Oh lawdy, I've been reborn! After nearly a month of spiraling into sin, I've had almost a month of good, hard training to balance it out and am once more feeling great and on the road to healthy lifestyle salvation.

I've also been doing a lot more conditioning work lately since, as much as I love grappling and as much as it makes me sweat, the standup stuff kicks your ass into shape like nothing else. Saturday morning kickboxing has become a routine for me now. It's a smaller, more informal class than the weekday sessions but just as intense. Once, when Dom was teaching, I partnered up with a tall, lanky youngster that I've decided to call Kicker. The reason for this is that he decided - I'm still not clear on why - that he did not care to wear shin pads like everyone else, and spent the whole class kicking the same spot on my thigh with his bony shins...quite hard. I didn't want to be one of those whiny partners that bitches and moans about being too rough, but after a while it really started to hurt and I started to get irritated. So I began kicking him extra hard in return. He's a nice kid and we get along just fine, but I have some anger management issues and very low patience levels so I'm guessing we both went home with giant black and blue patches covering our legs that day. In retrospect, I probably could've handled it better, but what's the point of doing MMA if you can't get a little violent sometimes?

So...I'm back! From my unofficial hiatus. It was totally unintentional but I only made it to the gym a few times last month. First, I lost a week due to skin allergy testing that resulted in me not being allowed to sweat lest all the disgusting chemicals plastered to my back mixed together into a toxic mess. Then I had some major projects to finish up for work and was so stressed out that I couldn't even conceive of taking an hour or two to train, even with the gym being just 15 minutes away. And then...well, okay, I admit it. I GOT LAZY. There, I said it. I got out of my routine and became an unmotivated couch potato, only hitting the gym four times in the space of 3-4 weeks. It was like a flashback to my past life...and it was totally unacceptable. NEVER AGAIN.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending. As of two weeks ago, I got my lazy ass back on track and have picked up my routine again. Of course, every muscle in my body atrophied during this stupid month of sin and I feel like a total fatass for the moment, so I'm building back up to where I was a month before. It sucks. People...if you're ever thinking of taking time off from training and you don't have the luxury of an excuse involving broken bones or surgically altered body parts, don't do it! It's not worth the misery, regret and total shame!

Anyway, it feels great to be back on the mats and working my ass off once more. There are a lot of new faces lately and there's even a new chick in the mix who beat me up during kickboxing today, so I should have some fun new stories soon. Thanks for bearing with me during this embarrassing time and man, it's good to be blogging again. I had no idea everyone at the gym was so fucking concerned by my lack of updates but rest easy, guys, it's business as usual from here on out.

Last Monday, class was running into open mat as usual. Christian had me jump in to drill escapes from mount with The Kid and even though I only caught the last 10 minutes, I was able to work up a sweat. When class ended, Brickling came over and seemed oddly determined to roll with me. I'm not sure why...maybe because I finally gave him a nickname here. At any rate, roll we did, for a damn long time. I'm not sure how much he gets out of it though, since he's insanely strong for such a short guy and has a wrestling background. He just kept tapping me out while I swore incessantly, but we had a good time.

I turned 28 at the beginning of this month and for the first time in years, I'm down to 137 lbs and fitting into clothes that I'd given up all hope on long ago. It's an amazing feeling and I'm more inspired now than ever to keep at it.

A few weeks ago, I went to Rocky's weekend conditioning class, which I normally avoid because it makes me want to throw up (a few people actually have in the past...seriously, into the trash can near the door...one of them twice in an hour). Personally, I haven't built up the proper endurance to survive it yet and it nearly killed me. I was also thoroughly shamed at one point when we lined up for a drill that the other women (there are two ladies who come in just for the conditioning class once a week) made look so easy, and one of these chicks is a total stick. I was watching them do it and thinking to myself pfft...I'll make them look silly. But when my turn came, I couldn't do it. AT ALL. Everyone was extremely encouraging though, and I eventually made it through the class with a lot of bitching, moaning and a sacrilegious amount of swearing.

Well...not really, but at least I'm moving in the right direction. In the grand scheme of things, I still know nothing. I'm a total newb. And I still spend half the time feeling like WTF am I doing? But the other half of the time, I'm slowly learning in a way that's becoming more noticeable to me on an individual level. I think I'm more aware of my own improvements now instead of only recognizing the flaws (and believe me, those are endless). People are also challenging me more now and adjusting their game, which I'm assuming is a good sign. At one point, I rolled with Isley after class and tapped him out in about 30 seconds by way of RNC. He got up, looked around, said "Jesus, I hope no one saw that" and then went extra hard on me afterwards. I was pretty thrilled.

After four straight days of intensive training, my body desperately needed a break so I skipped Friday's open mat and went for an low key wrestling class on Saturday. Rolled with Dom afterwards and got it on camera, which I later watched a whole bunch of times to see where I'm going wrong. Looking at it, there are so many bad decisions going on and there are an equal number of things that I should be doing but am not thinking about in the moment. So it's good to reflect on my many incompetencies with a visual aid. Also, the 15 - 20 lbs I still need to lose? Yep, that really needs to go. Like, asap.

Monday was intense. Did a warmup roll with Thumper, who pulled some awesome sweeps on me, then paired up with him for takedowns. Later, we drilled by hand fighting round robin style. Went with Thumper first, then Curly, Lostboy and Schizo, who I didn't have much luck with but then again, he's been wrestling for a long time so it's understandable that he'd be good at, like...wrestling. Near the end of class, I switched to Lostboy for upside down D'arce chokes, which I did quite well with although he struggled a bit and did more neck cranking than anything else.