepared a full thanksgiving spread and there were contributions from everyone else as well. There were no turkeys to be found anywhere in the city, but it's just as well, they probably wouldn't have fit in the toaster oven like the chickens did. Ovens don't really exist in Korea.
About 15 people took part in the festivities; most were Canadian but there were a few Americans and an Irishman stirred in for flavour.
The same friends, Karen and Brian, also hosted a pumpkin carving night as a low key alternative to our regular Friday night festivities. Unfortunately the pumpkins were carved pretty quickly and what followed was a 4:00 am Noraebang session. Some people should sing. Some people shouldn't. Sometimes Soju convinces people from group 1 that they belong to group 2.



The Contradictions of Korea

Before I left for Korea I had some friends who had been there tell me that I would run into all sorts of things that just didn't make sense. So True.

Example #1:
Being caught behind a Korean girl on the escalator is awkward; they wear skirts that have shorter inseams than some brief-cut underwear I own. Suffice it to say that girls would not be allowed to wear skirts like that in a Disney film. This seems to be perfectly ok with everybody. On the other hand, Koreans find it absolutely SCANDALOUS for a girl to show her shoulders. How dare they!?

Example #2: Blowing red lights is ok. Driving on the sidewalk is ok. Cutting off cyclists and pedestrians is ok. But don't you dare jaywalk, Koreans will yell at you.