Nexroth's Blog

Dell vs HP – Heavywaste Championship

nexroth — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:46:06 +0000

I read this article @ TheRegister – pretty interesting. Be sure to check out all the links to other articles/images. The article pokes fun at the way in which these computer superpowers distribute packages to customers, such as an 8.5×11 piece of paper in a box large enough to hold two reams of paper – plus bubble wrap to take up all that dead space! After all, you wouldn’t want your 8.5×11 piece of paper dented in transit. One of TheRegisters writers cleverly dubbed it “Aboxalypse”. Better yet is that HP recently received an award for how “green” they are. LOLs @ HP. Check it out here, it’ll make you think…

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/29/aboxalypse_now/page2.html

Still Healing…almost there.

nexroth — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:32:38 +0000

OK, this will be a short post, at work and need to hurry. I broke my left toe 5 weeks ago this Thursday, so I’m on the last 1-2 weeks of healing *technically*. I’ve took a week off of any kind of activity (Vicodin really helps that lack-of-effort along) and have been back to lifting since…but it’s not the same as the Dojo. The Dojo workouts are murder, they harden you physically and help you stay mentally tough and focused through tough workouts. Right now I get winded doing dead lifts and I just sort of deflate. So – looking forward to getting back at it in about two weeks. I think I’ll give my toe an extra week to heal just to be sure. I tried doing lunges this morning and had difficulty lunging forward on my right foot since it causes my left foot to curl forward up on the toes, heel up, and that pressure is precisely what still hurts, and it’s also a very common position for your foot in martial arts, be it striking or grappling. Hence I’ve added one more week before my return to the mat. For you people with morbid curiosity, here’s a pic of my foot and an x-ray. My left big toe was broken in three places – the doc said it pretty much got wrung out like a rag, it looked twisted.

Martial Arts Training, Pain and Pleasure

nexroth — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:45:25 +0000

It’s pretty interesting (to me anyway…yup, pretty much only me) to see how my 37 year old body continues to respond to jiu jitsu and muay thai training. I mean, I’m not particularly good, but I don’t suck either (I’m middle of the road for “a new guy”), but I work my ass off, and therein lies the resulting pain. When I first started and was injury free, a lot of the guys at my school would say “I’ve got something that hurts all the time” and I felt fortunate that I could not relate…until recently, when it seems like there is some nagging pain at all time. Knees. Rotator Cuff (almost better). Neck (submission chokes are not good for your neck as it turns out). Hands (grappling requires a lot of, ummm, grappling with your hands, whoda thunk it!). But…it’s so damn fun! I mean, getting submitted isn’t fun per se, but getting an occasional submission is a lot of fun, but more than anything just knowing that I’m learning a couple of different marital arts is awesome. This is something I will be able to teach to my son, and knowing that his skill will probably eclipse mine by the time he’s 12 is pretty cool. It’s also changed my perspective on competitive fighting completely. I already had a healthy respect for MMA fighters – but now I know how hard it is to get to that level, or at the very least I have a pretty good perspective on how hard it is.

In any case, I’ll keep training and hopefulyl improving…maybe one of these years I’ll actually compete in a jiu jitsu tournament or something. Peace!

Martial Arts Advancement – Yellow Belt!

nexroth — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:01:12 +0000

I got my first belt (past white) this week, yellow belt. This is a belt given out by East West Martial Arts as a ranking within the school, so it’s not specifically a BJJ or Muay Thai belt. Six of us tested and everyone passed. We were tested on grappling fundamentals: triangle choke, sweeps from guard, full mount, and back sweep, breaking the guard (when you are on top in your opponent’s guard), moving to figure four, faking it to a cobra (which can be converted into an arm bar or even a rear naked choke), and also side mount escapes. We were also tested on basic take downs and take down defense, sprawling, spinning on the back, getting hooks in, and working the rear choke. We did stand-up basics, throwing job/cross combos (which is obviously pretty easy), as well as knife stab/hay-maker defense. We ended with very light stand-up sparring, and I had the misfortune of being paired with this guy Tim who has done Tae Kwon Do for 30 years (pretty sure he’s a black belt). He was very hard to look good against, but the owner knows he’s an accomplished striker and probably figured my not backing down was good enough

In any case, I’m very pleased to have the first of many achievements accomplished and look forward to continuing to improve.

Poison Ivy/Oak/Sumac Sucks

nexroth — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:24:04 +0000

Well, my streak of injuries, illnesses, and poisonings continue. It’s all just very ironic, I am in the best shape of my life, and I keep getting hurt and poisoned. This time it came from the yard, some evil bird or foul wind carried a poison ivy, oak, sumac, alien fungus, whatever, into my yard. It was something right out in the front landscape. It ended up mainly on my left forearm, a pinch on my right wrist, and a dab on my left shin. I’m keeping it covered in gauze/tape to prevent it from spreading. The doctor gave me prednisolone, and I also bought two kinds of hydra cortisone, Burts Bees Poison Ivy soap, and some baking soda. I put a nice yummy paste of oatmeal and baking soda on it earlier and that felt pretty good. Here is me all bandaged. I hate mother nature, she can bite me…or maybe not.

Don't I look like frikkin happy?

Muay Thai Murder

nexroth — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:48:10 +0000

So, since my mini-string of injury and illness, I have been feeling a lot better and decided this was the week to get back to Mon/Wed jiu-jitsu (1hr) and Muay Thai (2hrs). Tuesdays are light, one hour jiu-jitsu (Gi) and Saturday is kinda random, but has been two hours of jiu-jitsu lately. As far as Mon/Wed goes – yes that’s three hours of heaven for you masochists out there. Suffice it to say that considering it’s been two weeks since I’ve done three straight hours I was completely and thoroughly exhausted, beat down, and just plain sore all over.

Jiu jitsu wasn’t too bad, but the ensuing two hours of Muay Thai were murder. The five 5-minute rounds of conditioning at the start were grueling, and included some lovely “double-knees”, where your partner holds a Thai pad about chest level and you jump up and “knee” it with both knees, repetitively as much as you can for one of the 5-minute rounds. I almost puked, and this was all in the first hour. The second hour we drilled techniques, including leg catches/inner thigh punishment (you literally catch the opponents leg and then proceed to destroy the inner thigh of the leg you are holding so he can’t stand) and ended with a doozey which entailed your partner catching a kick you threw with one hand, holding a Thai pad with the other, and you punch the pad repeatedly while your partner drags/pushes you around in random directions. This was all after stomach conditioning (10 minutes of continual kicks to the gut) and 300 crunches and around 100 push-ups. Not bad for a 37 year-old, though.

And I’ll be going back for more Wednesday…

Ohio Cage Combat IV: Results

nexroth — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:34:48 +0000

I must say my first live MMA event was a freakin blast. It wasn’t the Mandalay Bay or anything, but it was pretty cool. It was held at a county rec center, so it was basically a huge warehouse/room with a cage in the middle, seating all around, and 4 beer carts set up in each corner. For a local event it was pretty well done.

The East West folks had mixed results, over all it was kind of a rough night – but good news first. First off, Niki Spino had the most dominant victory by far, destroying Janelle Witkowski in a little over a round by TKO (GnP). I congratulated her after and she actually felt kind of bad because she said she could tell the other girl really doesn’t train right. Poor lass. Niki owned her, and from my semi-educated eye looks like she has a bright future ahead of her. Also winning was Ryan Schmidt, a second round triangle choke from his back. He truly pulled this win from the jaws of defeat. The other guy (Josh Muenzer) looked like he weighed 175 pounds to Ryan’s 155 (which he very well may have, who knows) and was peppering him with some decent power shots and had him stacked on the ground once, too. Ryan hung in there, and the guy was trying to posture up in his guard, but Ryan snuck a leg in front of his right arm, trapped the left, and ultimately got the submission – best one of the night IMHO.

Lee Trombley’s opponent Lonny Ebersole backed out for some reason, so he didn’t get to fight. Noah Delaney made his fight debut, and he got matched up with this freak of nature Jeffrey Pelton who had some pretty wicked stand up and good knees on the ground. Noah hung in there using his wrestling (4 years at MI State), but wasn’t able to pull it off. Ended by TKO in the second. He was in good spirits afterwards – I mean give the guy some credit, he’s 33 years old and this is his first MMA fight. Damn nice guy, I hope he does better next time. Wayne Gilbert’s opponent (Wyatt Stimpfle) backed out, but another bantam weight fighter, Joseph Szczublewski, had an opponent back out, too, so they were matched up. Wayne had height and reach on him, and was landing huge power shots from range, but Szczublewski has a wrestling background (I sat behind his best friend at the fight and was talking to him), and was able to take Wayne down almost at will. Szczublewski inflicted little damage on Wayne on the ground, but controlled most of the fight in that manner. Whenever they stood up, Wayne peppered him with fists, and left a huge mouse under the guys left eye. Also, Wayne nearly choked him out in the last 10 seconds of the third round with a nice triangle, but Szczublewski was saved by the bell. They were both hanging out and shooting the shit afterwards, so it was nice to see two guys that just scrapped chilling out together. I think the biggest surprise was Danny McIntire losing by decision to the Ohio champ Andrew Huffman. Looks are deceiving, because when we saw Huffman walk in the cage we thought Danny was going to just destroy the kid. Long story short, it was a 3 round grappling chess match that resulted in a unanimous decision for Huffman, who spent the majority of the fight on top. Danny nearly had him subbed a couple times; it was a much closer fight than the decision tells.

The last fight of the night, which did not feature an East West fighter, pitted the Ohio bantam weight champ Josh Robinson against challenger Steve Smith. Robinson came to the cage with his own, ahem…live rapper…which I found to be pretty cheesy. I wasn’t the only one. The fight was a war, not a ton of stand up, but a lot of ground action, grappling, GnP, and scrambles. Robinson won the first round, and Smith definitively won rounds two and three, but shockingly the guy who had the people wearing one of the big spnsor’s t-shirts cheering for him retained the belt with a split decision. The crowd was livid – and a huge fraccus broke out by us when we were going over to say goodbye to some of the peeps from East West. Some dude came running by me and shoved me out of the way as he bee-lined for the melee, and for a split second I was thinking, ohhh shit, I’m about to be in a fight with some stranger over something I’m not even involved in. Thankfully not though! The scuffle ended with little more than pushing, shoving, swearing, and about 7 gallons of testosterone simmering. It was certainly an interesting end to the night.

My take away from this is that it was awesome I will definitely go out to see my fellow East West-ers fight in the future, there is nothing quite like seeing your pals from the dojo going at it in the cage. Great time!

Official results will be posted here.

Getting Back to Where I Was

nexroth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:05:06 +0000

Man, this early morning work out shit is killing me. I was getting into really good condition right before I got food poisoning last week, which involved three days of nothing but rest kicked off by a hospital trip to get an IV for rehydration. That was Mon 6/1. I did my first bounce-back work out (cardio) on Fri 6/5, so I have basically 4 days between workouts and I was dehydrated and had removed all digestive materials from one end or the other. Before I tread down the TMI trail I will just say that getting back to working out has been way tougher than I thought it would, but I think I am about back. After light cardio that Friday, I did jiu-jitsu that Saturday, and WHAM – I strained my rotator cuff rolling (it was some weird cross between a kimura and an Americana), and it hurt like hell for 2-3 days. So, no workout Sunday, went back to jiu-jitsu against my better judgment Monday and went light, skipped Tuesday to cut the grass which was way overdue, then did jiu-jitsu and muay-thai conditioning Wednesday. The muay-thai conditioning wasn’t even that aggressive and it still killed me – so I clearly need to put in some more time to get myself back to where I was before 6/1.

It boils down to this, and it took me a long time to learn this, it’s easier on your body when you work out five or even six days a week once you’re in shape. When you start skimping out and taking 2+ day breaks or only going 3 days/week – everything is just harder. So, I got up at 5:30 AM today to lift before I go to work. I don’t feel like it, but I know I need to. I’ll feel better after doing it. [Edit: Yes, I felt better after...]

Testing connectivity to Facebook…

nexroth — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:08:19 +0000

Seeing if the Blog feed I configured on Facebook pulls updated posts from Word Press over. FWIW I’m Nex Clark on Facebook.

Ohio Cage Combat IV: The Warriors Return

nexroth — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:47:53 +0000

This Friday should be sweet – 6 East West fighters are raiding Ohio for some MMA ownage. Here is the link. Really looking forward to it. From East West are Danny (Featherweight), Lee (Light Heavyweight), Wayne (Bantamweight), Niki (125 – not sure what that weight class is, I believe Women’s weigh classes are set up differently), Noah (Lightweight) and Ryan (Lightweight). Sounds like there are a lot of East West-ers heading down there to support our fellow pugilists.