Injuries and using my time wisely

An aside to my sister: I love you and am grateful that you are my friend. It’s like those pendants I see in gift catalogs: I smile because you are my sister. I laugh because there’s nothing you can do about it. We’re stuck with each other for the long haul.

Something I forgot to mention the other day: You may remember that at a competition back in September, a photographer asked me if I was interested in being a calf model for a women’s bodybuilding publication he contributes to. You may also remember that Scott, a brown belt who runs a New Breed affiliate in Virginia, came by to visit Johnny the other night. Well, Johnny had me tell Scott my calf model story, and according to Scott, he knows the photographer from the fetish/porn industry. Scott served as a bodyguard for a woman in the industry, and apparently this photographer is well known in those circles. I never thought any part of my body would ever be in demand for anything even remotely resembling porn. The photographer hasn’t called me and I'm assuming he won't, but it’s obviously a teeny tiny world. And there’s a lid for every pot.

For the life of me, I can’t remember what I did during the day on Monday. I didn’t train in the morning. Evening was gi class at New Breed. We jumped guard and worked on submissions from there. Yesterday we didn’t train at Raw because nobody was available. So I had a free day, and I thought it would be smart to take advantage of the stuff in LA that I haven’t done yet: Disneyland, the ocean, checking out Hollywood. I even solicited suggestions from the forum. Here’s how the day actually shook out:

1. Woke up at 10
2. Farted around till noon (though some of this wasn’t my fault; I was waiting for tea orders)
3. Got tea drinks from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, a great chain with great teas (and I’m more of a tea person than a coffee person)
4. Farted around some more with Johnny and Sean (Sean was making a mix CD for Johnny to use when he conditions us. Recently we’ve been listening to AC/DC and Black Sabbath.)
Went to Costco and bought $80 worth of dried fruit (they have these dried mangoes that are AWESOME, as well as a mix of apricots, raspberries, and blueberries. Plus, there’s no sulphur dioxide in them, which means no upset stomach for Val)
5. Ate a salad
6. Did the no-gi class at New Breed, which was a conditioning class. So lots of running, rolling, crawling, jumping, sweating, moaning, cursing, pleading, hiding.
7. Ate dinner with Eben, Vince, and Johnny at about 2am.
8. Went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that I clearly took advantage of all that LA has to offer.

I reinjured my left shoulder during the conditioning. Too many pushups, I think. I can’t remember how I injured it in the first place, only that it was feeling better and now it’s feeling yucky again. And my right hip flexor is hurt too, that one from too many sprawls in the conditioning classes last Friday and last night. You sprawl to defend when somebody comes in for a takedown, and sprawling basically consists of dropping your hips on the person’s head and shoulders to keep your legs away from them. You can practice sprawling by throwing your hips on the ground and then jumping up again. That way it’s also a good conditioning exercise, especially when you do about 20 or 30 of them. When I sprawl like that, it’s like I’m having a seizure. And when I seize too many times, my hip flexor gets sore. Ouch.

And then I wrenched my right shoulder while we were practicing takedowns; I went in for a double leg but my right arm got bent upward, which is bad (you want your arms to be bent downward). And then after that, somebody thought it was a good idea for me to kickbox with Eben. I’m pretty sure it was Eben who thought that. Keep in mind that Eben is a black belt and is going to try out for the 5th season of The Ultimate Fighter. He didn’t go super hard on me, and I did catch a couple of his body kicks, which threw him off balance, but then he kicked me in the head. I think we were both surprised about that. It didn’t hurt that much, but apparently the look on my face was priceless. I did a small amount of muay Thai many years ago, but the heavy bag and the pads don’t punch and kick back, and I did a lot more drilling than live sparring. For those of you who think mixed martial arts are just about brawling and anybody can do it and it’s just violence for the sake of violence with no technique or theory, I am here to tell you that you are wrong.

So it was quite a night. No external bruising or anything, but definitely some aches and pains, and some dented dignity.

I have more to report, specifically about training with Tatiana and Johnny today and then wigging out later in the evening and going walkabout for an hour while crying a little, but I’ll write about that later. Consider this a teaser.