Yet another update

Since the last time I went to BJJ, it has been two months.

After the first three weeks of time off, my shoulder felt like it had recovered and felt great - then while doing my physical therapy exercises, I went and did lat pull downs with 40 pounds. I felt something crack or pull in my shoulder and I was out of commission again. Bummer.

Since I foolishly signed a one-year contract when I had restarted BJJ, I was seriously thinking of getting a doctor to write a letter to have the contract cancelled due to health reasons… I had accepted (and went all sad and stuff) the fact that I would stop BJJ

But my shoulder has started feeling pretty good again, and I just can’t stay away from the jits… so I will start BJJ again but take it really easy. If I hurt my shoulder again, that’s it. It is a sign, no more jiu-jitsu for me. I’ll take a multi-year break and go take some Muay Thai (man, I miss kicking).

I don’t really feel like saying much about other parts of my life, but here’s a quickie: I’ve been at my new job for three months now, grad school still sucks but is going well, and (obviously) snowboarding season has ended. Oh, and I’m shopping for a ring…

I AM A BAD BLOGGER

I have broken all the rules on “how to be a good blogger”.

My biggest sins:

• I have not created any content
• I have not linked to or shared anything
• I have not responded to any comments on my blog
• I have not responded to any posts on any blog
• I have not read any other blogs
• I haven’t even logged on to my blog account in the longest time

To the readers of this blog (if there are still any):

I am extremely sorry. I just haven’t been very good at this blogging stuff. With BJJ being the main focus here, it’s been pretty difficult keeping this up…my experiences in the past 54 weeks have been frustrating and discouraging. Hope that changes soon.

Winter Wonderland

I woke up today to a few inches of snow - about 5″ when I walked out of the apartment at noon. This winter has shown very little snow, so I just had to take (some more) pictures.

As I was walking around, I couldn’t stop smiling. I love snow!!!

… the mountains are gonna be very good for boarding tomorrow …

Hoboken

Elmhurst

Surgery pictures

Ok, it’s been awhile since I last wrote anything and an even longer time since my surgery…

I was able to borrow my surgery pics from my doc. I took them home and scanned them in. Thought I’d share, hope you don’t get grossed out or anything.

Just to recap, here’s what was done…
-three incisions around the shoulder were made with a scalpel that each needed stitches
-the tear in my labrum (fibrous cartilage where the shoulder socket rests on and holds the bone) was cut off. The subscapularis tear was “debrided” and the bucket handle tear was “excised” with biters and shavers
-no sutures, screws, or any hardware was needed since the connections were stable
-my bursa (a fluidy sack like thing in the shoulder) was made smaller as it was hypertrophic and needed to be “excised”
-the space between my clavicle and the bone it connects to was increased (bone was shaved)
-the whole procedure was done using an arthroscope. That’s where a small camera is inserted into an incision and into your body

And here are the pix…I don’t really know what the pix are of and I’m going by memory from what my doc told me about two months ago.

First page of pictures that accompanied the surgery report

Second page of pictures.

Now closeups of each picture:

The first picture.

The second picture.

The third picture. I think this is the labral tear.

The fourth picture.

The fifth picture.

The sixth picture.

The seventh picture. I think this is an “after” pic of the labrum after it was “cleaned up”

The eighth picture.

The ninth picture.

Like I said, I don’t really know what the pictures are of, aside from the fact that they’re my surgery pics. If you know what that pictures are of, let me know, that would be awesome.

And, after some two and a half months, my arm has 99.99% range of motion. Almost there…

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays everyone!!

turks

Ran into someone from BJJ the other day - I miss BJJ.

It’s been six months since I’ve been on the mat, two and half months since I last worked out (cardio, lower body), and two months since I had surgery. Recovery is going well, though I still don’t have full range of motion & strength and carrying weight or resting on my shoulder makes it hurt.

Anyway, have a happy turkey weekend!!

Made a new blog

Me and AG bought some turtles a few weeks back, so I’m starting a new blog about them. It’s Yet Another Turtle Blawg. Check it out!!

Fighting couples

Saw this NY Times article (For Couples, a Matter of Give and Take) at The Dojo blog (another blog I check out).

Read the article.

Cool!!  Wonder if this will convince AG to at least roll with me

weight loss

I was never too successful in loosing weight before. This is the first time I’ve ever lost this much and have sustained it for a period of time.

The only times I ever tried to loose weight was in college, to make weight for competitions. I would pretty much just go on a crash diet, having nothing more than crackers and water for a week, and digest nothing, not even water, during the day of the weigh-in. Me and several of my taekwondo varsity team members did this and would always go for a feast after the weigh-in and stuff ourselves since weigh-ins were usually a week before the tournament. My weight loss was never sustained with this very unhealthy practice.

Anyway, I started the year at about 200+ pounds, no thanks to the holidays and having my mom over - who cooked all the good stuff I’ve been missing all these years in NY. After the holidays, I settled to the high 190s, usually weighing in at 195-198.

Then I started training for a BJJ tournament and wanted to cut some weight (I didn’t get to compete thanks to my shoulder injury). I didn’t really do much in terms of dieting or more exercise, so my weight stayed the same.

In June I went on leave from my job for an unpaid internship. I started what I call the “Poor man’s diet” or “internship diet”. The diet was based more on economics than on nutritional science: I was spending money, but wasn’t making any. To save on cash I cut back my on portion size, reduced to nothing the small “snacks” I would have during the day, and replaced a lot of my meals with smoothies. With more free time interning part-time and all, I started exercising at home too. Incidentally, my economic diet turned out to be very nutritionally sound as I was burning more calories than I was taking in.

In early July I injured my shoulder and had to stop BJJ, which didn’t stop my diet but made me change my exercise routine. Despite my not going to BJJ in the past two months, I was able to cut my weight down to 182 pounds from 198. I’ve been loosing weight steadily for the past several weeks and haven’t felt starved or deprived. I’m hoping to get down to the high 170’s and even lower. To help track this, I’ve added the weight goal to my “Goals” page.

I’m interested in hearing what other BJJ’ers do when trying to cut weight for a tournament, how do you do it and does the weight come back after the competition?

Updated my Blogroll, again

I read more blogs than were in my blogroll, so I updated my list that you see on the right column.  Added about 20 links…

Yes, I read that many blogs.  Not all of them post a lot and I read them while commuting around NYC and when ever I have to wait (in line, for AG, whatever…).  I use Newsgator on my smartphone, which downloads the latest posts to the phone and I can clip (save) the posts that I would like to save or comment on (when I get a ‘net connection).

And don’t even get me started on the podcasts I listen to - there’s also way too much.  I used to listen to podcasts during the 40 hours at work and while commuting and everywhere else.  I basically don’t listen to the radio or major label music, they suck anyway.  I get my news off podcasts and the web.

So, there we go