bushido_man96

I just finished up Sunrise on the Reaping, another Hunger Games novel by Suzanne Collins. It's Haymitch's story, and was a pretty good read. The movie will be out in 2026.

11/7/2025 Heavy Bag Workout: Nine rounds, 1:15/~1:00 min rest. Three rounds orthodox, boxing; three rounds southpaw, boxing; three rounds mostly kicking. Strength Training Leg Press: 245x10, 245x10, 245x10. Hammer Iso Bench (seated): 45x6, 45x6, 45x6.

I agree, the accessibility to gambling now is just crazy. Every sports podcast and show I watch or listen to has some kind of multi-leg parlay to offer you, and the online sports books are sponsors of every show. I can't believe how much the increase must be with the advent of this online accessibility. It is no surprise that some athletes will get caught up in it as well.

11/6/2025 Aikido: 8:45 - 9:45 am. Lots of technique work for 5th kyu testing requirements. Katatetori sankyo, omote and ura: Really working on the cut, keeping it in our center, and then maintaining sankyo down low after the cut. Eventually we worked in the takedown and pin. Then we moved on to the nage finish, which required some attention to detail in order to not lose the lock and stay connected to throw. Free work, and me and my partner chose to work on yokomenuchi sokumen iriminage, with focus on the wrist twist and draw to the hip.

11/5/2025 Heavy Bag Work: 9 rounds on the same standard heavy hanging bag. 1:15/~1 min rest. 3 rounds orthodox hands only, 3 rounds southpaw hands only, 3 rounds kicking and punching. Nice stretch in The Rack afterwards, and went through Choi Yong twice, fixing a few things.

10/31/2025 Heavy Bag Training: 6 rounds on a heavy hanging bag, 1 min/1 min rest, working various bags and focuses. Strength Training Leg Press: 255x10, 255x10, 255x10. Hammer Iso Bench (seated): 47.5x5, 47.5x5, 47.5x5. Lat Pull-downs: 132.5x10, 132.5x10.

Love this! Happy Birthday Felix the Cat!

That's a tough deal. They probably win that game if Dart doesn't leave with a concussion. Too bad Skattebo is injured too. He was really providing a spark for that offense. It'll be interesting to see who they bring in next.

10/30/2025 Aikido: 8:45 - 9:45 am. Yokomenuchi sokumen iriminage omote. Worked on bringing the drawing hand back to the hips and close while doing a 'motorcycle throttle' twisting action on the secured arm to help kazushi and provide a better entrance for the irimi arm. We also worked katatetori kaitennage. I need to keep the raised hand in front of me when I step through and when I turn. Finished with more panda roll practice.

It can be a good training exercise to push your speed in forms to the point that technique breaks down in order to gain some extra speed, so your body at experiences what it is like to move faster than you usually do. It's also important to finish with a dialed back speed in order to keep the technique clean. By pushing the higher speeds, your body will start to adapt to it and your technique will get cleaner as you push the speed, along with clean-paced work.

10/29/2025 Aikido: 6:15 - 7:45 pm. Warmups and aikitaisos, more work on panda rolls. Getting front panda roll figured out. Most of class was black belt demo. Next worked with yokomenuchi sokumen iriminage omote. Flowed well. Then yokomenuchi "five arts," slow with breathing timing.

That is for sure. And I definitely feel like Aikido and BJJ are going to be especially long marathons.

Those sound worth looking into.

10/28/2025 Taekwondo: 5:45 - 6:30 pm. Traditional Class. I taught this class tonight. Basics took a while, and we ended up cramming forms in. Having the other black belts there to help with that was a bonus. The lower ranks got their one-steps in. I really wish we had the full hour for the class. Sparring: 6:30 - 7:00 pm. White belts did combinations, colored belts sparred. After some rounds I had them do some upper quadrant blocking drills for controlled blocks and keeping hands up "in the window." Finished with a mirror the instructor footwork drill.

10/24/2025 Personal Defense Seminar: 8:30 - 11:30 am. A friend of mine that I've been working with for years and who I came to know through several avenues (he set up the Defensive Tactics Club at our local college and he brought me in there, and he eventually promoted me to a black belt and teaching certification in the system he put together; he also had his kids in TKD for quite a while) invited me to assist him with this seminar at one of our local high schools for their senior class. Also assisting was another deputy from our department and a state trooper and his wife. The trooper worked for us before going to the highway patrol and he was also a collegiate wrestler here. I've had the opportunity to help with these in the past and they are always productive. He started off by talking about basic self-awareness and having a willingness to fight in case of an attack. I stretched the students out a little bit while he continued to talk, and then we went over standing up in base. The rule is from now in throughout the session, if someone doesn't stand up in base, then everyone does push-ups. We did a few sets of push-ups. After standing up in base, he covered the "three zones." Zone one is the "red" zone, which is basically standing in front of each other, squared up like a fight or a spar. This is not where we want to be, especially for women defending themselves against men. Both parties have all their tools ready to bring to bear, and this is what we would call a "fair fight." We don't want to fight fair. Zone two is at the sides, which is a better place to be; he calls this the "yellow zone." This is a much more advantageous position to counterattack from, and the attacker can be overwhelmed. Zone three is behind the attacker, and he calls this the "green zone," because "green means go." It's easy to disengage from here, and it's easy to put a hurting on the attacker from here if need be. After this, we get into some partner drills. Wrist grab abduction: attacker grabs the wrist with a thumb-up grip to drag someone somewhere. Defender drops into base (knee/hips/shoulders line up, looks like a back stance) to stop the dragging, then simply circle the elbow to their elbow, drawing a "smiley face" to break the grip on the thumb. For a two-hand grab, its pretty much the same, but they grab their own hand, bring elbow to elbow and walk toward them. When walking toward them, its important to step behind their feet, so as to be more to zone two, and can then push off and disengage. Yelling at the attacker is important in order to draw attention to what's happening and to try to get them to change their mind about the attack. For a thumb-down grip, the defender "hitchhikes" out, extending the thumb and rotating to break the weak link. Choke defenses: from front, side, and behind, all very much like our Krav defenses. Then we covered a rear-naked choke defense, bringing the chin into the V of the elbow, getting the hooks in to create space to breath, pick your feet up to drop your weight, step outside a foot, walk the other foot to put yourself at 90 degrees with hips in front of their hips to create a block, and then bend forward to throw them down. Bully choke: (on the ground) frame their head away with both hands, and try to throw a leg around the head to scissor them away. If the attacker starts to punch, hook the inside of their arm at the elbow, or hook around the outside of it if need be, hip out twice so more like 90 degrees with attacker, release the hand stopping the punch and windmill it around to frame on their face and and roll over until on all fours, arms securing the head in what a wrestler would see as a front headlock position, then deliver knee strikes straight into the top of the head. This pretty much covers it. At various points we work in getting into a decent fighting stance with a good base and hands up (fence position would be good, too), and also practiced elbow strikes on pads. It was a good session, and I'm going to be putting together my outline for teaching one of these, as the DT instructor is going to be moving and he's willing to hand things off to me. Perhaps I can get something going with some seminars here and there. Strength Training Leg Press: 245x10, 245x10, 245x10. Hammer Iso Bench (seated): 55x5, 55x5, 55x5. Lat Pull-downs: 130x10, 130x10.

10/23/2025 Aikido: 8:45 - 9:45 am. Loosening, then panda rolls backward and forward. They are starting to make more sense now. Katatetori ikkyo/sankyo, ura and omote, with standing and kneeling pins. Taekwondo: 5:45 - 6:30 pm. Traditional Class. I taught this class. I worked a lot with the white belts throughout the class, mostly on coordination. I did get some concentration kicking in before class started. BJJ: 6:45 - 7:45 pm. Three warm-up rounds. I think I worked through some things pretty well during these rounds. I tried to keep better pressure. After warming up we drilled guard from the seated position, starting with just keeping heels connected to hips, moving around, following the top player and reconnecting. We progressed to getting hooks in when the opportunity presented itself, then progressed to top player trying to pass (but not mount) and bottom player trying to destabilize. We finished working hooks with the top player kneeling, bottom getting connected to the body and pulling them over onto the hooks or use the hooks to push their hips away, then worked to destablize.

It seems like the bad news has just been rolling in this past week. Condolences to the Tagliabues and the Kneelands.

10/22/2025 Aikido: 6:15 - 7:45 pm. Loosening, aikitaisos, and some rolling. I tried to panda roll, but I still don't get how to do it on front rolls. Black belt demos were done today, and I was uke a few times. The rolling started to get to me after a while.

I would contend that it isn't always the way to do it. There are benefits to doing forms practice at all kinds of different intensity levels, depending on what you want or need to focus on. The best thing about it is that you can vary the speed and dynamism of the techniques from a Tai Chi style approach all the way up to full blast.

10/21/2025 Range: 8:00 am - 12:30 pm. Pistol, back-up, rifle, shotgun, bean bag qualifications. Didn't go as well as I'd like, but I'll keep working on it. Taekwondo: 5:45 - 6:30 pm. Traditional Class. Basics were labored; short of breath and out of shape. Still some pain in the left knee. I did have a good stretch after basics. I didn't do my form today; we had a big group with lots of white belts in class. Did white belt and high green belt one-steps. 6:30 - 7:00 pm. Sparring. Several rounds of combinations with some first time white belts. Three other rounds with kids. I'm moving more, trying to stay on my toes more. One of the gym owners (the 3rd dan) and I spoke with a couple of college kids that stopped in after class. They pay the drop in fee so they can get some mat time grappling. They are brothers, and both wrestled and have some BJJ background. They play football at the college here and are from Oklahoma originally. They were nice kids, and said they be open to sharing some mat time. I also spoke with them about the BJJ school, and they may look into that.

Thanks for understanding guys!

Crazy that someone would train that hard to throw a fight.

10/17/2025 Strength Training Hammer Iso Incline (seated): 45x5, 45x5, 45x5. Hammer Iso Bench (seated): 25x10, 35x10, 45x8, 45x8, 45x8. Lat Pull-downs: 130x10, 130x10, 130x10.

10/16/2025 Aikido: 8:45 - 9:45 am. Abbreviated aikitaisos, focusing on rooting. Katatetori sankyo omote, then learned ura. Lots more footwork in ura. After the cut down, continue to apply sankyo downwards, then step behind/tenkan to takedown and pin. Katatetori kaitennage, done with same footwork as above, starts with a tenkan. Worked on panda rolls, which help me not get as dizzy.

Great conversation. In my typical experience with it in TKD, it was strictly structural and for "power development," because "every action has an equal/opposite reaction," which I've come to see that is basically a bunch of malarky. However, the current TKD organization I'm in has an example for its use in a one-step, where the hand secures the wrist of the partner and pulls back as we execute a knife hand strike with the other hand. This is the only application of such that actually shows up anywhere in our TKD curriculum, sadly. That said, from doing my own studies and research, I've come to see it as a pulling mechanism for technique applications, and I train it as such and explain it as such to our students when I'm teaching. If we get the chance to applications work, I make sure to show the application. I am seeing a lot of applications of the pulling hand in my Aikido techniques.