The Cauliflower Chronicles III & Olypic Games 2012

So today, I did my first self draining of my ear, as it did fill back up since Monday. I have to say, that I really see improvements after every drain and I am pretty sure, that I will get it back to looking almost normal. For those of you who have never done it or a planing to do it, I would suggest the following equipment.

• disposable syringe with a capacity from 2 to 5 milliliter
• acus with dimensions of 0.6 mm x 25-30 mm
• liquid alcohol or alcohol pads
• acyetic pads  to press on the ear

That stuff and little bit of courage is all you need ;)

Futher more the Olympic Games are approaching pretty fast with Judo beginning on Saturday. The drawing of the matches has also been done and it doesn't look to good for our Austrian Judo to potato Ludwig Paischer, as he was matched up in the first round against the no name Jacob Gnahoui (BEN) which he should beat, but in the second round the world ranking first Rishod Sobirov (UZB) is waiting which is going to be a though matchup for Paischer.

If you wondered where to find a livestream take a look at the link below and type "Judo" into the search field

Judo Livestream Olypic Games 2012

For a detailed shedule of streaming times through all disciplines have a look here:

Schedule of all Events and streaming times

The Cauliflower Chronicles II

Allright so in my last post, I described the problem with the cauliflower ear I got during training, which looked like that after an other training:

 
So I was offered the kind help of one of my training buddies who's girlfriend is a surgeon and she drained my ear, as you can see in the Video below – comments are in german, mainly in austrian slang, so they might be a little hard to catch ;)

After the drain was done, I guess we failed to compress the ear properly as after the night and next two days the ear started to refill again. So on Monday after taking a private, I happily went again to my personal ear drainage, which from todays point of view worked out bette, as my ear was compressed properly. I kept compress on for the whole night and now it looks way better than before – lets hope, that it wont refill again and that it wont ruin my good looks ;)

The cauliflower chronicles

Damn it, I finally got my first cauliflower ear, as you can see in the picture below

At the beginning of last week i recognized a little bump in my inner ear, but as it wasn't to bad and I was on a business trip the whole week I didnt worry to much about it. I think this is also a little present I took home from the Summer Camp, as I wasnt able to do any jits due to my bad shin. Never the less, went to No-Gi training yesterday and now it has swollen to a point where I am definitely gonna see a doctor today. I curiouse what he will say, but from my point of view there is only one option, which is, to drain the damn thing…

If you never see a proper drainage have a look at Kurt Osiander in the video below

As I  lended the title for this blog entry from one of my favourite books related to BJJ, I have to give it a shutout. 

The book is called: The Cauliflower Chronicles: A Grappler's Tale of Self Discovery and Island Living and was written by Marshal D. Carper. I've read the book twice so far and I can really recommend it, as it is well written and an easy and quick read for those who love BJJ and are intrested to get a little insight into the Hawaiian Culture

Judo and Wrestling Olympic Games Schedule 2012

Soon the Olympic games are about to start off and I am really looking forward to seeing some though Judo action and some wrestling as well.

Below you can find a schedule of the respective weight classes and there starting times:

JUDO:

Saturday, 28th of July 2012:
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 48 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 60 kg (Man)

Sunday, 29th of July 2012:
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 52 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 66 kg (Man)

Monday, 30th of July 2012:
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 57 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 73 kg (Man)

Tuesday, 31st of July 2012:
08:00 pm – 10:00 pm : Judo – till 63 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 81 kg (Man)

Wednesday, 01st of August 2012:
08:00 pm – 10:00 pm : Judo – till 70 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 90 kg (Man)

Thursday, 02nd of August 2012:
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 78 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – till 100 kg (Man)

Friday, 03rd of August 2012:
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – over 78 kg (Women)
03:00 pm – 05:50 pm : Judo – over 100 kg (Man)

WRESTLING:

Sunday, 05th of August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 55 kg greco-roman (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 74 kg greco-roman (Man)

Monday, 06th of August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 120 kg greco-roman (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 60 kg greco-roman (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 84 kg greco-roman (Man)

Tuesday, 07th of  August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 66 kg greco-roman (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 96 kg greco-roman (Man)

Wednesday, 08th of August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 48 kg freestyle (Women)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 63 kg freestyle (Women)

Thursday, 09th of August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 55 kg freestyle (Women)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 72 kg freestyle (Women)

Friday, 10th of August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 55 kg freestyle (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 74 kg freestyle (Man)

Saturday, 11th of August 2012:
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 120 kg freestyle (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 60 kg freestyle (Man)
06:45 pm  – 09:15 pm: Wrestling – till 84 kg freestyle (Man)

Sunday, 12th of August 2012:
01:45 pm – 04:15 pm: Wrestling – till 66 kg freestyle (Man)
01:45 pm – 04:15 pm: Wrestling – till 96 kg freestyle (Man)

Please be aware, that the times mentioned, are in relation to the CEST (Central European Summer Time), so if you from the US or other parts of the world, calculate your respective starting time.

I know it is an onging and for some odd discussion, but I personally think, that it would help our Sport to get into the Olympic Games and gather some more attention, not only from the media but also for possible sponsorships and the general public. We will see what happens in the next years...

3rd day of the Braulio Estima Summer Camp + El Toros S&C Session

On day three of the BJJ Summer Camp we focused at the morning session again on back escapes which really seem to work good for me. What I really found quite funny was, that during the positional sparring session, which we did after every technique session, I was able to execute the moves pretty well, also on higher belts, but when it came to sparring I mostly got demolished by the same guys. I was thinking, that maybe the links between certain moves could be the reason for that – who knows…

After the morning training, we went to El Toros Circuit Training, which was quite some fun, although it rained most of the time. This strength and conditioning session really showed me, that I have to work more in this area and that this sort of trainig could really could benefit my jits.

Here is the link to El Toro where you could also see video of the S&C Circuit: EL TORO

Here is the picture of our illustrious round which did the circuit. 

At the end of the session El Toro also talked a little bit about the Paleo Diet, if you havent heard of it take a look here: 


The Paleo Diet


I thought about doing some cross fit in the near future, cause there is on CF Club in Zürich, which also offers early morning classes two times per week, which would be perfect for me and my though working schedule…

2nd Day addon Braulio Estima Summer Camp

so trough the antibiotics I got at the hospital, my infection got way better and I will be back training at the beginning of next week. 

Never the less, one thing I forgotten to mention, that on the second day of the Braulio Estima Summer Camp, there were also some promotions going on – I mean what could be better, than receiving your belt from Braulio Estima. He handed out one blue, one purple, one brown and also one black belt. You can find more information on here

Gracie Barra Channel Islands

It was great to see these promotions and also the feelings attached, especially for the higher belts - I mean, come on, everybody especially as a white belt, dreams of the day receveing your black - and it was somehow emotional to see such things happen, after years of blood, sweat, tears an commitment - allthough i knew Rob at that moment only for a few hours, I could imagine the effort he put in to get to this level .

Bad infection on the shin...

Damn it, it seems that I brought something not so nice home from my Training Camp at the Chanel Island. The thing started last week on Thursday when I woke up during the night we some notable pain in my left lower leg. I recognized that it was swollen up a bit and put some counterpain on it and got back to sleep. The next day when I woke up the leg was still swollen but I didnt put to much thinking on it and went to training. During training i asked on of the local Black Belts for some ice and showed him the shin – we agreed that it might have come from a shin to shin hit and that it was not more than a simple contusion.  I dont necessarily think, that the infection came from the camp itself, but I also was doing some body boarding on Friday with some open wounds on my feet. Who knows where the shit is from...

Things went pretty well until Monday when i first recognized that my left shin an foot were swollen pretty badly in comparison to my other foot and that the shin began to turn red. But I thought okay – lets put a little ice on it and it will be good anyhow. Yesterday things stayed the same, only the leg got a little more red, but never the less i decided that I want to attend wrestling class at my Dojo, when I came in and changed one of my instructors saw my foot and told me to go immediately to the hospital as this could properly be a bad infection.

So I went to the local hospital near the place I live and they took some blood, X-Rayed my leg and than told me not be surprised that I had an infection on my foot and that I need take antibiotics for one week and that I will have to wear a cast on my food which i neglected, and they give me some sort splint which can be taken on an off instead. 

At least this enables me to drive and walk around at work. I will keep the splint on during night and from what I have seen and feel the antibiotics already started to work as the redness got lighter and a notable war is going on in my leg. I really hope that everything turns out good and that i will be back training in about 10 to 14 days. The sad part is, that I wont be able to compete this week which would have been my first tourney in preparation towards the European Championship.

But: HEALTH IS A TOP PRIORITY and I will be able to compete and train an other day

2nd Day of the Braulio Estima Summer Camp

On the second day of the camp two Gi trainings where scheduled, one at 10:30 pm and one at 02:30 pm. The day started with a "good" breakfast, man I don't exactly know how these guys good it loads of that stuff in the morning. All I could see were sausages, bacon, beans and eggs in all variations. The sportsman I am I sticked to Cornflakes with with various fruits and the occasional bread with marmalade.

After breakfast it was time to take the 30 Minutes walk to the fort regent, which was
indeed a pretty good warm up. An to say the least it was typical british weather, raining all day long. Training started with the self warm-up. During the week these self warm-ups gave me the option to come up with my one warm-up routine which I will use before tournaments. The funny thing about warm-up was that some guys didn't really warm up, but just rolled at a freaking high pace. So my buddy Lukas came up with the word "einrollen" which still makes laugh pretty hard – it is german and translates to rollin in.





As nobody was seriously damaged during "einrollen" the second day started again with the topic "escaping the sidemount" where Braulio added a few twists to escaping that position. It was unbelievable to experience the teaching skills of Braulio, as for him BJJ is like driving a bus through various junctions where you have the options to go where you want.




On Sunday Braulios Brother Victor also joined the camp and a few more people where also there as you can see on the picture on the right. In the evening it was soccer time as the quarterfinals of the European Championship were going on although matches weren't that exciting.

1st Day of the Braulio Estima Summer Camp

As stated before in this blog, I travelled with a buddy of mine to the Braulio Estima Summer Camp held at Jersey Islands (St. Helier)

We landed on Saturday the 23rd and had a modest time before the first training started at 2:30 pm, so we first went to our hotel which wasnt that beautiful as I thought from its Internet presentation. After a quick check-in we went to a grocery store nearby to get some proper food and than went on to explore our way to the Fort Regent Center. As big as the Center was, it wasn't that easy to find, but after some searching we managed to get our way up to the center.

I have to admit something like this is not really common at our lines of latitude – this center provides you with a single point of contact for various sports related activities, ranging from the classical muscle pharm, were the big boys are lifting steal to various martial arts academies and a superior children's playground. After some further searching we found the playground of the guys from Gracie Barra Chanel Islands and were first a little unsure, if the announced 45 people would even fit into this room, but after a few minutes of waiting we were guided to the training area for the camp which was pretty big as you can see below

I really have to admit, that I was immediately impressed, looking around and seeing 4 Black Belts, 5 Brown Belts various Purples and Blues, which is not common for the gym I am training – not taking anything away from this guys. So after a short periode of self-warmup Braulio divided us in groups of four to five with the task of writing down some topics which we would like to be covered during the seminar. In addition to his topics this lead to the following three main topics for the week

• Sidemount Escapes
• Back Escapes
• Open Guard

The first day started for us with Braulio showing us a nice side mount escape when also your right arm is trapped an you can only maneuver with your left – to my surprise this escape ended in a sneaky arm bar, which I cant wait to try out on some of my training buddies ;)

After that relatively short session, we ended the day with a group photo rocking our free Camp T-Shirts