Much better.

I'm feeling a whole lot better. Went back to see the Doctor Monday had he said to stay away from greasy and fried foods for about a week and a half and no training until Friday. Thanks to everyone's for their well wishes.

Duffy arrives today. He's supposed to call me from the airport so I know what train he's taking and where to meet him.

Today hasn't been much better

maybe a little worse since I've started to have what I believe to be blood in my stool. Stomach still hurts, still running to the bathroom often, fever and chills aren't as bad. Went back to the Hospital around 6pm, they wanted to get me into a room and IV me, keep me for observation but I need to get a Guarantee Payment order sent to the hospital from the insurance company otherwise I'd be paying. So the Doctor gave me some more pills and suggested that not eating might be a good idea for the next day or so. Have an appointment to go back monday, so we'll see how it goes. Sitting in my room sucks.

sick

so I didn't sleep at all last, just laid in bed sweating with the chills running to the bathroom every hour. Went to the ER around 11am and $110 later got antibiotics, something for my stomach, and something for my fever. Thanks to Cristina for calling the insurance company for me.

It's been practice as usual, and I have a vid to post

But first...

Congrats on a nice season to the PC wrestling team, wish I was around to help out at the end.

Steve, that's awesome, congrats on the scholarship, I bet your parents are ecstatic about that. Keep me posted on any updates.

Max plays with poo...hence Maxy Poo.

Tombo...where's the email detailing sections...I'm hangin here.

ok...so I'm counting down the days until Duffy is here...Can't wait to kick his ass. Once he shows up I have a feeling I'll go back into tourist mode and so more sightseeing then I've been doing. But lately it's been training as usual.

Not sure when Ryan comes home from Costa Rica but it should be soon. He's signed a waiver saying he can't say the results of the fight until they air in the US, and has actually avoided any of my questions about it (which I don't like). But talking to Rob about it I think we've come to the conclusion that he won the fight, which is awesome. Very big for Ryan, once the fights air I'm going to post a link where you vote on the most exciting fight and the winner gets money. Hopefully it was exciting and he can make him an extra $25k.

It's been released that Kazu pulled out of his fight in Vegas so I guess I can say he's getting surgery on his knee next week. Better off this way, the training he could only was really limited.

Speaking of Kazu I took the following little video today. Cristina is obsessed with saying "Kazuhiro Nakamura" so after practice we ate, and then were just bullshitting around so I made this. So here ya go hunny. ok? ok?



lol, well I find it hilarious. ok?

I had also asked Yokoi where I could pick up one of his shirts, since Cristina also has a thing for skulls at the moment and his fighter shirts have skulls on them. He asked what size, I told him small. The next day he gave me 2 different shirts (Yokoi is awesome), but they were large (smallest he had) so sorry hunny, but looks like I'll be wearing them (until you steal them and sleep in them)

I also met the owner of Inspirit (MMA clothing company) a couple days ago. He asked me if I would like to train with a couple of his sponsored fighters and told me to call him, so we'll see where that goes (but Yoshida Dojo has become like a second home so I'll definitely still be going there).

Fight Night

So the day finally arrived, fight night at the Tokyo Dome. Mich Omigawa and Hector Lombart both fought representing Yoshida Dojo, and Ryo Chonan fought for team M.A.D. in his title defense, but had been training and was cornered by us.

Hector hanging out on the left and Daisuke taping Mich's hands on the right.

Hector knocking out Ryuichi Murata

Ring check

Ring check

First fight was Mich vs a Korean wrestler who definitely had the size advantage. Mich has a habit of starting off a bit stiff before working into a rhythm. He caught a hard right around the second minute for the first period and retreated to the corner. From there he parried and slipped a few punches before circling out, and just when it looked like he was out of danger he got taken down. On the ground he pulled guard and fought off some vicious hammer fists until he managed to get the fight back to his feet. With about 2 minutes to go Mich dominated the stand up the some crisp slipping and punching. With about 30 seconds left in the round Mich slipped a left hook, and threw one of his own, knocking the Korean down. Two more punches were thrown and a kick to the head and the refer stepped in and called the fight. Its was an exciting win.

Three fights later was Hector Lombart, and if you can't tell the man is a god damn Ox. I'm a pretty strong guy but I really don't come close to moving him if he doesn't want me to. Anyway he was set to fight a good Japanese fighter with a lot of experience, and who's also a lot taller. So the fight begins and Hector is moving around, stalking patiently, waiting for his chance. The Japanese fighter throws a weak little leg kick and (after this point I'm beginning to guess because it happened so fast) Hector steps in and plants him on his ass with a right hand. He jumps on the fighter and starts just dropping hay makers (and I'm talking a machine gun flurry of devastating punches) while the Japanese fighter just covers, turns his back, and runs away trying to survive. Referee steps in and calls the fight, Hector wins.

Yokoi, (Yoshida's driver), and Kazu just waiting around for Chonan's fight. LOL this pic just makes me laugh.

(they love pictures)

Chonan getting hands tapped for his title defense.

Chonan walking to the ring in his robe. Crowd was absolutely nuts.

A picture of Chonen in the ring (that would be Gomi "the fireball kid"'s big head in front of me.)

So here we have Chonan pounding out a victory. It was a tough fight, his opponent is the guy who he took the belt from last year. During the 3 rounds Chonan was actually taken down a few times and even mounted twice, but took no damage on the ground. Whenever he was on top he was throwing some serious leather. The three judges hand in scores with 2 calling for Chonan as the winner and one as a draw.

After that Yoshida took us to dinner for his Wife's birthday. Yoshida is an awesome guy. The picture below you and kind of see Yoshida behind the excited Daisuke.

After dinner we went to Chonan's victory party thrown by one of his sponsers and just had a fun time. It was an awesome night.

Feb 13

ok, so Sat night Daisuke brought me to a real Japanese steak house (and it was real steak, not the hamburgers most places try to pass off as steaks). There were a couple courses, but one of the appetizers (fried cabbage) was amazing. The steak was cubbed but perfectly cooked, absolutely delicious, as were a few of the dipping sauces. After that we hit up Shinjuku but my stomach started to bother me and I was running to the bathroom every couple minutes (from the squid earlier I think) so we called it a night.

Monday I went to the gym to lift then hopped around Harajuku again.

Today (tuseday) I went back to practice, rolled, and threw up again...everyone finds it hysterical now, except the new guy I was wrestling who was quite worried. After practice Daisuke had me teach an outside single to everyone...which was interesting with the language barrier, but everyone was grateful afterwards. Then people from Redbull came by and filled the fridge up (100+) with free Redbulls. They sponsor Yoshida Dojo; and I was even included in the picture.

I checked my weight yesterday and it was 75 kilos (165 pounds), today it said I was 70.6 kilos (155.5 pounds)...which I found a little weird but both scales were accurate. I've been eating a lot too, I forgot how quick you can lose weight when you aren't being lazy.

edit: I should say that I did have Sunday off, and really ate a lot Sat through Monday morning. Weight has been hanging around 160lbs for the most part, which means I've lost over 10 lbs since I've been here.

thurs-sat

thursday was supposed to be my first day off but, Daisuke asked if I was going to go Wed night and I said yes, and I didn't want to be a flake so I showed up. Hayato "Mach" Sakurai was there but I really didn't realize it until afterwards. After practice we were talking about Rulon Gardner. I, being the American wrestler, get dragged into a bet about what Rulon won in the Olympics. I say Bronze since he last won a Bronze, Daisuke agrees, the other three guys say gold and decide to bet lunch on it, Daisuke agrees and the bet moves to the internet where is it is discovered that Rulon won a gold in 2001 and a bronze in 2004. They declare victory, so me and Daisuke bought Ryo Chonan, Kazuhiro Nakamura, and Ryuichi Murata lunch.

Friday I took the day off, went to Shakey's pizza buffet for lunch, then hung around Harajuku and shopped a bit.

Today (sat) I went to practice again. On my walk to the train station there was a little fair going on outside and one of the booths were grilling squid, so I got a whole grilled squid for $4 (weighed just a little over a pound). They cut it up into strips for you and man was it good.
Now I'm going to do some laundry and clean my room.

Wed

Met up with Ryan for his last workout in Japan, after that I went home and fell asleep.

Daisuke called me up and invited me to get some food. I met up with him in Harajuku and he brought me to a friends birthday party. It was fun and everyone was cool. Everyone's English was surprisingly good. It was a very laid back and fun atmosphere, my legs would get a little cramped sitting on the floor but I got used to it.

The party was at a traditional Japanese restaurant in a private room, which I learned isn't the norm when it comes to parties. Apparently it's more common to have sit down western dinners, as we know them, and these places are harder and harder to find. Dinner consisted of sashimi, salad with shrimp, and a big bowl of soup over an open flame containing different types of seafood. What happens is the seafood is strained out of the broth, and when all the seafood is eaten rice and eggs are poured into the large soup bowls and cooked for a couple minutes, the broth is boiled off a bit, then the rice eaten.

My camera seems to be keeping the exposure open a bit longer than it had been so all the pictures from the night came out blurry. These are the salvageable ones.

Mid dinner

It was the girl's birthday party. The group behind her was not with us and came in about 3/4 through dinner.
The aftermath:

In the pic above you can see the two big ceramic bowls with stoves under them that cooked the soup and rice.

Although I said I'd take today off I think I'm going to head to Yoshida Dojo just to roll a little, then maybe go to Deep Dojo with Daisuke and roll there. Sightseeing can wait another day.

time for more pictures.

So I've decided to not be lazy and upload some pictures. First two are of the park I said I had found like a week ago at night.

Here we have a normal dinner:

Yes that is Oreo's dipped into peanut butter as an appetizer, followed by beef jerky as an entree, with a Corona served with lemon as the drink of choice.


Next pic is Ryo Chonan and Ryan, with Daisuke in the back to the left and Yokoi jumping into the picture on the right.

Ryan hitting the mitts with Daisuke

Ryo Chonan (fights Feb 16th to defend his title in DEEP) and I after practice.

Makoto Takimoto (gold medalist in Judo) and I.

Yokoi (a very funny dude)

Then Michihiro Omigowa (also fight in DEEP Feb 16) and I

Daisuke found an old phone that he gave to me so I went with Ryan and bought a prepaid card for it so now I have a cell phone. Only bummer is that it costs $.60 a minute to talk on, so ill be texting for the most part.

Tomorrow is an early day for me as Ryan needs to make it to Narita Airport just after noon. Need to be on the train @ 7:50 to make it to the gym for Cardio.

Monday, back on the grind.

Trained with Ryan again. Today we had Kiuma Kunioku train with us (Kunioku will be cornering Ryan in Costa Rica). Kunioku has over 50 fights, some of the names including Guy Metzger, Frank Shamrock, Yuki Kondo, Bas Rutten, Evan Tanner, Daisuke (trainer at Yoshida), Genki Sudo, Shonnie Carter, Nathan Marquardt, Sean Sherk, Crosley Gracie, Rodrigo Gracie. Yea...that’s some very popular names.

It was sauna, then cardio, then training, then sauna. I got to roll with Kunioka at the end, but nothing happened, like most high level guys it was tough to hold position once I had passed so it most likely wouldn't have been counted. He almost got me in a triangle, I almost had him in a toe hold and a guillotine. Now I’m off to a sports bar to watch the rest of the Superbowl since I had to leave half way through to get to training.

so whats been going on?

Well I've been here for 18 days and I'm already sick of posting on the blog. It's getting harder for me to remember what I did on what day so here is my best guess...

Thursday we went to Deep Impact Gym (they are a fight org that is the feeder org for Pride). Aside from one of their champs at a lighter weight being there, Shinya Aoki, Pride veteran who recently tapped out Hansen on New Years was there. He's supposedly one of the best grappler's p4p in Japan. I rolled with him and actually did very well. Took him down, he put me in his guard, I stayed tight and played a bit higher to avoid the rubber guard, which he stopped trying to play when he couldn't get it. I went to pass and almost had it but got swept, so now he's in my half guard. Got the lockdown and double unders, feed down to his leg, moved into the electric chair, almost swept him but the lengthy bastard stood up. Neutral again, i get a takedown straight to side control. I hold the position, make the move to mount when a leg comes up over, I bail and just step out not wanting to get heel hooked. He comes in looking for a takedown, times almost up, I think I ankle pick him, he end up on his back, but I dont engage, he stands up, we tie up time runs out. I was pretty happy with how I did considering he had tapped everyone else he went with.

Friday was just a cardio day, with some rubber guard techniqe thrown in. After that Ryan and I parted way and I went to a Kaiten Sushi place (sushi bar where it's on a conveyor belt) the plates varied in price from $1 to $2. At the end I spent about $28 on the sushi, which is a was a little over budget (by about $10 for the day)...but it was good.

Saturday it was back to Yoshida Dojo. Yoshida was there. I walked over to say hi again, he reached out to shake my hand but instead started throwing jabs at my stomach while yelling and laughing "Michael, Michael, Michael"...everyone found it hilarious, it was pretty cool. The usual guys were there plus Ryo Chonan, who is training for his fight on the Deep Impact card , the same card Mich is fighting on (for which I will be getting a Team Yoshida backstage pass, F-Yea!). A female pro Muay Thai (kickboxer) was there from Sweden, she fights at 68 kilos and holds a few belts. She sparred with a few of the guys, and as they were catching kicks and elbows I was praying that no one asks me to spar with her, because it looked like she hit pretty hard and my striking level is...well, non existent at this point. After that Daisuke took me, Ryan, the kickboxer and Yokoi to a sword museum, but it was closed. Yokoi and I then went Daisuke's apartment and played Wii until I walked home to talk to Cristina at our scheduled time, then went to sleep.

Yesterday was Ryan's birthday and I was too tired to make it out to his place, plus I promised Cristina I'd talk to her, so I went out early this morning (sunday) to watch the UFC. He made Waffles, which the fatass shouldn't be eating since he has a fight in 13 days, but they were damn good. After that I met up with Daisuke in Harajuku, did a little shopping, then went home to eat and write this blog.

Congrats to the PC wrestling team I hear they wrestled their asses of vs New Ro...good job fellas.