A Rebuttal to the Ball Region

Wednesday’s Penny Arcade is about MMA, and while I do think it’s funny, I felt like the authors are missing out on a lot of what goes on in an MMA fight. I decided to shoot them an email, which I’ll also post here.
Hello Jerry,
As an amateur MMA fighter and long-time Penny Arcade fan, Wednesday’s [...]

Plastic surgery for cut-prone pro MMA fighters

A recent NYTimes article talks about a new plastic surgery that Marcus Davis (a Mainer like myself) and Nick Diaz have gotten plastic surgery to make their skin less likely to bleed when they’re struck on key locations on their faces. Basically, these guys apparently have sharp ridges that tend to rupture the skin when [...]

Learned Optimism – Review

I’d definitely recommend it if you suspect your own pessimism is holding you back from succeeding in your sport or in life in general. The book documents the trajectory of Seligman’s research, from helpless lab rats to depressed human beings, and concludes with a method for treating pessimism and becoming habitually more optimistic.

Bollard story is online!

I wrote a story about my journey from discovering Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to my debut MMA fight for The Bollard, a local monthly paper here in Portland. It’s now online at http://www.thebollard.com/bollard/?p=6262
This was a tough story to write. It’s been a long time since I did a feature story and it’s hard to write about [...]

Just Me and the Nerves

The real struggle begins weeks before Fight Night. Suddenly, with a jolt of icy electricity, your hands are shaking and your hair is bristling. I have a fight this very month. A person somewhere out there is training to hurt me. It’s impossible to know when the nerves will strike. Maybe in the grocery store [...]

The Art of Relaxating

(title stolen from the hilarious YouTube video of the same name)
Last week, my instructor told me I’m fighting on April 24th. Training begins tomorrow. For some reason, the fact that I’m going back on a diet weighs more heavily on my mind than any other part of the training. I’ve spent the weekend hanging loose [...]

chronically overtrained

I have been training my ass off for the last few months. I’ve gone through two training cycles for two different fights. The first time my instructor had me go through the training to see whether I could hack it, and the second time I was on the list, but the promoter didn’t find a [...]

An Elite Competitor Prepares for Battle

(My school competed in a local tournament on Sunday. I won both my divisions and got promoted to purple belt! More about that later. This post is reprinted from my school’s private ning site.)
Think you can roll with the big doggs? Think again.
After a day of watching over us at the Academy, Eager brought some [...]

Boxing, Weaving, Crossfitting

Inoculating the new guys against our furious technique
Every now and then, our instructor will teach an advanced class that all of the experienced guys pick right up and start using all at once. For a week or two, you’ll suddenly see that move every time people roll. Then, even the guys who didn’t learn the [...]

Boom Headshot!

http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/one-way-of-protesting-a-referees-decision/
Ángel Valodia Matos, 31, charged at the referee, Chakir Chelbat of Sweden, after Chelbat disqualified him for taking too long in an injury timeout. Matos angrily pushed another judge, ran at Chelbat and kicked him, and spit on the mat as he was grabbed and ushered out of the arena by security.