For almost the majority of my life I've been weak and out of shape. Although I was on a soccer team during middle school and I had sometimes played basketball during school lunch break, I never put any effort into those sports. In high school I stopped playing sports altogether and became more and more sedentary. It wasn't until August 2008, at 21 years of age, that I decided to do something about my unhealthy lifestyle.
I first worked on my diet. Growing up I always ate 2-3 bowls of white rice with every meal at home, had fast food for lunch at school, and consumed tons of junk food. Obviously needing changing, I dropped the soda and other carb-heavy foods. Reading about proper dieting also lead me to some weight training and running. As sad as it is, I could never remember doing more than 5 proper pushups in my life or running any long distance without getting winded. While fun at first, I quickly lost the motivation due to the boredom of running and my diminishing strength gains. I was satisfied with my results, however, as I went from 170 pounds to 145 pounds, losing a majority of my fat and looking a hundred times better. I kept up with my diet and lifted weights on average once a week in order to maintain strength but I dropped the running altogether.
In the August of 2009 I decided to move to Japan to get the motivation needed to finish my undergraduate degree that I had put off a few years earlier. I also wanted to improve on my Japanese which had stagnated ever since my parents stopped forcing me to go to Japanese weekend school as a child.
When I first got to Japan I met someone at my dorm who had been training MMA in the States and was interested in continuing that training. I had gotten into watching MMA just a year or so earlier when I saw some random clips on youtube. It's popularity (though waning) in Japan and the thousands of highlight clips that I watched really sucked me into this sport that I never knew existed. He invited me to join him at a gym called AACC so I agreed.
I was frightened the first time I went, not only because I was new, but because I was training in a totally different culture. I slowly became accustomed to the training. I didn't spar for the first week or so but after my first sparring session my enjoyment level went up dramatically. The ability to apply the moves you learned in sparring is such an awesome feeling (although obviously my partners were letting me pull off those moves with minimal resistance). Since I have always been a competitive person I also had a lot more fun as I got better.
For the first 6 months or so I was averaging around 2-3 classes a week but I had very little direction in my training. I thought I was too old at just 23 years of age to get serious at the sport and my progress wasn't exactly amazing either. Once again, as sad as it is, youtube brought me deeper into the sport. Due to my instruction being in Japanese and broken English I searched for videos on youtube to supplement my training. Learning exactly where to grip and other small details of a submission improved my game and more importantly, my enjoyment. This led to me seeking even more information and I soon became infatuated with the grappling side of the sport. I began reading books and blogs, watching DVDs, keeping a journal, spending more time outside of the gym supplementing my training than ever before. Any day I cannot spend training I feel like I am loosing my mind.
It's been one month since this new love for MMA came upon me and I also decided to keep a blog to keep track of how I progress. I don't plan on blogging on step-by-step tutorials on how to execute a submission or sweep, but instead on how I am learning to apply those moves and what my training in general.
