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.
Posted in poopculture | 2 Comments »
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
Tags: BJJ
Posted in BJJ, Brazil | 3 Comments »
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!
Posted in BJJ | 2 Comments »
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”.
Posted in BJJ | 2 Comments »
March 17th, 2009
I have had a couple of emails from people who want to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Porto Alegre. If you are coming here for a short period of time or for an extended trip, and want to train BJJ, feel free to send me an email. bkoplitz@gmail.com
My instructor is happy to have people come by and train BJJ with us at the academy. Visitors are welcome and received with open arms.
Posted in BJJ | No Comments »
March 1st, 2009
We are back in POA after a nice long break. It was really good to see more of South America, and now I have an alpaca jumper. The baby is growing fast and kicking a lot and with great force. She is going to be quite a little athlete. We still don’t have a name for her.
Tags: Travel
Posted in Travel | No Comments »
January 12th, 2009
We were in Arica, chile for a few days but the waves were small and there was virtually no surf infrastructure. It wasn’t “flat” but not what I expected. It was not the pumping barrells of Puerto Escondido. But it is summer here which makes for smaller surf. There isn’t too much to do in Arica. So we decided to travel to Bolivia.
After a nightmare border crossing where I was informed that my entry visa was 135$US. This came as a shock as it wasn’t in the guide books, and nobody told me. The main problem was that I was travelling with Brazilian Reis, not dollars. Luckily, some kind bolivians lent me the money until we arrived in La Paz. The border crossing was in the middle of nowhere in the Andes. So anxiety was running a bit high.
So now we are in La Paz. This place is lightyears away from Porto Alegre. All the people are in incredible multi-colored traditional clothing. Complete with bowler hats on the women. They crowd the sidewalks of the cobblestone strets selling all manner of unrecognizable objects.
Not sure where we are going from here yet. But there are lots of options.
I bought an alpaca sweater, both because it is cold and it feels really soft.
And we are almost acclimated to the altitude.
More soon. Crap it is hard to write on an iPhone. All typos belong to Steve Jobs.
Posted in Travel | 6 Comments »
December 15th, 2008
Put up your dukes Bernard Madoff.
Posted in p0l1t1x, poopculture | No Comments »
December 10th, 2008
I was just standing in my kitchen, eating a banana, listening to Economics 113: American Economic History, from University of Berkeley, taught by professor Brad DeLong. When he said:
In its native state, if you are relatively poor, the climate of Northern New England is none too healthy. For us, because we are, after all, East African Plains Apes, designed to live in a place where it’s ninety degrees at noon full-time year round. We’re not supposed to be wearing suit coats, let alone winter coats and gloves. We’re supposed to be frolicking around in the grasslands, using our height to look at small animals we can hunt and plants we can eat.
This is what I’ve been saying! Monkey Diet!
Posted in Gorillas, food, health | 6 Comments »
December 9th, 2008
I think that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu needs a shorthand notation of the movements and positions.
Too many times I’ve tried to read text-only blog entries about positions and have had them stop making sense halfway through. For example, people will start talking about an attack from side-mount and then talk about moving your hand to attack, but forget to talk about which hand they mean. The one by their opponent’s head? Or the one by their opponent’s hips?
The thing is, I know I do this, too. I take notes on classes and I know that if I passed them to someone else, they would be lost.
I was asking about how ballet teachers write down their movements they make during a dance, and she told me about dance notation.
So, my proposal is, invent a BJJ shorthand notation. Anyone want to help?
This is a type of dance notation. The image is from Wikipedia.
Posted in BJJ | 6 Comments »
