Geezer's Long March Toward the Elite Sneaking Up On the Finish Line

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 247

5 minute warmup on the bike. (light Day)

Bench Press: 140 x 8 x 3 + 15

One Arm Dumbbell Row: 75 x 8 x 3 + 15

Back Extension: 90 x 3 x 10.

Followed by a GXP foam roller and stretching. This week has been a beast! Lots of shit going on at work but if I told you more I'd have to kill you. Maybe eat you like Oldster would, except for the liver. I hate liver. I was too worn from the alls and the sundries to even try dragging my butt to jujitsu Wednesday night, and slept in on Thursday so I doubled down on the GXP this morning along with the lifting. Then into work extra early today for still more dirty deeds done dirt cheap. God am I glad it's Friday!

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 244.5

I was tired this morning but got over to the dojo for my weekly dose of drubbing. Very glad I did too, because we worked on things I had never seen before in this art. We started out with some variations on the judo throw Osoto Gari with a series of 3 or 4 variant hand use entries that displaced the head and neck and resulted in a really hard fall. Nothing too new there, but then we moved to a release and counter from a front choke. You reach up and put your thumbs in the attacker's eyes and then drop your left hand in a knife hand strike to his right brachioradialus or the L5 meridian point. Your right thumb stays in his eye and you drive it across to the left, down, and backward. The attacker folds like a card table. The fear and aversion from the thumbs in the eyes is primal and all you want to do is get away. By the time the brain begins to get organized, you're down on the mat and getting choked or pummeled.

We then went a wrist grab on each one by two assailants. The release was effected by pointing your fingers downward and outward while stepping forward and bending your knees. You are driving left and right with the knees and elbows at the same time and the net effect makes impossible for one or both attackers to hang on to you. Once you get one hand loose you drive an elbow in close to the other's torso and you were out.

Then there was the technique where your grab someone's wrist for a technique and they seize up and make a fist. To break this deadlock you drive a rising ridge hand strike to the underside of the forearm that has the fist at the end of it. The wrist bends immediately and then it's just a matter of a little twisting and torque to apply a wrist lock and immobilize the arm or take them down with a wrist flex take down. Very nice.

Finally there was a variation of finger bars that was new to me too. An attacker reaches for you and you grab them bending them back and up towards the attacker. Pretty effective all by itself. But if there is some real serious resistance, reach over with the other hand and deliver a dropping left knife hand on the attacker's forearm twice down toward the wrist. Then you use that left hand to draw against the back of his hand and it hurts like a bastard and tends to prone him out. Great session.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

The attacker folds like a card table. The fear and aversion from the thumbs in the eyes is primal and all you want to do is get away. By the time the brain begins to get organized, you're down on the mat and getting choked or pummeled.

I love equalizers. I'm not a big person, so I love to work on the dirty shit: eyes, throat, groin, knees, fingers, you name it.

When I took my first Krav test, we were doing the warm up and review, and I got called out by HI. One of the examinees had his head split open by his "partner," a 6'6" 280-lb Goliath who had failed to control an elbow strike. I told the guy he couldn't test and sent him to the ER. I went back to warm up with my partner, and Goliath comes over. "I'm with you guys now," he says. So not only did we have to test as a threesome, we had to test with The Dangerous Giant With No Control. I won't go into the details, but it was pretty horrifyin'. He was throwing me and my partner (a 210-lb cop) around like rag dolls. Broke one of my partners floating ribs. When he did low kicks to the shin, they went right through the pad; I could feel the marrow in my tibias shaking loose.

ANYWHO, the point is that during one technique, well into the test when we were all getting exhausted and sloppy, Goliath came out of his stance a moment too soon, and I punched him right the throat by accident. And the guy was just completely incapacitated for several minutes. I could have done anything to him. He was mine. A nice object reminder that fighting "dirty" can pay big dividends. I practice throat strikes more than I used to now.

We then went a wrist grab on each one by two assailants. The release was effected by pointing your fingers downward and outward while stepping forward and bending your knees. You are driving left and right with the knees and elbows at the same time and the net effect makes impossible for one or both attackers to hang on to you. Once you get one hand loose you drive an elbow in close to the other's torso and you were out.

Sounds like a Tang Soo self defense. Good stuff.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I love equalizers. I'm not a big person, so I love to work on the dirty shit: eyes, throat, groin, knees, fingers, you name it.

Master Bellman calls it old man technique. He's 5'6" maybe 160 lbs. and looks like an entirely unimpressive balding accountant. In fact at the end of the session yesterday he talked about how when he was 13 and the smallest kid in the class and surrounded by 200+ lb. other students, his sensei would say, "This technique will work for everyone but Dave." He said he had to learn how to make the techniques work even though he was small and weak and persist until he found techniques where size and strength really didn't matter. Then of course they center around the most vulnerable areas or what I have come to call the fire alarm pull stations on the body. It's one reason why I work on my grip. Lots of places to grab loose skin on the inner sides of the limbs, torso, the (ahem) groinal danglies, ears, or nose. Oh, and the trachea. Can't forget the trachea. I used that to end fights and resistance a few times as a cop with just the thumb, middle, and index fingers. I knew about eye attacks, but yesterday was the first time I had ever had fingers inserted into the sockets (lightly) and was disturbing. I've had and used finger flicks across the bridge of the nose and the eyes, and while they are effective they don't begin to compare. I have no beef against the competitive jujitsu folks, but the structured nature of rules, rings, and refs take about 25%-30% of total techniques away for valid safety reasons. A real fight will not go 3 or 5 minutes, but more like 30-60 seconds, and 30 might even be a stretch. When you can't breathe or have some broken fingers or crushed instep, you can't fight. I'm rapidly getting to the point of view that trying to explain this to some folks is really pointless.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Weight: 245

5 minutes warmup on the bike. (Heavy Day)

Overhead Press: The plan today was 15 singles with 210 lbs. I got to 185 in my warmups and it was hard. I thought maybe taking a single with 210 and then saying screw it and going right for 225 might be in order. Didn't even get out the first single with 210.

Squat: 315 x 1. The plan here was 310 x 3 but I decided to try to salvage some self respect with three big plates each side. My lower back was still feeling the falls from jujitsu yesterday and my right knee has been nagging me all week on the outside with what feels like it might be a ligament. I just don't feel like griping about everything that hurts on me. I got up to 275 and backed it out and the erectors twanged a couple of times when I dipped my knees a skosh and I re-racked it having lost my courage. So I belted up and got under it again and did it with ease. Then the same with 315. But only one, I got the willies again and re-racked it. Aggravating too, because absent my loss of nerve, I think now I could have gotten out two more.

Did a GXP and went home.

Time for a lessons learned review. This year began in triumph with what I thought was progressive weight loss and a 200+ overhead press. In fact at the time I thought it was a bodyweight press. But no, that rat bastard Tanita scale played me false. But whatever the bodyweight, I still have the press to be glad about. Then came my ambition for two big wheels in the press. But not meant to be this year. As the year went on, work demands ramped up big and became an ever growing distraction. Like that big machine from space in the 50's science fiction classic, Kronos. The more power you used to try to overcome it, the bigger it got. Then there was the 3 pounds I dropped this past week. It all combined to result in today's workout. I made three max effort runs at the press this year, and in retrospect that was one too many. I suspected as much when I started this one, but hung in and refused to acknowledge it so as to avoid it becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. It may even be that this is as far as I get in the press. I'm 61, and the gas fumes in the tanks are getting thin. I'm not throwing in the towel yet, but I am going to make damn sure I have recovered from this last grab at the brass ring. I'm taking at least a week off and maybe two and a little more to rest up and regroup. Then a few months of ramping up again, but not to a max effort, just a slightly demanding one. Also more attention to eating to drop some more weight. Then in about 3-4 months I'll evaluate my chances at another run at 225 in the press again.

[ZKP]

Mr.Hurling

I see you're trying the singles. A thing i'd noticed with them, since they are a lot less volume (think total reps lifted), is that they can be trained more often. Since you obviously don't give much a shit about your bench( I don't either), sub in things which will help your top end strength....board presses or bottom position rack presses or something like that on otherwise bench days, and press every time you lift. Think mon 15 singles(90%), wed 5 singles, fri 10 singles w/5lbs more.....with your specialized top end horizontal pressing on mon and fri. That would be 30 heavy reps a week plus assistance work. Just something to think about and some things that have worked for me...good luck

[bob g]

Oh, so it's MR. Hurling?



Mark, I couldn't resist.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Ha! I had the same reaction, but I hate to mock someone who took the time to pay some respect to me. Even if I doubt I deserve it. Not a bad tip ZKP, and I appreciate it. But Mr. Hurling was The Old Man's name. Just call me Mark, Knurling, or MEH. It's easier for me to know how to act.

[tertius]

God, getting a thumb in the eye is just terrible. I've only ever had it happen on accident, but it really makes you let go of somebody and just cover your face.

[Mark E. Hurling]

The real revelation for me was the simple placement of someone else's thumbs even lightly to moderately in my eye sockets and on my lids. It triggered the response like a switch was flipped, and not in a good way at all.