Some Good Training

I started my training trip by going back to my alma mater. I was able to get in a couple of good days of training with Morgan, Kish, Eggum and Tweez before heading down to Iowa St to finish it off. It was nice to work with Morgan again. I was able to work on some of the areas that I needed to work on with him, for example - hand fighting. You can hand fight with anyone but when you are able to do it with a man of Marty's stature - its awesome. This I feel is the major area that I need to focus on. I was telling Marty that I sometimes feel rushed with the new rules and I completely lose focus of everything I'm trying to do. So I tried to focus on a lot of volume wrestling while I was working with him. I was able to drill and work out with Eggs and Kish too. They are a little bit smaller than me but you need to be on your toes with those guys. In all, it was good to get on the mat with those guys again.

Wednesday Tweez and I started our trip down to Iowa St. After a couple of hours of country music and b-sing we finally made to Hartung's place. Wed was our down day so we decided to head over to the wrestling room at the rec center to play a little racquetball. I must say that this is one sport I wouldn't bet the farm on. I SUCK. Tweez and Hartung are pretty good to say the least. So after taking a couple beatings, I decided to let the pros go at it. When we were done, we hit the sauna and headed back to Tim's to relax for the following days practice.

At Iowa St. I got to work out with Tim, Backes and Varner. I wasn't able to get on the mat with Cael at all, but it was still great to work out with those other guys. All three of those guys have very different styles, so adjusting to wrestle each one was good. Its always nice to mix it up with different training partners when ever you can. In the short time I was there, we wrestled a lot of 6 minute straight matches and I have to say Hartung is still one tough SOB. That being said, I had some good training at both places. Now I have a couple of weeks here in Ithaca to train before heading out to hopefully Ohio to train with Tommy and then off to Chicago to train with Bormet at Overtime before going to the Trails in early June. Check back soon.

PS. Turkey season opens on Tues. here in NY. One of my wrestlers and I are getting up at the butt crack of dawn on Tues. to get one. I'll let you know how it goes.

What happened in Vegas, Stays in Vegas

Lets just say it did not go well. There are somethings that I need to change before the WTT. I don't really know what happened in my first match but I ended up losing to someone that I never should have. It went to the clinch in the 1st period and he got the lock. I defended it by trying to throw him in a chest lock (like a crotch throw but around the chest) and with the new rules-if the person defending the clinch goes to his butt the other man scores. So instead of getting 3 points, he got the 3. The 2nd period ended with a push out that scored him a point and gave me my first loss in the tournament. I had 2 more matches that resulted in a pin and a injury forfeit before losing my second match of the tournament to put me in the 7th 8th place match. I ended up winning that match to qualify me for the WTT in June.

When looking at the big picture, this tournament is just preparation for June. Like I stated before, there are somethings that I need to work on if I plan on making the world team this year. I going to take the rest of the week off to recover. I got a little banged up to say the least. Then get back on the horse and keep moving forward. I plan on heading out to MN and down to Iowa St. to get some good training in before the trials. I'll let you know how things are going.