A-square

So I met Ryan at the gym in Harajuku, he did a nonstop combination of sprints and lifts, I cheered him on. Then we went to A-square, which is TK's gym. When I walked in I saw Genki Sudo, so I said hi to everyone, then walked over and shook Genki's hand. He said "Hi, I'm Genki" and like a cheese ball I smiled and was like "yea, I know". Never expected to see him while I was here so it was awesome. I asked him if he was going to fight again, and he said no that he's going into politics. I got pics with him and TK. I only trained with two other guys besides Ryan, neither of which were Genki.

(please excuse the stupid look, Ryan can't take a picture.) First is Genki, second is TK.

Wed

Monday - trained at AACC but it was just me and Ryan. Rocked me good a few times.

Tuesday - was supposed to be a day off but we went to Yoshida Dojo, just to show our faces. Yea, that turned into a full out training day, but no sprints so it was a bit easier.

Today, Wednesday - meeting up at 1pm to do sprints combined with Olympic lifts, then going a A-square (gym where pro's from different gyms just meet up to train).

I haven't done much else besides train and sleep. Did laundry last night in between episodes of Rome, 24, and Prison Break. This weeks my week for garbage duty (has to get done before 8am) so I'm going back to sleep.

Sunday - day of rest

So I went to sleep early last night, woke up late, ate dumplings for breakfast, bullshitted around, then went to the old Tokyo Olympic Park (from like 1974) to watch the Emperor's Cup (the nationals for Greco and Freestyle wrestling). I met up with a wrestler from Australia but is going to a Japanese University on a wrestling scholarship and he gave me a ticket to get in (it is usually free but a big name K1 fighter (kid Yamamoto) was making an attempt to qualify today and they decided to charge admission and the place sold out)) Kid won his first then separated his elbow in the second, which sucked, but the rest was cool. So many guys in the finals are sophomores in college, which is unheard of in the states, so it was weird. Crazy how young they are compared to the wrestlers we send.

After that I went back to Yoyogi, walked around a bit, mostly places I haven't explored. Found a beautiful little shrine/park that I took some pics of (I'm just too lazy to post them). Then I bought dinner, came home and wrote this. Early to bed tonight so I can awake to a long day of training tomorrow.

Day 2 at Yoshida Dojo, met Yoshida himself today, shook his hand, he joked about my name, it was cool. Kazuhiro Nakamura (guy above in blue shorts) was there training for his fight in Prides USA show Feb 24 in Vegas, along with a few other pro's. Ryan is fighting in Bowdog Fights Feb 17 in Costa Rica so I'm kinda his official training dummy. His ground game is slick and precise, his striking is way better than mine, takedowns are solid but I can fight them off (haha).

At the Dojo I can kinda hanging with everyone sub grappling, which is good (we'll see how ugly boxing is tomorrow). Rolled with a Pride heavyweight, he was mostly fooling around, yelling crazy shit and allowing me to pass his guard, he tapped me with a heel hook. Then roled with the guy who fought in pride but now fights in Deep (smaller guy about 155 (which I'm getting very close to), then I went with a Judo gold, took him down twice, almost hit a pinch body lock on him, but I missed and gave up the takedown, he subbed me once. I did alright I guess. Then went with Ryan and we were all over the place, but nothing happened (he actually might have taken me down, but it was cheap). Tomorrow is boxing day (which was supposed to be today so we'll see how that goes) then sprints afterwards.

Everyone from the gym is cool, the instructor said he can hook me up with a cellphone, which was awesome. Apparently they get a little worried when I run to the bathroom to throw up, but Ryan told them it's normal so it's cool. The instructor speaks English but his accent is so heavy that I can't tell when he's speaking English or Japaneses, I always ask him to repeat himself, and I feel bad...plus he's a big guy and I don't want to get my ass kicked so for the most part I smile, laugh and nod.

After practice we ate Thai again, this time in Shinjuku. Then I went off on my own to go get a donut at the new Krispy Kreme that just opened in Shinjuku (first one in Japan). Apparently it's a couple days later and still at least an hour wait for a donut. So I said f that and grabbed one of those crepes filled with ice cream (they are god damn delicious).

Line at Krispy Kreme

Wow

that was quite a humbling experience. So I went to Yoshida Dojo (fyi, Yoshida was a gold medalist in Judo for Japan and is extremely popular fighter now). So we went for a light jog first (yeay) then went to the dojo. Training today was primarily for MMA so we had a guy who has fought most of the top Heavyweights in Pride, a Judo gold medalist, Yoshida's personal driver, another Olympic Judo guy, the trainer, plus me, Ryan Bow, and another guy Mike. We put on the MMA gloves and got right into it, did a round with Ryan, then I end up going against the Olympic gold medalists who ,surprise surprise, was tough as nails, take him down and am doing alright until i get a little lazy, get reversed, pummeled, and submitted. Then we did Ironman on Ryan...even when he's gassed he's tough to control.

After that we took the gloves off, and just did submission wrestling. I go with Yoshida's driver and just get my ass kicked, tapped at least 3 times. Then I go with Ryan for 2 rounds, well it was more like a round and a half as I had to run to the bathroom to puke during the last.

After that we went to Gold's Gym, jumped in the sauna, did a quick warm up then did three five minute periods of alternating 1 minute sprinting, one minute jogging...or at least I tried, Ryan did it. Anyway, it really sucked. Then we went and ate Thai food, and now I'm stuffed and feel like a walking bruise. Tomorrow we are going back for boxing, and a little bit of wrestling. Hopefully I don't get my head taken off, I avoided it decently well today.

Following pictures are of my building (yes it's pink) and my room.


from the hall:
From my bed:
From the hall of my bed:

Past 2 days or so...

Quick recap:

It's Wednessday night and I just got back from training at Ryan Bow's.



Tuesday I joined Gold's gym in harajuku, then lifted, and i think that's it for the most part.



Today I woke up, ran to the gym, lifted, then went to this place called Shakey's pizza down the street. It's a pizza buffet (commonly called viking in japan) with pizza (and we should use this term losely in this case) and some other stuff like beef curry and spaghetti. So how was the pizza? Interesting, they had terriyaki fish pizza, tuna and calamari pizza, corn and broccoli in a cream sauce pizza (which wasn't that bad), some pizza that looked like (and smelled) like it had dead rat on it. Then there was dessert pizza, one with banana slices and chocolate syrup (which was actually pretty damn good) and one with some green shit that I didn't touch. I ate until I almost puked, but I wouldn't say it was good. I might go back for that banana pizza though.



After that I took a nap then met up with Rob and Ryan Bow (Ryan is a pro fighter who moved to Japan some time ago, he has basically fought a who's who list of people and was ranked top 10 for a while). We went to one of those places where the sushi is on a conveyor belt and you just grab what you want. It was pretty damn cool. After that we went to the gym and Ryan taught his class. I got to role with him once, he's slick, and tough to control. He invited me to train with him at Yoshida Dojo tomorrow during the day. He has a fight coming up with a wrestler from the US and I guess I make a good practice dummy to beat on...I should be in for quite the beating tomorrow.



Other than that I can't think of much. Hope everyone is well.

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Thirteen!

ok, so it's Monday night and I didn't do much, kinda vegged all day, but I was tired...my legs hurt.

Walked around a bit; walked up to Time Square in Shinjuku (if you think that's funny, Tokyo also has it's own Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower) and bought bed sheets. Then I bought eggs, which I will be eating for an extremely cheap dinner after I watch Rome (thank Gore for the internet).

No training tonight, legs are dead and wind isn't there. Training with the pro's will have to wait until next week, but I might be checking out 2 other fighting gyms before then so maybe I will get some good practice in. We'll see...

ohh yea

a few things you should know. It's normal for Japanese people to wear those surgeons masks if they are sick, or don't want to get sick. It's totally normal here, so keep that in mind when you see the pics.

Harajuku

The freaks come out at night...or in the middle of the day if you are in Harajuku. This is the next area south of me, which is within walkable distance. People call this place the cutting edge of style (although that is definitely an opinion). When I first stepped off the train I was greeted by Snoopy Town. If you haven't realized the Japanese love things that are cute, thus they love snoopy.


Remember that cutting edge style? Well these are the rainbow brights.


Ok, from here on out the pictures will be mostly black and white with a little color, I switched to this setting and didn't realize it until too late...but some of the pictures did come out pretty cool like this anyway.


The vans and busses are hard core Japanese Conservatives, they drive around blaring music and yelling how Japan is for the japanese, foreigners suck..blah blah blah. They are very loud.

Here is a Tokyo gangsta (the MTV kind)
Main street in harajuku with all expensive name brand designers (just pretend gap isn't there)


Fendi, Prada, Vuitton...it was somebodies store and looked pretty cool.

Next pic is the back alley where all the goth, punk, hiphop...well it's where all the young kids get their clothes while the old people are on the main name brand strip.

lol @ OPP

Now we cross the street and head toward yoyogi park, this is where everyone just hangs out. There are a couple of different groups that dress a certain way, you have the regular goths, then the lolita goths, then the anime goths, zombies, rainbow brights, and then some other shit I don't even know. But it is a freak show.







Even some German girls were in on it.
Yep...it's a pikkachu



I handed rob the camera and told him to take a picture as soon as I snuck up behind them.







Hey look, it's our friends again, music and speeches still going.

Next we walked into Yoyogi Park, first up were the Elvis's. Now these guys are called Elvis something or others (dont remember). They just put on music and dance...it wasn't Elvis, more like classic punk, but they were entertaining nonetheless.



These guys were the next group into the park, apparently these are the original guys who started doing it in the 70's. Their music was a little more Elvis like.
Skateboards were next
Then BMXers

Further in there was Kendo

Japanese drum dancing

Guys with drums just grooving while the ladies did just the capoeira movements

Bruce Lee with nunchucks (he sucked btw), and two juggelers.

Then we stubbled on a little rave going on...

Everyone was pretty gone, from drinking or just listening to the music...yea...




Then down the walkway a bit there was a band playing, the guitarist and drummer were actually really good, the other two sucked.

These guys had a beat box going and would rap or sing...it was god awful.

Pikachu again

Back to the freaks
Entrance into the Shrine part of the park. That's Rob in the red jacket.

Walk
walking there, the preferred method of transportation for the Japanese. That and they love to put stairs everywhere...seriously
Main part of the shrine below

Inside looking through the courtyard of the shrine
me in front of the enterance
more freaks on the way to the train





Then we went 2 stations north to Shinjuku (which is also within walking distance of me)
Shinjuku is another high fashion area, know for their department stores and indoor mall's. Also has the busiest subway/train station in the world...apparently.





Pachanko game house. Gambling is illegal in Japan, so you win tokens, which you exchange for a prize, which you then go across the street and exchange for money from a store which is in no way affiliated with the place that gave you the prize. The one below is hoarse racing.

stopped at a vending machine area on the way back from practice, Rob getting a drink.

So the second class over at wajyutsu keisyukai went good. I got recommended for the pro class, then accepted, and then was told to go. I think I surprised everyone in the gym, definitely Rob and Roxy (roxy is a female fighter from Boston). Going to find a gym to lift at today.