This week held some ups and downs in terms of training, depending on how you look at it I guess.

As I mentioned last week my truck was not cooperating with me and it continued on into this week. It’s taken care of now, but it’s frustrating having to call your teammates up for a drive to the gym every day. Luckily I have a great support system around me so I didn’t really miss a beat. My buddy Luke Harris, who is the owner of Hayabusa came and picked me up every morning. He took a lot of stress off my shoulders this past week.

I did most of my training at Hayabusa this week but Luke and I also got to Frank Lee’s once too. Hayabusa is a five-minute drive from where I live, and Athletes Nation, where I do my strength and conditioning, is in the same building.

My week at Hayabusa started Monday night, with wrestling with coach Roger
Alves. Wrestling is the most physically demanding of all of the mixed martial arts disciplines in my opinion. Roger is very technical and a great instructor but he also has a little “go hard retard” in him as well. His workouts are always hellish. we usually start out with a little technique for several rounds just to smooth out wrinkles then it’s work time. we switch between straight wrestling to sparring with gloves to ground and pound. Some wrestlers have a hard time switching between straight wrestling and MMA wrestling but Roger is excellent at it. He has fought several MMA matches so he’s got some very good insight. The night was a long hard night that ended with some not so pleasant conditioning.

The next day I could hardly get out of bed. My roommates are always making fun of me when I’m training for a fight. "Dude you’re walking like you shit yourself," they tell me a lot. Sometimes when I come home from training I can barely move. If you’re training hard, you should almost dread getting out of bed. The first 10 steps are painful, but it gets better as you loosen up.

On Tuesday mornings, after some conditioning at Athlete’s Nation, I head up to Hayabusa for an hour or so of jiu-jitsu. Since I’m already warm from training, I jump right into rolling. I’ve got some great training partners up there – lots of other professional fighters from Luke Harris, Jeff Montemurro and Mitch Clark to Sheldon Westcott. All of them are great grapplers. When i’m grappling with an individual, I try to beat them at their own game. For instance, Luke is a submission wizard and when I’m rolling with him I try to outdo him with submissions. Jeff is very strong and a great wrestler with a great base, so I try to beat him at his strength. Mitch is extremely technical, so I try to be more technical than him. Sheldon is very fast and athletic so I try to beat him in those aspects. I simply want to be the best at every single aspect of fighting, that’s all, is that to much to ask?

Tuesday night was an interesting night as that’s the night when all of the pros come into Hayabusa for sparring. First off, I would like to apologize to everyone I sparred with that night. I had some frustration with some things that happened in my personal life and was a little irritated when I went into that night’s sparring session. Everyone I sparred with felt the brunt of it. To be honest with you, it was the best I’ve felt sparring in a long time, but again, I’m sorry guys.

My next training session at Hayabusa was Wednesday night and we again did…you guessed it…more wrestling. Then Thursday morning more jiu-jitsu and conditioning. After some more conditioning at Athletes Nation Friday morning, it was back to Hayabusa for some more technique in the evening. Saturday was wash rinse and repeat of the day before.

This week didn’t go as optimally as I wanted due to lack of
transportation, but that’s what makes you better than everybody else – that ability to deal with whatever comes at you and take it all in stride and not let it mentally get you down. We all have hiccups and distractions in our lives when we are trying to train; it just depends on how you deal with it that makes you
better.

Six weeks left until fight time. Stay tuned.

Hulk Hogan used to say "Eat your vitamins and say your prayers." I prefer to say, “Drink your protein shakes and study your science."

Later,

Ryan “The Big Deal” Jimmo