Archive for May, 2009

The Decline of Western Civilization.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

I found a video of an exercise on youtube in which you use a sledgehammer to bang on a tractor tire. I had this fairly snarky and (if I say so myself) relatively clever blog post to write about it. But then I felt a bit sad. It is just too much wasted energy. Perhaps a metaphor for our times.

Now people are doing what used to be called “work” in their leisure time in order to get in shape. Being in shape used to be a means to end, i.e. if you were strong you could break more rocks and get paid more. Now people are using their precious calories banging on tires.

Get a job doing some kind of manual labor. Then instead of paying $100 a month of gym membership, you can get paid $6.55 an hour.

Back from the BJJ Brasileiro Championships.

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

I returned today from the 2009 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Brasileiros’ in Rio.
I wound up getting second in my division.
This made me pretty happy as it was a huge competition with a lot of talent. The first fights went very well, but in the final I ran into problems with a very strong fighter.

Other than that, it was a good trip, short, but with a lot of really good training.
(Full results of the competition are here.)

BJJ Brasileiros

BJJ Brasileiros

Campeonato Brasileiro de Jiu-Jitsu

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

What have I been doing?

I’ve not been writing on this blog, but I’ve been training a lot as well as preparing for the new arrival.

After the South American Championships, I’ve fought in two other tournaments and won my division.  It makes me a bit nervous, though, since tomorrow I am going to Rio for the Campeonato Brasileiro de Jiu-Jitsu.  I feel like I have been on a bit of a roll, and I don’t want it to end.    

But that is what I’ve been doing, training BJJ twice a day, running about every other day, and lifting weights.  

Wish me luck!

Campeonato Estadual Gaucho 1st Stage.

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

This was a small competition in Porto Alegre, but I managed to get my winning fight from the final recorded!

This doesn’t happen very often.

Usually, if I win, there are technical difficulties or nobody to film it.  So this was nice.  The video is large.  But I compressed it down from “giant” to “enh, glad I have good bandwidth”.