Weekend

This week's training went up to Saturday again and I finished the week very happy with my fitness, that will be tested with the sparring session today, as hot as it is (40 C/ 110 F)

I also watched the UFC fights on Saturday evening at Todd's and I gotta say that the gathering was fun but the fights were not exciting at all. I expected too much from Serra's and Mir's fight, although Nogueira vs Bader was dope.

This week I start dieting, wanna get down to 145 lb (66 kg) so that I can fight at 135 lb . My aim is to be in a ring/cage by next month, so I gotta practice my ass off. Happy days.

Got into a partnership with Marijuana Muscle and will be getting some hemp boost to my diet. The website link is on the top right, check it out guys.

Peace.

Liberty on Tour

I was browsing websites today and I ended up on the "Liberty on Tour" website. It is interesting and silly at the same time, it is basically a movement leaded by Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller who are touring around the USA on board of 'Marv' (their home/office/bus) preaching their liberty ideals.

I saw this youtube video of Pete talking about Hemp Protein Powder and the current American law policies in regards to the criminalization of cannabis despite of the current scientifical researches in regards to its benefits as medication, food, fibre, fuel, etc (watch "The Union" for further information). So he mentioned how every human being should be able to make their own decisions as good or as bad as they might be as long as they don't harm others. He also mentions how his experience with the law/law enforcement has the government as a vile organization that threatens who speak out their minds and will punish them with arrests and/or death in the long run.

It is very silly the fact that people actually have to organize themselves to protect our right to do whatever the fuck we want to do. What a passive kind of society have we become? Anyway, take a look at their website if you have a chance. There's much more interesting information there.

My hamstrings on the left leg are sore so a day off was needed, I'm back to action tomorrow tho.

Weekend in Northern California

It has been a good week for Team Quest as we had a 8 - 0 record. Victories in California and Canada this weekend, stressing Pantcho's decision win over a strong contender, winning by decision. Refreshing having a BJJ guy kicking ass on the standup.

I attended to the show in Irvine, CA. All the fighters were well represented and supported although the places did not get filled up as expected. The fights were very exciting, a first Team Quest win by arm choke in the 2nd round by Mike, then a decision domination win by Steve then Pantcho's war victory by split decision, after breaking his opponent's arm with a left kick and taking him down several times he got a deserved win, despite of being split.

Right after the fight we had dinner in L.A. then went to Leandro's place in Long Beach, one of Pantcho's good friends and coach from Brazil. We then ate sugar and spent the whole weekend there. Pretty good one as there was a small grading ceremony at Fight Zone and some training on Monday morning.

Training hard this week, no holiday for Eddie.

Fight eve

Ricardo 'Pantcho' Feliciano is fighting tomorrow at Lords of Combat. He's been getting ready for this fight before I put my feet around here, actually since the last guy pulled out from his fight sometime in August... he's blood thirsty, I can guarantee someone is gonna get seriously fucked up tomorrow night. Steve is also fighting i this same show, he's got the main event of the evening and he's ready for it, trust me on this one.

Today Pantcho spent the day cutting weight, he had around 8 pounds to lose. It's not that bad since he's a Light Heavyweight contender, then I'm talking about 205 lb (93 kg). For Pantcho it's not that cool as eating is one of his favourite hobbies, one of the reasons we get along well. He's been walking/jogging around with a plastic bag around his body plus the hoodie on top of it, now ready to the weigh in, in a couple of hours.

I've been watching closely and training, of course. I can see evolution in a few details that have been giving me more confidence in exchanging from the standing situation so yeah, great day.

Also Richie Whitson is fighting tomorrow in Canada at Prestige FC and sucks we can't watch the 'Red Bitch Devil' kick ass, but it won't be long until Heath texts Pantcho the results.

And a little out of the fight thing... watch 'The Union', it rules!

Isolation

It's no news that I have failed in getting myself a new phone/number since I landed in North America. Although it is news that my laptop's power cable decided to die, it no longer works and I have been away, isolated from the external world for a couple of days now. I'm doing better than I expected, hey? Two weeks without a phone, two days without internet. I'm fine, you geeks, no need for technology. Still gotta call my family asap, it's been too long already.

On the meantime I've been training very hard and relaxing on the free time, blazing, watching movies and... playing mini-golf. That's right, mini-golf. I rocked at it. You can see how I look comfortable with the golf club in my hands. I'm a natural.

Jonny, can't wait for my working out program, dude. Gotta get BIG!

Pandemonium II

Saturday, 9/11/2010, we went down to Riverside to watch a local pro MMA/Boxing show called Pandemonium II.

Corey is one of our team's fighter, a 135 lb fighter who had a title belt fight that night. He fought a Mexican dude who couldn't make weight, so both agreed on fighting around 150 lb. Not exactly a bentanweight bout, right?We had 7 of us driven by crazy Ed over to the show. We got there at around 5 pm and the show started several minutes after 8 pm (all MMA shows tend to start late for some reason), which wasn't a problem at all. While the boys stayed with Corey at the locker room, Barbara and I took a sit one row behind James 'Lights Out' Toney, and there we waited.

Mr Toney had a watch that was shinier the sun itself, making it almost impossible to look straight into it and he's a very nice guy (called me babe), took pictures with anyone willing to line up for it, and not that tall (funny thing for me to say, right? Fuck you!).

We had a few good fights, I particularly find boxing matches both exciting and boring for its lenght and boxers' tendency to stall on the clinch. Corey's fight was very exciting although very disappointing as he got overwhelmed by punches in the begining of the match and could not recover after rocked with a hook. As he ran from him he got hit again and knocked out with one punch.

Good night, can't wait to be the next one on the ring/cage, but definitely not the one with the lights out in the end.

Pain is weakness leaving the body

I still got a day left to practise and I'm already feeling like shit.

Monday I hit my thumb as I hit my sparring partner with a hook, he leaned to the side as I was throwing it then I couldn't turn my thumb in time. Result: swollen as.

I am not really sure how I hurt my ankle, that was already recovering from a previous injury on that spot when I got hit again... Think it was sometime between Tuesday and Thursday it happened, not too bad really.

Thursday I aggravated my ITB on the left leg. We had a drill in which we were taking hits on the leg and my strong beast mate kicked me on the right spot, then the other boys finished the job.

Today I got hit again and oh well, Anthony's kids will belong to me ever since he killed of my future no more kids.

I'm not too bad, really. Even though it was my first week, I've been putting some effort in being there and practice makes perfect, right?

To sum up, I'm out of shape and a little frustrated with this week. Which is good, means I got lots to learn and that will keep me interested.

Congrats to Jesse Taylor on his win tonight at MFC.

Night

Stuffing day

Today was officially a week training day like I might be training for the rest of the month. Very tiring and lots of relevant information. Not too bad at all.

Waking up at 8 am, after a bad night of sleep (need to regulate my circadian circle) I took it easy on my breakfast having just some protein with a banana and got on to the Submission Wrestling class with 'Pantcho', drilling some guard pass techniques and rolling for the rest of the class.

At 10 am we went to the gym where I swam for a few minutes to losen down my muscles for my 1 pm class. The 1 to 2 pm Boxing/Pads class with Daniel Woirin (Anderson Silva's former striking coach). The 2 to 3:30 pm was instructed by Brian/Dan, who gave us a few ground drills then some sparring.

I am happy with the hard training day, still building up the fitness but that's the fun part, I suppose. I'm waiting for my tax return money so that I can get myself a camera or a nice mobile with a decent camera, then I'll start posting some pictures/videos.

I know you're reading it out there, bitches. Thanks for the interest... I'm open to good/bad reviews so that I can make up my mind whether I should keep going or make a few changes or whatever... give us your thoughts, yeah?

Sparring session - Labour day

This Monday was labour day, therefore a public holiday. Regardless we had a stand-up/sparring session, quite fun one.

We started with a partnered shadow sparring for the warm up. The sparring drill consisted in groups of three, doing the stand-up with takedowns and grappling. We had around 6 rounds, I gased on the 3rd round, but in my defense it was 15 degress Celcius warmer than Brisbane was by the time I left. Well, I chucked, I know. I'll unfortunately won't disclose details as it isn't my workout but Ed Buckley's.

Great way to start, with my traditional throwing up. I went for a run (sprints) afterwards so that I can deal better with training tomorrow. I'll be doing NO GI in the morning then BOXING/PADS + MMA in the afternoon. Can't wait.

About the gym, oh well, the gym is pretty neat. A typical fighters' gym, no surprise there. A boxing ring, padded walls, heaps of punching bags, gear, frames and trophies around.

There are around 20 fighters, amateurs and pros. Nice guys and yeah, they go hard. Team Quest is well-known for being a gym always ready to go to war so well, it already feels like home. Let's see what happens.

Pig Day

Every year Dan Henderson throws a Pig Party of some sort for his family and friends (and random Brazilians like me) in his place. Lucky me I got here just two days before it, cause it was a very interesting day. He's a cool guy.
The Americans like sugar and are proud of it so I went crazy on the chocolate with no remorse... oh wait! I used to do the same in Brisbane. That's right.
I got my eyes on a couple of assholes who looked down on my accent, don't worry dude, I'll get ya in training. When that kick on the groin come out of nowhere I'm still gonna apologize but deep inside you'll know I meant it.
Training starts today.

Day 1

After arriving at the LAX, I chilled a little in a 'relaxing zone', I guess that's how it's called and had a little bit of a rest, but as I didn't know what time I'd be picked up I couldn't really sleep so I waited til around noon when I called Pantcho and he said he was on his way. He, too, was having a big day getting his medicals done before his next fight on the 17th of September. He picked me up with one of his fighters called Steve, Brazilian lover as well, and among car travels around L.A. and me passing out at the doctor's waiting room and car we made it to Murrieta at 5 pm.

Looks like a desert, climate wise I mean, therefore warm. the U.S. feels like Australia in a sense, just cause I haven't adapted yet and definitely the fact that I haven't slept for more than a day has a lot to do with my retardation/jetlag.

Excited to start working hard, tomorrow was the plan but I am reconsidering. I'm going to bed now and I'm gonna write more when I can think straight.

LAX

Just arrived at the International Airport of Los Angeles, killing for a sleep. There was a kid sent by the devil to not let me sleep throughout this flight. Wish I could have thrown him through the window... just kidding, love kids!

Still very excited and can't wait to find out whether I'll be picked up on Brazilian or English time.

Why blog?

I've been living in Australia for 3 years, in Brisbane to be more specific and I gotta admit I've considered writing a journal or something about what I'm up to but I didn't find the idea very interesting at the time.

In these 3 years of Australia I've done many things, from dishwashing in an Italian restaurant to bartending at a backpackers in Valley of Brisbane and well, it sucked but I learnt a lot and met lots of weirdos and some pretty fucking nice people. My ultimate job and the one that encouraged me to leaving Australia was coaching Jiu-jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts in a local Brisbane gym.

I started training Jiu-jitsu (aka Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for the ones not born in Brazil) at the age of 14 and haven't spend 2 months of my life without having at least a roll on the grass for the fun of it, specially when not training properly for the first 18 months overseas. In one of my jobs I met Jonny, this huge crazy aussie dude who works as PT and lifts weights in different competitions around Australia. We've then, ever since, started working together and he help me come from a stage where I was hot and strong to the next level where I became even hotter and stronger, Brazilian genes, apparently. I'm not getting in details but for some random reason I was very tired this morning and had a session booked with team Bbad. I rocked up on time and got smashed as it was my last session in Brissie. Jonny is a sadist man and has no shame in laughing as you desperately run to vomit away from his iPhone in recording mode. Jonny encouraged me to make the blog happen so there you go, I'll keep him updated and put on photos and videos of myself beating up people and probably vomiting afterwards.

Anyway, I got this awesome opportunity of training with the Team Quest, through Ricardo 'Pantcho' Feliciano, who is a skilled Jiu-jitsu black belt and Mixed Martial Artist (photography lover). I got my tickets ready to leave Brisbane on the 3rd of September, 2010, Friday 11 am. Excited much? After going through a lot of shit in Australia I am on my journey to train with the top martial artists and hopefully smash them.

I'll look at keeping this journal updated as much as I can despite my laid back nature (aussie slang for lazy).

Later bitches