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.

Then you really might know what it's like... to fight.

What is it like to fight? I get asked some variation of this question fairly regularly, usually by people that might have plans to step in the cage themselves or sometimes when I have an upcoming fight.  While every fight is different for me and every fighter has different experiences, there are some common threads in what I and other fighters feel in the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes leading up to the fight.  I'll do my best to try and explain the mental, physical and psychological rollercoaster that I go through every time I fight.  Some people might think that writing this down for others to see is allowing others to see my weaknesses, but I don't see it that way.  I'm sure every fighter goes through some version of what I'm writing down.

For me the experience begins when I get an offer for a fight.  Usually the offer arrives via my coach Jim, who usually approaches me walking into the gym for a training session.  There is usually little time to debate on taking a fight or not.  After a few minutes on google doing some preliminary research about the potential opponent a decision is reached.  While the fight is still a long ways off at this point, the moment when I accept a fight is emotionally intense.  It's the moment when things get "real" in a hurry.  Even though you've been training with the intent of fighting, putting a name and face to a person that you know is training to beat you up and putting a date to when it'll happen always triggers an adrenaline dump in my system.

The months and weeks of training leading up to a fight is when the ups and downs of fighting really show.  You have good days and you have bad days.  A lot goes into preparing for a fight.  You need to prepare your body for any conditions it might encounter... a long, drawn out war that will tax your cardiovascular system and muscular endurance or a fast paced fight where you will have to rely on explosiveness, speed and power. Running, intervals, powerlifting and periodized physical training are all part of the prgoram.  You have to make sure that your technical skills and timing are sharp. You drill and work out the details in your kickboxing, wrestling and jiu jitsu and work on smooth transitions and combinations of all three.  You prep your strategy and game plan. You watch tape of your opponent and  work out situations that you can exploit in the fight and how to get to them.  You anticipating and train for bad situations and "worst case" scenarios. You prepare  "Plan B" in case the original game plan goes out the window the first time you get cracked in the melon.
You have days when you feel like you could knock anybody out on the feet and you have days when rookie grapplers are taking you down and submitting you.  This is all normal; It's the nature of physical performance that you can't always be at your best.  Even knowing this, the ups and downs of training coupled with he physical abuse that your body takes can make even the friendliest fighter cranky and moody.  It becomes hard to keep an even keel through practice.  If you push yourself to failure you sometimes feel like you're body isn't ready.  If you don't push yourself to failure you feel like you're not working hard enough.

The physical ups and downs are one thing, but I find the mental rollercoaster can be just as bad. In the extended time leading up to a fight I flip flop from thoughts of being invincible to thoughts of being hopelessly overmatched.  Going from "This guy is a chump, there is no way he can beat be, I'm a better athlete, I'm in better shape, my skills are better in every area, I have a better game plan, I have the better training partners and coaches."  To thoughts like "I'm not ready, I'm not in good enough shape, I can't fight with this ---------- injury, I haven't sparred enough, his jiu jitsu/wrestling/kickboxing is too good, I'm in over my head." and back again is par for the course.  These thoughts will flip flop several times before a fight, sometimes in the matter of a day or even hours. A good training session can leave me feeling invincible and a tough session will often have me leaving the gym with shaken confidence.  Luckily I've experienced these emotions many times and have come to accept and expect them.

The last week of preparation before fight night is time to taper down the training intensity, let your body heal, fine tune some small technical and strategic details and make sure your weight is on point.  This always feels like the longest week; you're used to training and sparring hard and just want to fight.  During this week I always feel like I could fight at the drop of a hat.  Let's do it,  lets' get it over with.   You feel like a wild animal that 's been caged and muzzled.  Because your training volume is lower, there's more time for crazy thoughts to burrow into your head.  You realize the absurdity of what you are about to do and question why you would ever think that it was a good idea.  Around this time my internal monologue always sounds something like this: "I'm going to step into a steel cage with a guy who's only goal is to do physical harm to me.  Why on earth would I do this?  I'm a smart guy, I have a good job, I don't have to do this. I'm never doing this again. This is stupid, this is going to be my last fight."  This happens all the time, but again, it's a lot easier to deal with when you know that it's going to happen.

The night of weigh ins is always a fun night for me.  All the hard work has been done at this point, the journey is almost over.  All there is left to do is step on the scale, flex for the camera and relax until fight time.  This is usually the first time that you see your opponent in person, which is always something that makes my heart jump into my throat a little bit. I find the post weigh-in face-off hard to take, but probably not for the reasons you'd think.  I'm not generally a mean person and standing in front of someone trying to look mean or tough cracks me up.  I can barely keep a smile or laugh in. I usually try to go say hi to my opponent before the weigh ins to make that moment a little less strange.  Some opponents are friendly, some aren't.  I always have to laugh at some of the fighters who try to "walk tough" at the weigh ins.  There's always a few who are posturing and trying to intimidate their opponents. I feel like saying "Guess what guys? Everyone here is a fighter, everyone knows your tough, you can drop the act, we're all going to have a drink together when it's all over."

Some fighters find fight day to be extremely stressful, but not me.  In my mind the outcome of the fight has already been determined by the way you've trained for the fight; all there is left to do is go out, implement the game plan and giv'er hell.  I don't like to think too much about the fight on fight day; I've already done weeks of visualization and mental preparation, nothing I do at this point is going to change much.  Having lots of downtime is when your mind starts to wander and all kinds of  thoughts creep into your head. To avoid this, it's good to have things to do and a good group of people to hang out with.  On fight day I like to sleep in late, get up and have a big breakfast with all of the team members that are at the event.  This is usually followed by a team walk to loosen up the legs a little bit. I'm lucky to have a great group of fighters, trainers ans support guys that travel with us most of the time and make this part of the adventure a lot easier and more fun. Throughout the day I'll probably watch a movie, read the newspaper, wander around the venue and chat with other fighters, spectators or coaches... anything to keep occupied.

I can't speak for every fighter, but for me the emotions really start to get going when the fighters are called to the referee's meeting on fight night.  It's hard to keep an even keel when everywhere you go fighters are warming up, hitting pads, grappling and getting themselves psyched up in their own  way.  Realizing that I'm so close to fight time really gets the juices flowing.  I can feel the knot in my stomach start to grow.  I tell myself that this is normal, dumping adrenaline and other chemicals into the system is the bodies way of preparing for a dangerous situation.  Imagine experiencing every intense emotion you can think of; excitement, hate, fear, anticipation, relief, sadness etc...  Now imagine experiencing every one of those emotions on a constant loop with the intensity dial cranked up to 11 out of 10. Sometimes the things I feel don't even make sense. That's what fight night feels like to me. 

I try to stay as loose and calm for as long as possible.  I listen to some comedy or mellow music that I've loaded onto my Ipod and I find someone to play cards with for a while.  I start warming up with some light shadow boxing/wrestling three fights before mine.  I gradually pick up the pace until I'm in 5th gear with one fight to go before I step into the tunnel.  As I'm in the tunnel I tune down the intensity a half notch and focus on some mental cues and visualization that I've been rehearsing for the last few weeks.  When my name gets announced the adrenaline gates open and I step out towards the cage.  It sounds cliched, but when I climb into to the cage I feel like my senses are heightened.  I feel ultra aware of the physical stimuli that affects me directly.  The lights are extra bright.  I can feel every grain of the canvas under my feet.  I can smell the vinyl of the mats and coated fencing.  Then my opponent climbs into the cage and the world closes in on itself, leaving only the cage.  My vision actually seems to narrow and I can only see my opponent.  I can't hear the crowd anymore, my coaches voices being the only thing getting into my head.

When the bell rings I always have a brief instant of thinking "Holy *%$#, this guy is going to try and punch me!"  That passes quickly and all of the training tunes me into the things I need to be aware of.  Circle away from his power side,  watch his lead leg.  square off the cage,  move your feet, stay engaged...

When the fight is over the rest of the world opens back up with a rush.  I realize how big the venue is, or how loud the crows is, or that I recognize the guys in the front row seats.  The relief that I feel when a fight is over is hard to describe.  There is nothing like standing up and pumping your fists to the crowd in celebration after pouring every ounce of skill and effort you have onto the cage floor. It's the moment that you realize that all of the mental and physical punishment you put yourself through was worth it and all of the self doubt and questioning of yourself was for nothing.  You remember that the fight itself was important because of what you went through to get there.

Some fighters say they aren't scared.  I think those guys are lying, stupid or maybe complacent. If I don't get an emotional rush from fighting, fear included, I don't want to do it.  The intensity of feelings I get from fighting is something a lot of people won't ever get.  I get scared to fight all the time, but I'm not scared of being scared.  I don't let it cripple me.  I like it.  I think that part of the beauty of fighting is that by intentionally putting yourself in harms way you are doing something that goes against some of your deepest instincts.  You are stepping far outside the normal range of the human comfort zone and challenging yourself to do something you weren't sure if you could do, and to me that's what it's all about.  That and I like to win.





**I posted the video of my first amateur MMA fight in the top right corner of the page.  After writing this post it was interesting to watch this fight and think of how far I've come in the physical, mental and technical preparation of fighting.  It's also interesting to watch me as I get into the cage and compete... I look fairly calm and collected but I really can't remember being more scared. Having seen dozens of amateur fights in the last few years I think I can honestly say that this fight was better than 99% of them, but I'd still love to run into this guy as a pro.

Interesting note: This fight was at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit in front of about 6000 fans.  That's still the biggest crowd I've fought in front of, even 6000 people in a facility that holds 25000 feels a bit empty. 



Things Koreans have figured out:  Glasses and Optometry.
I might have a hit put out on me by the eyewear industry bigwigs in North America after posting this.  If you are buying glasses in North America you are getting ripped off.  Today I bought a pair of cool glasses from the local glasses store (they're everywhere here).  They cost $10. That's $10 as in TEN.  That price included the lenses.  I gave them the glasses I was wearing and they matched the prescription and had my new ones finished in 10 minutes. With my purchase I got a coupon for $5 off my next pair. And a complementary gift choice of some socks or a towel.  Oh yeah, and 10% of my purchase price gets added to my membership towards another pair of glasses. Did I mention this wasn't a sale?   Go back and read that all again and try not to get mad about paying $250 for a pair of glasses and waiting 3 days fro them.

Things Koreans don't have figured out: ATM's
In Korea you can stay out all night.  The bars and restaurants don't close as long as there's people in them, and there always is.  Make sure to bring a stash of money though... the ATM's here don't work after midnight.  This makes it tough to catch a cab home when you've turned your pockets into bunny-ears looking for loose change.

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.

The Happenings Keep Happening!

A new approach, a renewed commitment
(edited, click on the pics for high quality, full size versions)

I had an interesting day at jiu-jisu today. When I walked in, the club manager approached me right away and took me by the arm. I figured she was going to hassle me about club fees since I hadn't paid for this month yet (I had the money in my bag). Instead the conversation went like this.
"There is competition in Japan.. you compete?"
"Yeah, sure."
"It is MMA."
"Oh... when and where is it?"
"November 1st, Tokyo"
This puts me an interesting position. I do want to fight while I'm here and what better place than Tokyo, considered by many to be the mecca of MMA? I'm also honoured that Jae Hoon and the rest of the guys would ask me to represent their club as a pro. There are two problems. Number one is that my current visa is a one entry visa only. If I leave Korea I can't come back. I can get an addendum to my visa to allow me to travel, but I'm not sure how long that would take. To fight in Korea I also need a special "entertainers visa"... my current E2 teaching visa doesn't cut it. A few North Americans have been busted on this in the last year and fined heavily. Korea is also in the middle of a crackdown on foreigners working illegally. I'm assuming there is a similar type of visa that would be needed to fight in Japan.
While these are problems, they are probably solvable. The second problem is the big one. I'm not ready. And that's embarrassing. I've been here for almost a month and a half and while I've picked up my training a bit, and my jiu jitsu is much better already, I am not ready to fight and don't think I could be in less than a month. I discussed my concerns about the visa issues and my preparedness with the guys at the gym and thanked them for the opportunity but declined. I told them that I do not want to represent their club unless I am at my best and can represent them the way they should represented.
There is a jiu jitsu tournament on the first weekend of December. I plan to keep upping my training to compete at this tournament. I also decided on the spot that I wouldn't let a lack of preparation keep me from an opportunity like this again. After this tournament I need to be able to fight at just about any time. I've heard lots of stories about fights being offered on very short notice in Japan. Even in the days of Pride many fighters never found out who their opponents were until two weeks before the event. I need to take better care of my body, do some more MMA specific training each weak and start hitting the weights and conditioning a little harder. Don't get me wrong, I'm in good shape, I'm about 5 lbs. leaner than when I left from Canada. It won't take a lot to get to where I need to be, but I need to start now.
P.S. As I'm writing this I'm watching Dream 11 live on cable TV. All of the UFC and K1 events are also free on cable here. So awesome.

Chuseok Weekend

Last week we had Thursday and Friday off for Chuseok, which is usually called Korean Thanksgiving even though that comparison isn't entirely accurate. Wednesday at school we had some Chuseok celebrations. We got to wear Hamboek, traditional Korean clothing, make songpeon, which I like to think of as a Korean pirogi. We got lots of good pics so here's a few.














There sure is nothing wrong with a four day weekend and we took full advantage of it. Thursday Lisa and I climbed Gatbowi Mountain. It's about 2.5 km up and very steep in for the last half. At the top is an amazing Buddhist sculpture that was carved around the year 620. There is a Buddhist village, lots of monks around and a large prayer area at the top of the mountain. We got some awesome video and pictures and were able to buy some beads from the monks. Probably the highlight (or maybe lowlight) of the trip was when we were buying the beads the monk got a text message on his cellphone. I am not kidding. It kinda ruined the effect for me. I think Korea is probably the most wired country in the entire world. ou gt service everywhere; at the top of the highest mountains, deep underground in the subway and anywhere in rural Korea. Grandmas and Grandpas rock their Ipods on the subway and every six year old has a cell phone and can text faster than you can talk.
Friday afternoon a bunch of us left for Incheon, the second biggest city in Korea. We had booked a deep sea fishing excursion and were pretty stoked. This was our plan. We would leave Daegu at 5:00 pm, and get to Incheon around 9:00. Since the fishing people were picking us up around 4:00 am we would not bother with a hotel, and instead carry our gear around downtown while we explored the nightlife. When the shuttle picked us up we would just get on the boat and start fishing, which would go all day until 6:00 pm the next day. What could go wrong right? Believe it or not, nothing did. We had an awesome time all night (the bus ride could be a separate post in itself) and made our connection with no problem. From there things got a little shaky.
Our driver took us to the wharf which in the middle of the night was one of the sketchiest places I've ever seen. The roads where rough, there was garbage blowing across the streets like tumbleweed and stray dogs were wandering all over the place. The place we stopped at looked like it was once a convenience store but was now half covered with a tarp instead of a roof. The lights that were actually working weren't throwing enough light to see anything, but just enough to make the shadows look extra scary. This is when our guide got out and disappeared. He probably only left for a few minutes, but in a place that looked like the set for a bad horror movie, it felt very, very long. We eventually got down to the boat landing where we had to wait about 20 minutes for a boat. While we were waiting I heard "thump, thump" and looked over to see two south Korean soldiers, fully armed and outfitted for taking care of whoever needed taking care of, crouching down after coming over the wharf fence. Two other soldiers quickly followed and the entire unit came out way. These guys had some serious firepower with them, but turned out to be very friendly. They did not want us to take a picture of the door that they were heading towards though... I guess this is the reality of living so close to the border of two countries that are essentially still at war.
Once we got on the boat we had to motor out of the harbour, a trip that took about an hour and a half. This trip was really representative of Korea for me. Amazing natural beauty scarred by major industrial development and waste. We moved through an entire fleet of rusted out tankers and barges and past shore based refineries that blocked the view of the nearby mountains. It looked like something out of 'Waterwold' or some other cheesy, post-apocalyptic movie.
When we busted out the fishing rods I was pretty jacked. They were heavy duty and were spooled with 30 lb test fishing line. We were going to catch some serious fish here. We thought. About five minutes into fishing I caught what looked a lot like a rock bass and was about the same size. I wished the little fella bon voyage and sent him back from whence he came. About 40 minutes later depression set in as I noticed that the Korean guy with us was keeping all of these fish and that's all we'd be catching. Check out the video above to see what I'm talking about. Overall the trip was great, it's just too bad we paid a bunch of money to catch a couple fish that I wouldn't keep at home.








P.S. Does anyone know who this blond girl is? Every time I mention getting some pics for my blog she jumps right in there. Photo stalker I guess.




P.P.S. Shinya Aoki is an absolute wizard! He just scored full mount with a guillotine, added a top side body triangle and transitioned into an armbar to beat Joachim Hansen with 2 seconds left in the fight to win the Dream light weight title. I think he was losing the fight until that point.

Punching, Kicking, Rocking, Relaxing.

Punching the MMA timecard
A few people have asked how much I've been training and what kind of training I'm doing. To tell the truth I'm only training about 4 times a week right now. I usually go to jiu jitsu three times a week, either 2 days in the gi and one no-gi or vice versa. I usually go a little early or stay a little late to hit the bag or do some lifting/conditioning. On Saturdays I go in to do some light sparring, hit pads and do some rolling. Saturdays is mostly foreigners, most who don't know much, but there's always a few quality guys to work with.
Now that I've been here a month and am pretty well settled in I'll probably start gradually increasing the number of hours I train each week. Looks like our first pay check will be coming this week which means I'll also have some cash to join a gym. The gyms are everywhere here but they are pretty much garbage. And expensive. I've actually never paid for a gym membership in my life so I find paying anywhere from 70 - 100 bucks a month for some treadmills, weider machines from the 80's and a smith machine a bit hard to swallow. The gyms here actually have those belts from the 1960's that wrap around your stomach and shake like crazy to try and "break up the fat cells". Hilarious to watch.

World Class Athletes and Koreans Who Can't Clap
Friday night Lisa and I went to Daegu Stadium to watch the Daegu Pre-World Championships track meet. The stadium is only a 20 minute walk from school so we left right after work and got some street meat on the way there. Korean street meat is awesome, by the way.
The stadium wasn't filled but I bet there were ten thousand people there to watch.
The format of the track meet was cool. They only ran about half of the normal track events and only four field events. There were no heats or prelims. Only world or olympic medalists and placers were invited to this event. Where there was room, the the field was filled out with Korean athletes. Unfortunately most of Korean competitors got dusted. The only exceptions were a women's long jumper and a women's javelin thrower who both grabbed bronze medals.
The crowd was awesome, they knew who all of the big names were and they cheered hard for the foreign competitors and the Koreans, even when they were crossing the finish line dead last.
Koreans are love and are fascinated by anyone with blond hair. Some of the biggest cheers were reserved for a women's pole vaulter from Germany. She definitely wasn't one of the best vaulters competing, but when she was up she always got the biggest cheers. Another interesting thing about Korean spectators is that they just don't know how to do the "slow clap". You know the one where everyone starts off slow and gradually gets faster until some crucial moment in the sport where everyone erupts into general applause. They do it at baseball games before the pitchers delivers a pitch. A few of the long jumpers and pole vaulters were trying to get the crowd involved by starting the slow clap before their jumps. It just wasn't happening and I was getting a kick out of it. Maybe next year they should have a slow clap instructional seminar for spectators before the world championships.
The 100m final was by far the major attraction of the night. Tyson Gay and Atto Bolden were both here and finished one - two. Gay ran a 9.89 and Bolden ran 10.00 on the money.
The picture quality from the track meet is terrible because we forgot to bring a camera and took the pics on our cell phone. The pic here is of the 100m.

Saturday's Alright for Fighting, Jimjilabangs and Rockin' Out
Saturday Mitch took me and Scott, another guy from the club, to our first Jimjilbang, something that goes pretty high on my "list of things Koreans have figured out way better than Canadians". A Jimjilbang is a public sauna/bathhouse. For you Thunder Bayers it's kind of like Kengas Saunas, but way better. You go in, pay five bucks and get issued a locker key and a uniform. The first part is gender specific. You go into the guys or girls section to get washed. The washing/ relaxing area is HUGE. There are about 6 different pools. There's a cold tub (great for healing injuries), a cool tub, a lukewarm tub, a hot tub and what I can only describe as a molten hot magma tub. There's also a big sauna and lots of showers. You can hang out here as long as you want. There were some old dudes sleeping in lounge chairs when we were there (They probably didn't want to go home to their wives, which is pretty comon here but a whole other post altogether). When you've had your fill of the tubs you go put on your uniform and can go into the main area. here you can get a bite to eat from the restaurant, a beer if you so desire or go into any of the hot or cold rooms. The guy at the restaurant was loving that there were some foreigners at the Jimjalbang. He thought we were Russian for some reason (maybe the ears?) and watched us eat very closely. The hot rooms in this section are pretty cool. They have a pretty low ceiling, straw mats, stone ceiling and wooden pillows if you want to take a nap. This area is co-ed and there are lots of people wlking around ad going from one room to another. You can also get a haircut a shave and a massage if you want. The jimjilbang was awesomely relaxing and since it is just down the street from the club there was some talk of making it a Saturday afternoon tradition after training. I dig it.

The Jimjilbang was great, but Saturday had more to offer. The 14th annual Daegu Rock Festival (or something like that) was going on all day. We made our way down at about 11:00 to catch the last 4 or 5 bands. The bands were good, even though we couldn't understand what they were saying. There was every kind of rock band from ska and screamo to straight up rock. It was a nice change from the K pop that is everywhere in Korea. Think overly produced boy bands and from the mid to late 90's and that's pretty close to what you hear here all the time. The crowd wasn't huge but they all seemed to know the words to the songs so I'd have to guess the bands were at least a little well known. The last band of the night even singled us out in the crowd. It was a Korean Emo/Screamo band (not kidding) and the lead singer knew some English. Or he at least knew a few punk rock catch phrases that he heard English bands use like "Lets rock and roll!" and "Everybody SCREAM!!!!!". Regardless, at one point he looked at us and said "You Americans like EMO?!?!" I think that telling the truth and saying "Meh... it's okay, and we're Canadian by the way." would have ruined the vibe so we just put our hands up and and said "YEAHH!"

I Need THIS MUCH [------------------------------] Space!
Since I already told you about something that Koreans have figured out better than North Americans, I'll tell you about something they don't have figured out. Personal Space. If you're waiting in line for something Koreans will squish right up against you. Even if you're the only two people in line. If you are sitting on the subway and it's busy it's pretty normal for someone to stand in front of you, facing you with their crotch right in your face. I don't mean a foot away from your face, I'm talking about if the train stops quickly you're getting a face full of Korean baby maker. I've been violated so bad on the subway I feel like somebody owes me some money or something.

Miscellaneous Miscellania (Miscellanii?)

Train Time
One of my favourite things to do in Korea is ride the subway. It's 14 stops from my house (about half an hour) to the MMA club. When I get on I put my I pod in and watch everyone come and go. It's interesting to watch all of the different types of people come and go. Businessmen, students, market salespeople, mothers, kids and fashionistas. It's interesting to watch how they interact with and treat each other. I often make up stories in my head about where they're going and what they're doing. I love people watching.
Plugging into my Ipod is also one of the only times that I can tune out the constant noise and clatter of Korea. There are so many people and it is so busy all the time, even at night, that it is always noisy. Being on the train listening to my own music (instead of K-Pop) is by far the most peaceful part of my day.
Ever hear the perfect song at the perfect moment? Today on the subway Soungarden's "superunknown" came through my earphones. In the song the phrase "alone in the superunknown" is repeated dozens of times. There's something so cool about being alone on the subway in a city of milions of people that has a culture and customs that are so unknown to me.

Training Time
None of the guys at Daegu MMA wear a cup when they roll, and, you know, when in Rome... I've been pretty lucky so far but I took a wicked knee shot today. This reminds me of a conversation I had with my old teamate Alex Jeffrey who has also crossed over into jiu jtsu and mma. He said "Don't you find it crazy that we wrestled for ten years with no cup or mouthgaurd?" My reply. "Yeah, but remember how we got sacked just about everyday and always had chipped teeth?"
"Hmm, true."

Square peg?
I recently discovered that in Korea you can force your key into the keyhole upside down in the dark if you try hard enough and are too stubborn to just take a second to turn on the light and actually look at what's going on. I feel like this is probably some kind of metaphor for my life. I'll let you guys try and figure it out.

Hardcore Spectating
It looks like I won't be making the trip to Seoul to watch the K1 Grand Prix finals this weekend. It's a bummer but I won't have been paid by then and just can't afford the trip right now. I do plan on going to Japan to watch some Dream and/or Sengoku MMA events later in the year. Instead of K1 I'll stay in Daegu and watch the pre-world championships track meet. There's a bunch of world champs and olympic medalists here so it should be awesome to watch. If it's on TV we'll be the ones with no shirts on, maple leafs painted on our chests and waving Canadian flags. I sure hope there's some Canadian athletes at the meet.

Which Way To Da Beach?

International Relations
In the past 2 weeks I've experienced a few cases of really feeling like an outsider. The mother who stopped her car in the middle of a busy intersection and rolled down her window to point us out to her kids takes the cake. Being a "waygukin" sure gives you a new perspective on what it must like to be an immigrant in Canada.
On the whole, though, Korean hospitality has been outstanding. Last week our landlords (a very old Korean couple) invited us up to their place for birthday cake. It was the Ajima's (old lady, basically) birthday. They didn't speak any English but they had lots of family over and one of their daughters spoke English pretty well. Their hospitality was fantastic and could be best compared to an Italian family (eat, eat!) We also made friends with some Korean swimmers at the beach who fed us watermelon, cake, galbi and kept us stocked with makali, a Korean wine. While sitting outside a corner store having a few drinks some friends were talking about how small of a world it really is. As if on cue an older Korean man came up and asked if we knew David. Sure enough, someone did. It turns out the man is a physics professor at a local University and was meeting some of his students for a social drink. In Korea having a couple of drinks outside of the corner store is normal and they have tables set up for this. The professor and his students sat down at our table and hung out all night. Cool guys.

Busan

Pusan was great last weekend. There were eight of us that were going to go but we almost cancelled the trip because of bad weatehr in the morning. When the skies started to clear in the early afternoon on Saturday we got our act together and headed across town to the train station. We took the high speed train (Korea Transit Xpress or KTX). The train only took an hour and was $17 ROUND TRIP. Amazing. We went to two beaches, both of which were fantastic. Both beaches were on the sea of Japan, although that's not what the Koreans call it. We wanted to give surfing a try since this was the prime area to do it, but there was no surf to speak of this weekend. Apparently last weekend had four foot rollers, which might have been a bit much for me anyways. In the end we just layed in the sun, read some books, walked around to check out the shops and got sunburned. We also met some new friends from "Busan Aquatica", an open water swimming club that seemed to do everything at the beach except swim. We invited them to play frisbee with us which was hilarious. Frisbees are not common in Korea and by the end of an hour only a couple of them were starting to get the hang of it.

The Busan nightlife was great. Without getting into too much detail, we checked out a few restaurants, a few open air bars, a few vendors, a casino and, of course, lit off a ton of fireworks. When we finally hit the sack the night time view from our hotel window was awesome. For $30 we got a 5th floor room with a view of the Sea of Japan and the huge lit up bridge that crosses the bay where we were staying.

On Sunday we went to another beach which was a bit better than the first. Right before we left some of us were going to take one last dip to cool off. As we waded into the water I saw a HUGE jellyfish next to Mitch. We ran like OJ circa 1994. Actually we ran like scared little girls, not a heisman trophy winning tailback. Turns out the jellyfish was dead and ones that big don't usually come to shore. it eventually washed up and we snapped some pics before it got torn apart by the surf.

MMA

Training has been going well, except for the fact that a week of no-gi practice gave me a false sense of ability. Without the gi I've been able to use my wrestling, speed and athleticism to be competitive in sparring with most of the best guys at the club. Last night was the first time we were back in the gi for a week. I think the last time I had my ass handed to me that badly was when I scrimmaged with Gia Sissauori (World Champion, Olympic Silver medalist wrestler) in 2004. Most of the time I can feel myself being set up for something but I don't even know what that something is. The best way to describe it is to say that it feels like you're drowning in the gi and all you can do is try and keep your head above water. At one point I notced there was only 1 minute left in the 5 minute session and I set a mental goal to not get tapped for the last minute. I didn't care if I got totally dominated positionally, I just wanted to survive. I didn't make it.

Saturdays there's a "Fight Club" for foreigners at Daegu MMA. It's pretty low key; a bunch of people who want to get a workout in or give boxing or jiu jitsu a try. Most of the people don't know anything about anything as far as MMA goes and but this week I met two East Coast Canadian guys who are pretty good boxers. One of them has fought ten times and has super fast hands. They're cool guys and were happy that there was another guy around who knew something. I'm glad I found those guys, since my Muay Thai gym didn't pan out.

Turns out the Muay Thai gym owner and the owner of Daegu MMA have some bad blood and I wouldn't be allowed to train at both places. It sounds dumb but gets even dumber when you consider the fact that the two gyms teach completely different styles of fighting. They are not in direct competition with each other and don't take business from each other. Although I was disappointed, I wasn't shocked. This is an all too familiar story in the martial arts community. So and so doesn't like so and so which means none of his guys can go to those tournaments etc, etc... This drives me crazy because I don't care about the issues these guys have, my only interest is in getting better and if both places can make me better at different things then I want to train at both clubs.

This mentality seems even crazier coming from a wrestling background. I wrestled at one of the top Universities in Canada. There were teams we didn't get along with. There were teams we hated, but you can be sure that any wrestler anywhere could walk into any other wrestling room in the world, regardless of affiliation, and be welcomed. The idea is that having a good wrestler and another sparring partner in the room is beneficial to everyone else in the room and that you can always learn something from somebody who has a different style. It's the "steel sharpens steel" idea. In the martial arts community there often seems to be resistance to new people coming in with new ideas, a sort of "our way is the best way" mentality that can only take you so far before you have to branch out.

Misc. I forgot to mention that last week we went to Daegu World Cup Stadium to watch a Daegu FC soccer game. The stadium is amazing. They've hosted the world cup (Duh) in 2002 and the 2003 World University Games. Next year they're hosting the World Track and Field Championships. The game was okay I guess, but a 0-0 tie isn't really my cup of tea. The stadium itself is amazing and set right at the bottom of a mountain which gives you a pretty spectacular view.


Next week the K1 kickboxing World Grand Prix Final 16 is in Seoul. I' hoping I'll make it up there for that one. I'm getting pretty broke as I haven,t been paid yet, but I'll try and make it work. There's also a pre-world championship track and field test meet with a lot of Olympic medalists coming up. Cost? $5. I think I can swing that one.

Shout Outs:
My buddy Wade and the rest of the Sault Steelers for wining the National Football championships. Way to go guys.
All of the Canadian wrestlers at the world championships this week. Special shout out to former Thunderwolves teammate and all around killer Katie Patroch.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Arrival and Accommodations
Well, we've been in Daegu for about five days now. We received a phone call at 2:00 pm on Thursday telling us we had to be at the airport at 4:00 am the next morning to leave for Korea. We knew it might happen and luckily we were already packed and ready to go. Our arrival was surprisingly without incident considering we had to take two planes totaling 17 hours of flying time, a bus from Seoul to Daegu and meet up with someone to drive us to our hotel. Seems easy but is much more difficult when you can't speak the language or read the signs. Our hotel, where we stayed for 3 nights, was something to see. In Korea they are known as "love motels". They're not as dirty as they sound but they do have some interesting "features". Ask me about them sometime. We moved into our permanent apartment yesterday. We were led to believe that we'd likely be staying in a small box suitable to house a toaster oven. The apartment is actually not a bad size (quite big by Korean standards). We have a bathroom, bedroom, lounge room and a combined kitchen/dining room. Living large, some might say.

Korean Traffic

Traffic in Korea is insane. Lots of streets don't have names. This obviously makes giving directions tough. Especially when your cab driver doesn't speak English and you don't speak Korean. Red lights are a suggestion; feel free to blow through, just make sure to honk so everyone knows you're coming. We think that Canadian cabbies are crazy but they don't even play in the same league of crazy as Korean cab drivers. These guys can squeeze a full sized car through an empty toilet paper tube at 90km an hour while watching their favourite Korean game show on the TV installed under their rearview mirror. Close your eyes, it's best that way.

Parking anywhere you can fit your car is fair game. On the sidewalk? Ok. Front end of the car in a parking lot and back end blocking traffic? Not a problem. Parking on a traffic island between east and westbound lanes? Sure. Double parking? Yep, just leave your phone number so the person you blocked in can call you. Parked on the side of the street facing the wrong way and blocking an entrance-way? No problemo.

Motorcycles have a completely separate set of rules, by which I mean they have absolutely no rules. Motorcycle riders can drive in a regular lane with the rest of traffic. If traffic is heavy they just hop up on the sidewalk and weave in and out of the pedestrians. I've already seen one rider riding next to the curb going the opposite way of traffic in his lane. Through parks, over curbs, across lanes.. wherever your bike can take you, you can go.

The subway system in Daegu is good. I live on one extreme side of the city and being on the subway line means I can get to the other side in about half an hour. Keep in mind the city is 2.5 million people... sometimes it takes that long to get from one side of Sault Ste. Marie to the other; population 75 000. The subway also takes me directly from my appartment to Daegu MMA, where I will spend a lot of time training.

Daegu MMA
Going to a new MMA gym or jiu jitsu club can be a little strange. Every club has its' own protocol and rules, much of which are unwritten. Nobody ever wants to be the guy who shows up and looks like he has no clue what's going on. Just as bad is showing up and being the guy who goes too hard and is trying to prove how tough he is. It's a delicate balancing act to show that you are competent but not an ego monster. It often takes months to be fully accepted at a place like this. Luckilly for me, my brother Mitch has been in Daegu for a year and training at Daegu MMA for just as long. Mitch did all the hard work and they obviously love him there. Mitch brought me to the club to meet everyone on one of the first nights we were in town.

When we walked through the doors Mitch got a very warm reception from everyone who was in the gym at the time. The owner of the club came our way, pointed at me and said "Mitchie brother?" My answer was followed by a very large and very unexpected bear hug, which speaks to the reputation that Mitch has built at Daegu MMA. Every person I met asked the same question; "Mitchie brother?" and saying yes was the secret passward into the club. The club has extremely good jiu-jitsu (it is a J.J. Machado affiliate) and good kickboxing. Their weakest point seems to be wrestling which explains why Mitch was so popular and why I was welcomed so quickly. Mitch has been helping some of their fighters, like Un Sik Song, with their wrestling. He also dislocated his elbow recently but assured everyone at the club that his brother would be soon be in Daegu to teach wrestling.

I met and rolled with a lot of really good guys; Yung Gul, Bogu, Superman and John, who has an English name because he went to an English school. I was pretty nervous as my first live scrimmage was with Yung Gul... John pointed towards him and said "you go master". Scary. How hard should I go? %100? Russian drill? Light scrimmage? I decided to hit a quick takedown and then feel things out. The takedown came quick and I heard some "ohhhh"s and quiet murmuring in Korean. We got into a quick scramble which I wrestled my way out of, ending up in top open guard. More murmuring and some "Ahhhhhh"s, this time a little louder. Looking up, I saw that everyone had stopped rolling and was watching us. We had pretty much the whole mat to ourselves. The rest of the 5 minute scrimmage was me trying to pass his guard and defend submissions while he threw all kinds of submission at me. I was barely staying alive to be honest and eventually fell into a well set up triangle. I knew it was coming but couldn't stop it. While the rest of the class finished with conditioning I rolled with Bogu, an 81 kg. competitor. I got tapped a lot. He was big and strong but wasn't using size or strength, he was just good.

I went back to Daegu MMA on my own two days later. It was a Gi class, which was great. I approached the class as if I knew nothing (which in the Gi is pretty much true) and was able to get some good work in Gi fundamentals during the technical portion of the class. We did some hard sparring at the end of class. I was able to handle most of the people in the class as they were all whitebelts. At the end of class I got some good sctrapping in with John and Yung Gul which quickly put me in my place. I think in the two days I've been at the club I've been tapped out 15 times. This tells me I'm in the right place... I'm not sure if I got tapped out 15 times in the last 6 months.

Any of you LU wrestlers remember doing Korean pushups? Well here they just call them pushups. (Ha! Fran would like that joke.) We did 130 of them AFTER 25 minutes of sparring. Talk about bulletproof shoulders.

Ho Shin Sool MMA

One of the things I'll miss most about home is training at Ho Shin Sool. Before moving back to Sault Ste. Marie I spent 5 years wrestling for Lakehead University, one of the best wrestling teams in the country. Our team was extremely close and trained at a very high level. At the end of 2005 I wrestled in the gold medal match of the National Championships. The next month I graduated, got a job back home and my wrestling career as an athlete was essentially over. It was tough going from training 20 hours a week at an elite level to not having anything to train for at all.
After seeing an online add for a grappling class in town I dragged along Ray, another ex Lakehead wrestler to check it out and act as back up if need be. I was a bit skeptical because most of the martial arts clubs I had been to in the past were very closed minded about people coming in with backgrounds in other styles. I quickly found out that HSS was not like that. They had dedicated grappling classes twice a week and the instructors had a good understanding of what they were teaching. Jim, the owner, is a high ranking black belt in Dahn Moo Do, but was committed to learning the other aspects of martial arts including wrestling, kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. Jim welcomed a couple of has been (or never were?) wrestlers into his club and we began to learn a lot from each other.
Over the next few years things began to evolve quickly. I dragged a few more wrestlers along, and as word got out people began to show up with different backgrounds: boxing, kickboxing, jiu jitsu, etc. Classes began to get much busier. The basement was converted from a yoga studio to a dedicated training area complete with weights, a training cage and extra mat space. Members of our club began competing successfully in Jiu Jitsu and grappling tournaments as well as amateur and Professional MMA.
To paraphrase Jim "We brought MMA to Sault Ste. Marie" We were the first club that had legitimate striking, wrestling and Jiu-jitsu coaches all under one roof. We were the first club in Sault Ste. Marie to compete in MMA and the first club to do so regularly. King of the Cage came to Sault Ste. Marie because they saw one of our fighters compete at another event.
We take pride in the fact that every one of our fighters who enters the cage is well prepared. Having been to numerous small MMA events we have seen plenty of fighters get in the cage who had no business being there. A lot of our members who have never fought are already much better prepared than many of the fighters we've seen at the various MMA events.
I'll miss the HSS family while I'm away for a year but I couldn't think of a better send off than the display that HSS fighters put on a few weeks ago at King of the Cage. Going 5 for 5 with 3 KO's and 2 Submissions left absolutely no doubt who the best club in the area is. Defeating a few fighters from other clubs in the area also drove the point home. (check out the video of Jeff Elliot defeating Owen Martin at the top of the page).
While we had 5 fighters on the King of the Cage event, the evening was a success for the whole team. All of the members of the team were instrumental in our success that night. Many gave up evenings and weekends to hold pads, be sparring partners and help us on the technical aspects of whatever their specialty was. The night of weigh-ins and the event itself it was great having our team around taking care of everything we needed and providing a great atmosphere to prepare in. I heard a quote a little while ago that sums it up perfectly "You're out there all alone, but if it wasn't for them you wouldn't be there at all." Big thanks to Boss, Big John, BJ, TJ, Mark, Scott, Ray, Larlo, Husky and Sean.
Thanks for everything guys, I'll miss ya while I'm gone.