Monday, June 20, 2011

Thoughts about life, crap, training, and stuff

Don't ever forget this life lesson - There is no such thing as true friends, outside of your dog, and no one REALLY deserves a second chance.

This has been proven to me over and over and over again as far as relationships and friendships go.

No matter what, your best friend will sell you out over something.  This isn't cynicism winning, this is just factual.  Everyone has a breaking point, and when it is reached that friend will sell you out.  And you will sell them out.  True friendship, I believe, may be the rarest thing in the entire world.  You can be there in every way, shape, and form for someone for months on end and at the drop of a dime, they can turn on you.   For very little it seems too.  These are friends with very low thresholds for breaking.

"He was mean to me.  I'm not his friend anymore."

On the flip side of that, you will have friends who will go through fire for you too.  The ones that will show up when you are at your lowest, and stand by you through it, until you are good again.  These friends have breaking points too, however the threshold is much higher.

I personally believe these thresholds are governed by forgiveness.

Some people just can't let shit go.  No matter the circumstance.  They want to hold on and hold on and they never let anything go.  They want to wallow in self pity and remain fragile and weak.  They are like delicate flowers that wilt and die unless they are in a very CONTROLLED environment.  These people are the weak and meek, and they hide in corners crying like a bitch when times get tough and you need them.  Instead of standing up and thinking about what they can do to help you in a bad situation, all they think about is how that situation might effect them.  And if it does, they will never let it go.

They can't be counted on or depended on.  These people love their insecurities and love being the victim.  It's never anyone else's fault.  They never own a god damned thing.  And you can't make them own it.

You probably know someone like that.  I know I do.

They constantly have issues with everyone in their life.  But it's never their fault.  They can't look in the mirror and figure out, the one constant in all of their failed relationships IS THEM.  And will say they are justified in their feelings that they were wronged.  They aren't.  At some point if you care about someone, you let go of the anger and you move forward with them.  If you care about them, that is.  If you didn't really care, you'll cut ties and say fuck it, and find someone else to wilt on.

Now obviously there is a point where someone else is a burden on your life, and you have to cut ties because they are dragging you down into the abyss of shit.  I know this feeling all too well.  But generally that comes after many times of going through things with this person that helps define your relationship.  When you realize that things aren't going to change, and the relationship will be one of chaos and stress, let it go.  It's hard to do, but you must if you care about your own health and well being.  And even then, you can still agree shit went bad, and not hold resentments.  That is, if you are mature enough to do so.

Learning to weave through this intricate pattern of relationships and friendships is a part of life.  We all have to deal with it the way that makes sense to us.  It may not make sense to someone watching it from the outside, but it does to us.  And that doesn't mean what we are doing is the right thing either.  Shit, I've said over and over again, you can't make clear decisions about a situation when you have emotions involved.  It's not until after enough time has passed, and those feelings have subsided that you can look back and see things clearly. And then you often realize that the people that were watching it from the outside looking in, had it right.  And then you're like "well why didn't you fucking tell me?"

"We did.  You wouldn't listen."

I stole the line (and Wendler stole it from me) that you can lock your girlfriend and your dog in your trunk.  Come back in two hours and let them out and see which one is happy to see you.  They don't call him mans best friend for nothing.

Long story short, I saw both sides of this over the last week.  I had a close friend I had invested a lot of time and energy into helping get through some problems, and in the end I got shit all over for my troubles.  But another friend checked in on me that evening to see how I was doing, and ended up coming by and reminded me that I do have people that will reciprocate the caring.  And that pretty much made shit better on the spot and I ended up doing a bunch of happy claps like a retarded seal begging for a fish.

Truth is, I've been through the ringer with both people.  But in the end, one took a shit on me, used me, and didn't care about doing that, while the other one stood beside me.  Those things matter.

There is a saying that goes "if you can't stand by me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best."

Truer words never spoken.

Mind your friends that have insecurity and jealousy issues.  If you don't think those attributes can be turned at you, you're living in a fucking fantasy world.  Be mindful of friends like that and how you handle them.  If you give them too much, in the end, they probably will end up shitting on you because their life is controlled by negative connotations with people and situations.

There, I feel better now.

For anyone who didn't see, I pulled an easy 620 this past weekend so I feel good that barring an injury the next two weeks, all of my 2nd attempts should be in the bag.  That's 635 squat (no belt/no wraps), 425 close grip bench, and 650 deadlift.  This would give me a very shitty 1710 total totally raw.  Depending on how the 2nd attempts go I will take a run at 1800.  If 635 is the smoke show on squats, I'll run at 650.  I don't see myself attempting more than 450 on bench even though I think I'm going to be good for a little more.  But you never know.  The dead I'm always worried about.  If 650 pulls easy I'm going to go ahead and try 700.  This would give me the 1800 I've been wanting.  It's not great compared to the top guys, but honestly, I compete to better myself and have a focus for my training.

After the Nationals, if I qualify for the Worlds I will do the Worlds in Palm Beach.  If I don't, I am done with competing I think.  In powerlifting anyway.  If I make it to the worlds, that will be it.  I like the training aspect but the fact is, it costs a bit to travel, I have three kids, and it's not my "life".  I know some guys live and breathe it. I don't.  I do enjoy it but it's not the be all end all of life for me.  I have no many other things I want to do before I get a lot older.  Getting a nice total under my belt is something I want to do, but I'm not going to feel like I missed out if it doesn't happen.  My life is bigger than numbers on a piece of paper.

Someone told me I should do bodybuilding.  Man I don't know about that.  The one thing I do appreciate about bodybuilders is their commitment to what they do.  Bodybuilding is a completely encompassing endeavor.  You have to be dieting or eating a certain way all the time, and you don't miss workouts or cardio sessions for any reason.  However as with powerlifting, I don't know if I want to commit myself to something that much.  Maybe something I do 1 time, to say I did it.  But that would be it.  Who knows.

My fight instructor blew out BOTH patella tendons this weekend and dislocated both knees.  Went and spent some time with him in the hospital yesterday and gave him a lot of shit about not stretching enough (it's an inside joke).  6 weeks with both legs in braces and then 6 months of total rehab.  I'm going to name him Lt. Dan in the meantime.

Ok I have had some questions about the percentages in the big15 and strong15 programs.  Guys, there are spreadsheets that come with both programs.  All you have to do is plug in your max where it's asking for your MAX, and it will layout the whole program for you based on your max.  This was supposed to take out the guesswork.

Second, I've been asked if you should add X amount of pounds after running the cycle for the second cycle.  Mainly for the big15 program.  You can, or you can just use the same programmed weights and try to beat all of those PR's again.  This is personally a fave of mine because I already have a baseline for what I want to beat again.  And the higher the reps with heavier reps, the bigger you're going to get.

The Werther's caramel filled hard candies are damn tasty.  I could eat about a million a day.

I will get around to seeing The Fighter this week but I'm pretty sure it's going to be like every other boxing movie ever.  Or for that fact, like every other sporting movie ever.  Here's how it goes......

Team/Dude/Chic is down on their luck or hasn't been winning.  Something happens to shake things up, like a new coach or terrorist attack.  Team/Dude/Chic is forced to deal with new circumstances but then breaks losing streak and eeks out a victory.  Team/Dude/Chic buys into new philosophy and then lays waste to the competition for a while.  Until the end, where they make you believe there is some doubt, but Team/Dude/Chic pulls it out (Friday Night Lights and the original Rocky being the exceptions here).

My guess is, that's what will happen, although I hear that Bale is fantastic in it.  So we'll see.

The blocked Netflix at work.  Fuckers.

Alistair looked like shit in that fight.  Josh Barnett looked solid.  This Strikeforce tourney is going to be very interesting over the next few months.  I'm excited.

I hope everyone had as great a weekend as I did.

30 comments:

  1. Not trying to crap on you in the least, but you are attracting way too many of the wrong type of people. Figure out why spineless people run to you, and do something different.

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  2. You're not crapping on me by saying that at all. And you calling this friend that shit on me spineless is DEAD ON.

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  3. On a lighter note, the Alistair fight was a heavyweight version of Silva/Leites. Kinda hard to look good when all your opponent wants to do is flop around like a virgin on prom night. By now the cat is out of the bag and everyone knows Alistair is one of if not THE best striker in MMA. Gonna be hard to find guys to trade with him.

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  4. That's exactly the fight I thought of watching it.

    It will be interesting to see how he and Bigfoot square off.

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  5. WTF - you watch Netflix at work?

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  6. No, but I can't mess with my instant queue.

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  7. Have fun watching "the fighter". You will be surprised that it is really not your typical boxing or sports movie. Not even that much boxing action in it. I was expecting a "rocky", and it was definitely not that. Still good, but different.

    Abe

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  8. Being something that i want to do sooner or later, i think it'd be cool to see you get into bodybuilding.

    If you ever feel like writing an article on bodybuilding training, i'd really be interested in seeing you write up an example split.

    For now, any good articles or sites you recommend for non-retarded info on proper BB'ing training?

    -Joe

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  9. If I decided to go that route for a while, I'd do doggcrapp again probably or something similar. I'd really have to sit and think about that for a while. My mind has been so focused on the functional aspect of strength training for a while I would have to readjust a bit.

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  10. paul, first off i hope your weekend and fathers day went great.

    secondly, man about that alistair fight, in my humble opinion, that was the most sorry excuse for a fight ive ever seen. ok its the the WORST worst, but it was pretty damn bad. to me alistair proved to be in that fight, one of the most one dimensional fighters ive ever seen.

    now granted, everyone has their bread and butter and yes he IS a striker but even his striking seemed to be lackluster. GREATEST HEAVYWEIGHT IN THE WORLD----i dont think so. ive never seen a "champ" be so afraid to go to the ground, it was pitiful to me, even though he had been submitted by him before, u would think he learned some ground game since then.

    this is all just my OPINION though.

    now heres a question ive been thinking alot lately. im going to give an example.
    fighter A is a striker, fighter B a ground specialist, fighter a knocks down fighter b, instead of attacking the fighter on the ground, in some heavy ground n pound for example, he stands there waving his hands for fighter B to stand up, the ref then steps in to make fighter B, stand up. the question is, or statement, whichever, why should the striker be awarded to take the fight where HE wants it to go and the ground guy be made to abandon his tactics?

    to me it seems one sided, as ive seen alot of fights lately with the same scenerio. i mean if he wants to stand and bang, shouldnt he jump on the guy, since clearly hes already knocked him down, and beat him into submission or beat him until the ground fighter WANTS to get up to escape the punishment.

    to me it just seems almost like hiding behind the ref for your moral support. i mean why REWARD a guy with standing up his oppenent when clearly he cant finish him unless its on HIS terms. its a game of chess and they need to learn that if they want it STANDING, find a way to make it happen without being GIRLS and having the ref do it.

    Dave

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  11. about your comment on people;

    i couldnt agree with u more. ALL PEOPLE will sell u out. ALL of them. like u said, some just have higher prices than others. and sometimes, as ive often seen, once i get sold out by one friend and another comes along to "console me" about it, their motives arent often so pure either. maybe they think there is something to be gained from our success, even if WE dont see it that way, you cant see the wind blow but that damn sure dont mean it doesnt exist. the same goes with being married sometimes, the person we are with loves us completely until maybe one day we do something they dont agree with and suddenly we fall out of favor and they move on to the next best thing. sometimes we are lucky enough to find that rare one that will always be true. as u have from what ive read, but people have what i like to call the "NBTS" or "NEXT BEST THING SYDROME".

    dont like the car u have? buy a new one, next best thing.
    house to small to look cool to people, buy a new one.
    husband doesnt agree with every tiny thing u say, cheat or leave, next best thing syndrome.no sense of committment on ANYTHING.

    I think that "trust" as a whole is over-rated and most often the people who say, "you can trust me" are the very ones that break one off in you. and its a society thing, its the way people are raised differntly now, theres no respect or honor amongst men, theres no heros or people to look up to, who are our heros??
    the crooked politicians we elect? the sports figures we idolize until one day we find out the have a drug addiction problem? i dont know man, it just makes me sick how people are now. theres more sorry it keeps cutting me off for a reason im sure haha.

    Dave

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  12. we have grown 20 year old men dressing up as witches to go to harry potters movie premiere,
    we have this mtv mentality that we too should be like the douchebags from "jersey shore" when in fact a recent study showed that what we watch, makes us DUMBER.

    less than 60% of kids AND adults can tell you the difference in the words KNOW and no, theres and theirs.

    ok im just ranting and have taken enough of your time, my apologies for making this so long, your blog is the best and all your thoughts are dead on. u and i are cut from the same cloth.

    thanks for always tell the truth.

    as i like to say, the truth is like medicine, its hard to swallow and 99% of the time its exactly what most people need but damn sure dont want.

    sorry again for hijacking your blog post, it wasnt intentional, just making conversation and im always open to new ideas or ways of seeing things. keep up the good work!

    Dave

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  13. Dave - no hijack at all. I welcome all ranting and raving.

    As far as Alistair goes, Silva did the same thing to a guy who kept inviting him to get on the ground with him.

    The fact is, part of being a great fighter is knowing what you are not great at, or not great at compared to your opponent. That's one of the things about MMA. It's a real chess match. Alistair lose to Werdum before because of a submission. His plan was to stuff take downs and not put himself into a bad position. You need to remember that Werdum submitted the greatest MMA fighter of all time in Fedor.

    It was boring and didn't inspire confidence, but not every fight is going to be fire works.

    Werdum didn't really want to stand and bang with alistair either. He knows that is a losing battle for him (even though his stand up looked better than in past fights).

    It will be intereting to see how the Overeem/Bigfoot fight goes.

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  14. paul, yeah that was kind of one of the things i was trying to say about alistair, i wasnt impressed with his standup at all. i think if he was given some "well rounded" competetion he is going to have some issues, i could be wrong on this but i just feel like hes over-rated. not to say that he isnt good, but hes just that, good, and im hoping this tourney proves that.i do think that werdum did a great job in his standup but i dont feel it was a decisive victory. hell i think barnetts fight and aggressiveness was more impressive, but then again im biased because i want barnett all the way, probably wont happen but a man can dream.

    and yes i agree its going to be more interesting to see how overeem/ bigfoot fight goes, im sure he will post more of a challenge, lets hope so anyway.


    Dave

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  15. paul,

    Oh and what do u think about the standup situation i was talking about earlier? about how some strikers basically hide behind the ref and get them to do the work of standing them up?

    not that im totally against strikers, i just think that any grappler who trains to strike can strike pretty effeciently, but not every striker can be proficient at grappling;


    Dave

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  16. I don't think most predominantly BJJ guys are good strikers for a reason. If you are going to be a world class BJJ guy, you have to spend an awful lot of time doing BJJ. That does't leave a lot of time for becoming a world class striker.

    I personally think the best thing is to be great at striking and great at ground defense. It's hard to learn how to sub guys, but it's not as hard to learn how to escape subs or stuff shoots. And like the old saying guys, you punch a bjj black belt in the face he becomes a brown belt. Well you sort of saw that in this fight. Although not to the degree you normally do.

    I don't think Overeem is overrated at all. The guy just won the K-1 world championships. He didn't want to get into a ground battle with Werdum. So what? That's smart tactically. In fighting you win with your strengths against the other guys weakness. I personally hate guys that have no stand up like Pillow Fists Jake Shields and Werdum. If the fight goes to the ground, fine. Win. But to pull guard on a guy because you're afraid to strike with him is pussy to me.

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  17. when it comes to people/trust/so on and so forth, what about the old adage "like attracts like". We attract who we are, for better and worse.

    -Carl

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  18. That's interesting because my wife and I couldn't be more opposite.

    I'm certainly no wilting flower like some of the people I've been around for certain.

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  19. I wouldn't say it was a pussy way to fight, it's just a matter of sticking to what your best at. Werdum was basically trying to do the same thing Alistair was doing, just that his way looked like he was ducking the fight. I get why he did it but in the end it makes BOTH guys look bad. It would be nice if most MMA fighters were well rounded but once you get tagged you will always go to what your primary discipline is.

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  20. When it becomes obvious that you're not going to be able to take a guy down, like in that fight, you have to stand and bang or you're going to lose. Anytime a fighter just flops to his back in hopes that the other guy with mount, that's pussy to me. Stand and bang long enough to score a take down, then work your craft. Werdum is a vag.

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  21. paul, ok ill agree with the fact that the ground guys should have striking abilities too.

    if u punch a a bjj black belt in the face he becomes a brown belt, if u punch a good wreslter in the face, he takes u down and breaks yours.

    What about the fact that Werdum threw MORE punches than Overeem? and landed more over-all, his percentage was LOWER but.....thats because he threw way more punches.

    Dont get me wrong, i am NOT a fan of Werdum, at all, to me he doesnt even belong fighting on tv.

    nor am i a fan of that fag jake sheilds, hes probably the one fighter that i really would like to smash with a bat myself, just due to the fact that he fights like a girl. but yes Werdum DID fall to his back after some of the exchanges, but still threw more hands in those exchanges, i will agree with robbie too in that it made them BOTH look bad.

    u are right about fighting "smart". in a perfect world they would all be well rounded, but to me, if u know u are good at something, striking for example and thats your primary discipline, then wouldnt it make sense to train more in the things u WERENT good at. maybe he needs to just go to boxing lol. just saying.

    i hope u dont think im trying to start shit, im truly just making conversation. i dont have many educated people surrounding me to talk about fighting or well, anything with, and i value your opinion.

    Dave

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  22. Def don't agree about punching the wrestler in the face. Wrestlers practically helped invent the term lay n pray. Wrestlers don't do well with getting hit either. Just ask Brock Lesnar.

    Alistair said he was surprised at the stand up of Werdum, and said the whole camp he worked on take down defense. I think that explains a lot about how Reem looked as well.

    I think Reem is fine on the ground, however his strength is standing and knocking guys out. Chuck Liddell made a whole career out of it. Good ground defense and make bitches stand and bang. That's what I like to see.

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  23. Brock Lesnar is the EXCEPTION to the rule, it only takes a couple of douches to make all grapplers look bad lol.

    right on. chuck made a hell of a career out of it, until guys figured it out, i dont know about lay n pray, i mean brock lesnar yes, but then again ive never seen anything impressive out of him, the best thing about him is when his fights are over IMO.

    but Randy Couture lay n pray? or how about the old Mark Kerr, GSP (which he isnt specifically a wrestler, hes just an all around baddass).
    Mark Coleman
    Matt Hughes
    Josh Koschek
    Tito ortiz
    Urijah Faber

    i mean the list could go on and on, these are accomplished wrestlers that have dangerous games either off their backs, from the mount, side control etc etc.

    their primary is wrestling but secondary they are strikers and some of them got good at subs, but for the most part wrestling is what did it. i mean u cant be a PURE wrestler and win in MMA obviously u have to throw SOME punches to take it where u want it to go or whatever, i just think theres more skill involved in ground work, be it takedowns, submissions, working for position, ground n pound, a million different things. i figured a big strong guy like u would be more into grappling instead of slap fighting lol, thats a joke, no offense was meant there man. but it was funny lol.

    but yes i give him Overeem his credit where its due and thats ONLY in his stuff of takedowns, i will blame his shit performance and landing less strikes then Werdum on maybe drinking the night before? theres still another fight coming up, maybe he will make a believer out of me haha.


    Dave

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  24. Josh Koschek laid on Paul Daley for 3 rounds. He's been notorious for some lay n pray.

    Ortiz was a ground n pound guy, not really a wrestler and never did lay n pray. And his stand up was atrocious.

    Kerr, Coleman, and even Hughes have all had their moments of lay n pray because they are wrestlers. It's what they do.

    None of the guys you listed were great stand up guys. Randy was great at dirty boxing but got KTFO twice by Chuck.

    I train with wrestlers and I can tell you that none of them have great stand up. Guys like Cain and Carwin are real exceptions, and Carwin got made to look silly by a first class striker in JDS.

    I'm not a fan of wrestlers. I agree it's a great base to start with in MMA, but so is kick boxing. It's easy to develop great take down defense and force guys to stand with you. TO me, this is the best way to train for fighting. I don't want to be in the ground because you expend a ton of energy and no matter how good you are, you can get caught in a sub.

    Besides, like Rampage said "if you tap out, you just say you just got caught in a sub. If I knock you out, you just caught an ass whuppin."

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  25. Hey Paul,

    Sucks to hear about your instructor. For me it has been 4 months now since I ruptured my right patella tendon, my rehab will last till september if all goes well. I can't imagine the pain and inconvenience when both are torn.

    Great article about the demon of fear btw.

    Mark from Holland

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  26. Thanks Mark.

    I can't imagine being a Lt. Dan either. Sucks.

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  27. Well this is one of the reasons I say that I have no friends. I don't mean that in some kind of psychopathic unfriendly way. I just mean that I have a great number of friendly acquaintances and maybe one friend.
    Remember, a friend will help you move, but a REAL friend will help you move a body. That's the difference.
    Don't let yourself get all hard and cold inside because of things like this. People are just people and they're free to do as they please. But they have to live with consequences of their actions.

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  28. Oh don't worry, I'm sure I'll stick my neck out there for someone again. I always do. LOL

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  29. Well, that's actually a good thing.

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  30. paul, ok , good valid points. wrestling still kicks ass, except fake ass wwe nonsense haha. but yeah i see what u are saying for sure.


    Dave

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