HERE WE GO!

Since my last impromptu update about the competitions, i've really just had my head down and have been trying to get myself into the mind set I need to be in - that is that i'm officially kicking off my wrestling career in just over a weeks time. I've been asked a few times how I feel about that? and am I ready for that? 

The answer to the first question is that i'm a little nervous. Who wouldn't be? I've been doing this for five months and although I know some of the basics, i've still not fought anyone who is a wrestler and in my weight category, which will no doubt be an issue when I go against the big dogs at the English Championships but at the same time as all that i'm of course excited. It's a great feeling knowing that i'm going to actually get on the mat and compete. I'm currently sitting at about 116kg which is fine, I would have liked to been a bit closer to 118kg - 119kg but there is still time for that. In fact there are 544 days!

Training has been great over the last couple of weeks, back into 2013 with a bang and I have a new programme from Alex that is designed to get me to competition in April, but a few tweaks to get ready for the first competition. I'll get into that in a minute. 

The Wrestling side of things has been good too. Friday two weeks ago l I had a fantastic session with Ewan Maddox. He has a lot to teach me and gave me some great pointers. Steve Cote was coaching and again has a lot of knowledge to pass on. In fact Steve is all about fluidity, he wants to see me go from one move to the next without having to think about it too much. That's one thing I found with wrestling at the start. I didn't know where to go or what to do. My repertoire of moves is getting there, I have them in the bank it's just a case of spotting the opportunity when to use them and at the 120kg weight category, the chances of actually being able to use most of them is pretty slim. We worked on a combo move for me to get a guy from standing into a pin, it works quite well but we will need to see. It's not a sexy weight category to be competing at. Its more of a grapple rather than a throwing match but then again sexy has never really been my style! I would give you my combo, but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for the guys i'm going to be wrestling down at the English next weekend

Last friday night saw mr Andrew Wildgoose attend wrestling at [EN]GAGE for the first time. Andy is a big boy, a rugby player must be pushing 6'6 and is about 130kg. He is a gentle giant but picked up everything that was thrown at him and again another one who enjoyed himself, we had a wrestle at the end which was really good practice for me to be fighting against someone heavier.

I have only made it through to Glasgow a couple of times in the last few weeks. Not through lack of trying but...

The New car??????

One is cost, my car (god rest its soul) loved a bit of petrol and cost a fortune to travel through, second is work, I have just had a bit too much on to get through. The car packed in, decided it had had enough and that was that this morning. AA popped out to save me again and told me that it was probably the timing belt but likely a bit of damage to the cam shaft. Knackered for those who aren't car people. I'm desperate to buy one of these to the right but I will keep dreaming for now!

However, I managed to get through to Glasgow before it died and met Zane, this mysterious heavyweight who i've heard about. He was described to me as an older hells angel type of guy with a massive beard. It was funny when we met because I half recognised him some somewhere, we had a chat then he came out with "Oh No, you play for those "F**king Edinburgh Eagles, just as I was beginning to like you." I had a good chuckle at that, Zane played for Ayrshire Storm in the Rugby League Conference a couple of years back and was affectionately known as the viking to our lads at the Student Rugby League 9's. It's a small world after all. We got on well, Zane taught me a few things and schooled me on a few others. I always feel coming back from Glasgow that I haven't made good progress, I think its because everyone has been wrestling for longer than me but you live and learn. 

Final opponant over the last few weeks was Coach Cavanagh. It was a fairly even contest (I have a good 15kg advantage) but I will concede this time that he beat me almost fair and square by 1 or 2 points. I say that but he beat me with some crazy move that I didn't see coming. Believe you me, he still has some skills up his sleeve! so depending who you talk to its' 1 all or 2 - 0 in that contest.

 

Onto conditioning - conditioning is what I thought would be my least favourite activity but actually the programme i'm on at the moment is keeping me motivated. It's been tough as you would expect but it's keeping me guessing. The weeks sessions are - Strength, Aerobic, Muscular Endurance, Flexibility, Mobility and Power. Combine all that with a couple of wrestling sessions and you have a pretty intense programme. 

[EN]GAGE has been getting some professional photos done for marketing purposes and part of that was getting some sports in there. Wrestling featured and I got the opportunity to wrestle Alex. I've been hoping they would be up by now but we haven't had them yet so I can't show off the singlet that Michael gave me.

I mentioned in my last blog that this was going to cost me a small fortune, luckily my parents bought me the Wrestling shoes for my birthday. They are in the post thanks to Bank of Mum and Dad, I've been a member there for 29 years! good bank!

Start of the Road to 2014

Even Luckier though was that I had a text the evening after I posted the blog from my Michael who told me to hold off buying the singlets as there might be some old but new one's that he has. Now I didn't think I would ever get excited about a lycra onesie but I was wrong! The two I now have are pride of place hanging in the cupboard because they are awesome. Adidas singlets that are branded with the Team Scotland Logo on the front leg and have SCO on the back. They are the official Team Scotland 2002 Commonwealth Games singlets that were never warn. That to me was pretty special. I of course gave the wife a fasion show that evening and I think I pulled it off. It was a weird feeling. If you have pulled on a jersey that meant a lot to you, I got the same feeling when I put on my jersey for Scotland Rugby League 'A'. Granted the singlet is just my competition singlet but I look forward to the day when I can pull on my own deserved Scotland one. That will be a special moment!

Finally - Now i'm officially registered as a British Wrestler which is cool, officially on the record so its real and even better [EN]GAGE is now a registered club as well! Bonus!


As Always, thanks for reading!

@shocksjr

 

The Pancake, the Weeble the Gator and the Bear!

It's been a week or so since Simmo guest blogged about his experience of wrestling. If you didn't catch the video of that "big rig" contest its here. That was probably the first session where i've really gone at it and wanted to beat someone being focused on what I was trying to do. It would probably have been a different story if we were standing up, maybe a bit more agility from both of us or maybe not. I've had two very differing opinions of analysis from that video. The first was from S & C coach Alex who thought that my agility and speed were very good and I showed a decent amount of strength. Pretty positive overall.

Love you really Simmo

The second and not nearly so technical was from my mum who suggested that Simmo, who she did state was a lovely "young" man was a bit like a weeble toy. Which had me in stitches for a little while... Here is a still we took from the wrestle last week (left).
Simmo's feedback has been fairly positive... I think what i'm finding with the wrestling and trying to get my mates involved is that once they try it, they like it. It is quite similar to rugby in many ways as I keep telling folk. You don't really think about it and the preconception of wrestling is in a ring with a oiled up tanned muscle machine in speedos with a steel chair.

After Grappling with Simmo. I was pretty sore, for me it was tough because Simmo has got a few more Kg on me than most people i'm training with, i'm still hovering around the 114 - 115kg mark at the moment. I was in pieces on the Tuesday after a bit of DOMS set in so decided to call the repair man to fix me up. Pav from Optumus popped round and basically violated my shoulder, it was effectively rape. He got deep into the rotator cuff and tried to sort that out for me. His massages are great to be fair, the difference from before to after was insane and I had much better range of movement. 

My shoulder has been giving the most amount of jip over the last couple of weeks, I must have tweaked it a little and its not had a chance to recover, the problem is that I keep on hurting it doing ridiculous stuff... taking the child seat out of the car or lying on it funny whilst i'm sleeping. Anyway, i've got prehab stuff to do with it using therabands which is helping! With a combination of massage and KCR from Laura, I'm feeling pretty good and pretty chilled out even after hard sessions. The noise my back made on Friday when Laura did her therapy on it was pretty impressive!

So after, wrestling last Monday and doing quite well, I was hoping that I would have someone to take on the next week. I text bear, given that he has been along to throws training with Jig and has been in the gym a couple of times over the last two months. The response I got was typical Bear and along the lines of:

"are you just going through your phone book and finding you fat friends?" 

A little harsh I thought on him and Simmo. Although for me the closer to my weight the better for training. It's tough because both of them are quite strong. Bear did manage to get to Wrestling last week and we were going over head locks into gator rolls. It was fine and we were shown how to counter and escape before you were thrown. Unfortunately, for me at least, I got myself into a stupid position where I knew exactly what was going to happen as Bear had my head locked up and was pulling my arm underneath me. There was a slight pause, it was one of those moments where through your mind you knew what was about to happen and for some reason  I couldn't recall the counter quick enough. I remembered as I was about a foot off the floor that I should have rotated before being rotated and thrown. Annoyingly for me... it happened twice! So I will concede, given that i'm being truthful in this blog that I was well beaten by bear on this occasion. 

That said, I realised something about wrestling this week and that is that its a fluid sport and its all about building up your repertoire of moves available to you, I think i'm getting better at it, but more mat time is needed. I find myself in some situations not knowing where to go next and that is all down to inexperience. So, i'm trying to figure out where I am and what i'm doing but it really is all practice. Que - Favourite quote about Practice "Practice makes permanent not perfect".

That Monday session hailed the last in my 10 week block, i'm moving on to a rest week this week followed by two 6 week blocks of Hypertrophy. I can not wait. This is where the muscle mass should in theory come on and put me back up to 120kg. I still need to shed a bit of fat around the mid section but that will come and to be honest although it would be nice to get rid of it from an aesthetic point of view, its not essential. The end of the 10 week block had me lifting some relatively good weight, I blasted a set of 3 x 180kg deadlifts and would probably hope to have a 1RM of approximately 200kg. My back is strong at the moment. That on top of Overhead squats at 8 x 55kg. (horrible exercise). Had me in a happy place (minus Bear's Ego dent as mentioned). I've included a snapshot of week 10 training to give you an indication of the types of exercise I was doing and the weights at the end of week 10 from circuits 1 & 2.


circuit training week 10 - weights and exercises

I even managed to top the week off with some family time - a chat on Skype to my brother Adam is wife Karen and son Nathan who he has taught to call me "muppet mike". Had lunch with my other brother Paul with his wife Nat and my Niece and Nephew, Ava and Josh. I even caught up with my folks and the in laws. It was great to see them all but i'm pretty sure Paul thinks i'll be wearing a mask, have a stage name and a finishing move. I have explained, so hopefully he has that out of his head! If not i'll bring him in for a session (he is going for second dan Ju-jitsu after all).
So, after 10 weeks... where does #mission2014 go from here. Like I mentioned, it goes to hypertrophy. I still have a lot of work to do and i'm not stopping until I get there or I don't. I still think it will be surreal to get to Glasgow 2014 and its a massive goal that does seem at times seem unachievable, everything has gone pretty quick and to be honest the support from friends and family has been terrific in places. I don't know if it is realistic target, but i'll stick at it and hope that in just under two years I will be representing Scotland on the mat in the Commonweath Games. How funny would it be to read this blog back having been to the Commonwealth Games and dare I dream with a medal of some description. I digress, I daydream. 

I'll be getting Tyson Fitness on the nutritional case over the next week to get my diet on track to make sure I can pull off the hypertrophy sessions, from what i've seen its going to be fairly intense i'm sure they will be hooking me up with all the good stuff I need but i'll let them decide (new protein shaker wouldn't go amiss!)

[EN]GAGE Wrestling Club

I've started the Wrestling club on a Friday night at [EN]GAGE Sports Centre (18:00-19:30) which was great on Friday, one of the guys Steve leads the session and his knowledge and method of coaching is a valuable asset and we certainly found it really useful especially in simulated situations, like the one I struggled with. I was training with one of the guys, managed to get a nice "pancake", a "gator role" and a pin. I did have a weight advantage though. For those who don't know what a "pancake" is, it's basically the defending of a double leg attack where you basically rotate them onto their back. The beauty of this move is that you can use the bone on the knuckle of your thumb on the jaw line, which apart from being very uncomfortable releases the grip and allows you to throw. It's pretty rough, but pretty effective!  

This week is pretty full on for me, I have Wrestling 4 times this week, I'm finally getting to the Palace of Arts to meet the national coach and let him know what my ambitions are and to take some guidance off him. I'm heading there Tuesday and Wednesday and will be familyless for those days as they are all away, allows me to catch up on sleep!
The hope for me would be that I would like to eventually like to fill one of Scottish Wrestling's institute places and get the support that I need to keep this up, travelling to Glasgow will take its toll, mentally and financially and of course the work and training at ENGAGE is also keeping me busy! but where there is a will, there is a way! I've got loads of hard work and some matches to win before I get to where I need to be with that, but fingers crossed.

My final thought for the day shifts back towards work, I've been nominated for the Edinburgh Napier University Achievement awards, nothing to do with wrestling but about all the stuff I did at uni for sport and for what I have been doing since I graduated. The awards aren't until the 15th November but its really humbling to have been nominated for doing something that you love doing, so fingers crossed for me on that one! Even if I don't win, its a great thing to have been put forward for and one that I would love to win for a number of reasons. 

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the update - feel free to share it around and if you want to get involved in wrestling in Edinburgh let me know. Engage Wrestling Club is on facebook just click the link and as always you can follow me on twitter.

@shocksjr

I decided to go back to this one, got confusing with the others. The reason I had two in the first place was because I was trying to keep it separate but thought, what the heck... who cares!

Cheers and thanks for taking time to read the blog!
P.S - Happy Birthday Bear!