Competition Time: Part II...

A day after competing and I am less angry with myself. But that would not be hard considering the foul fucking mood I left the venue in. I basically lost all discipline and hit the self-destruct button at the tournament.

The truth is that I've been here before when I crashed and burnt at a big national pool event a few years ago. What I did after that was stew for a few days, then dissect, dismantle and rebuild my entire single-frame game. Result: I've regularly performed at every big tournament since under the pressure of not letting my team-mates down.

So I clearly need to adopt a similar policy here.

My best strategy at BJJ is always to pull guard, get my opponent in my closed guard, secure an overhook and attack from there with omoplatas, chokes and wrist locks. I have been trying to add half guard into this mix for a while, too, and it's sort of coming along.

So I need to build in more strategies to get opponents into this place where I feel I operate best and I need to build in more failsafes to avoid making myself vulnerable when this doesn't happen. 

So my four priorities for the next few months need to be: 

i) drill mount and side control escape combinations so I can escape bad positions and either establish or re-establish half or full guard 

ii) drill pulling guard or throwing using the Greco throw I like to get on top of an opponent 

iii) drill butterfly, shin-on-shin or single x to defend bad positions when I am fighting a standing opponent from the floor

iv) drill breaking and passing guard to establish a better position 

Any other fancy shit can wait. I think that's a decent plan.

Competition Time: Part I...

A return to competing at BJJ but an utter disaster of a day. I'd trained harder for this event than ever before and I was fucking awful. The only thing I did right was make weight.

Fight number one was No Gi and, because there was nobody else in my age category, I was thrown in with fighters 15 years younger. That's not normally a massive issue, but I ran up against someone who was also just better in every department and was much stronger as well. Result: I made a half-arsed attempt to pull guard but ended up getting passed and tapped to an Americana that badly wrenched my rotator cuff in about 30 seconds.

I had higher hopes in gi with four of us in the category, namely myself, another 50-year-old and two 40-year-olds. I tried to pull guard in my first fight, again made a mess of it and got trapped in side control for five minutes and lost. I then fought for bronze and tried to pull guard again, fucked it up and ended up in a weird butterfly position that took absolutely no passing. I nearly got a sweep but ended up tapping to a footlock.

The gi fights were both winnable but I didn't do the basics right in either and got entirely what I deserved. My coach told me that I should have mixed side control escapes up in my first and secured a guard in the second. I had options to go to single x and de la Riva but basically did nothing. And these are not things I don't know either.

There are no good philosophical take homes from this. I was utterly rubbish. I genuinely may as well not have bothered. I needed to be more focused and I needed to have a clearer plan. I also need to drill bread-and-butter positions and techniques I don't drill with much more regularity. 

PS: just when I thought the day could not get any worse, my train home was cancelled.

The 120-press-ups-a-day Challenge: Part VI...

So we are done. It's less than 48 hours until competition day and, this week in particular, I have trained like a lunatic and logged about 15 hours of mat time. 

Anyway, the press-up results so far: 
Day 52 Accumulative Press-ups Total: 4980

Day 52 Weight: 12 stone 10 pounds

Day 52 Waist: 34 inches

Day 52 Chest: 40 Inches

I would post a picture of my finely honed physique but I fear it would break the internet. So I have posted a picture of Stan Laurel with Oliver Hardy instead because I have a new haircut and I look like Stan. We also share a similar physique.

I'm also going to continue the press-up and punching thing but only do it a couple of times a week and increase the numbers.

Nearly Great Song Titles...

A semi-regular flight of fancy in which I play with song titles and try to make them funny by swapping one letter for an alternative letter. 

Today's entries are submitted by the Other Woman:
A Day in the Wife by The Beatles 
Teenage Dicks by The Undertones 
Brighton Cock by Queen 
24-hour Farty People by The Happy Mondays

The first one is a particular favourite and it reminds me that she is a world-class smut bucket.

Nearly Great Song Titles...

A semi-regular flight of fancy in which I play with song titles and try to make them funny by swapping one letter for an alternative letter. 

Today's entries:
Fridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkle
All Night Dong by Lionel Richie
Lancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen
Glue Monday by New Order
Teenage Dicks by The Undertones

I will try to make future entries less smutty and more surreal.

The 120-press-ups-a-day Challenge: Part V...

I'm still at the 150 press-ups mark and I'm finding it OK. I'd like to increase that daily number, but I also don't want to exhaust myself. Or maybe I'm just lazy and this is the plateau where I've decided to pitch my fitness tent. Don't worry, I know the latter is a terrible analogy.

Anyway, the results so far: 

Day 46 Accumulative Press-ups Total: 4530

Day 46 Weight: 12 stone 12 pounds

Day 46 Waist: 36 inches

Day 46 Chest: 41 Inches

The loss and gains so far are minuscule. But I'm also training BJJ and Hapkido so I am hoping muscles also replacing fat and that is why the weight has remained reasonably constant. I'm certainly eating enough fruit to single-handedly increase the share price in M&S at the moment. So at least they should be happy...

A Content Consumer Recommends...

Film

Jojo Rabbit: Gloriously funny and moving comedy-drama from New Zealand director Takia Waititi. Set at the end of World War Two, it follows a young German boy obsessed with the Nazi Party and Hitler. The latter also happens to be his imaginary friend (pictured above). The film follows the lad's adoption of Third Reich ideology and the eventual shattering of that way of thinking. Roman Griffin Davis is excellent as the lonely schoolboy, while Waititi has a blast playing the Austrian-born dictator. Sam Rockwell is also fabulous as the leader of the local branch of the Hitler Youth. I genuinely can't recall seeing a better film in a long time. It's an utter joy.

The Foreigner: Netflix movie starring Jackie Chan as a father out for revenge against the rogue cell of Irish terrorists who murdered his daughter. He becomes embroiled in a plot involving Pierce Brosnan's bloody bid to forward the peace process. A surprisingly good thriller.

Jumanji: The Next Level: Enjoyable sequel nonsense starring the Rock. It's by the numbers but it's good fun. And it has the Rock. But I may have mentioned that already.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: This could be a long and over-wrought analysis of why it's not a good enough ending to something many folk my age have a massive emotional investment in. Instead, it's probably just about OK. It's much better if you don't go in there without your critical faculties engaged and, instead, you simply marvel at the set pieces and enjoy the nods to the previous movies. It does have a couple of great scenes and some good dialogue. But, frankly, it doesn't deliver or surprise or innovate.

TV
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Quite simply the best sitcom on TV. If you're in with the premise and the characters and their dark, anti-Friends world, it remains a thing of glorious brilliance. Highlights of Season 14 include the noir thriller pastiche The Janitor Always Mops Twice, the wonderfully astute The Gang Solves Global Warming and A Woman's Right to Chop, and the brilliant film focus group episode, Thunder Gun IV: Maximum Cool. I  fucking well adore this series. Please make season 15 soon. 

Broken: Netflix documentary series examining dodgy businesses around the globe and how their marketing arms and business practices make many of them morally bankrupt. A sometimes depressing, frightening but fascinating watch. Cosmetics, vaping and furniture are among the subjects examined.

Dracula: A hotly anticipated adaptation – of sorts – of the Bram Stoker novel from Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. I really liked the opening episode and the second episode was OK. But the third episode felt like a convoluted episode of Skins with the writers not quite knowing how to escape the clever story maze they'd got a bit lost in. 

The 120-press-ups-a-day Challenge: Part IV...

The good news is that I'm now racking up 150 press-ups a day. The bad news is that I've also watched a video teaching viewers the correct form and posture for press-ups. I haven't exactly been doing them incorrectly, but I also haven't been doing them to ensure I get the optimum benefit. 

So next week will see a bit of experimentation and refinement on how I deliver a better down and up motion. Make your own gags... 

Who'd have thought press-ups could be so complicated?

Anyway, the results so far: 
Day 24 Accumulative Press-ups Total: 2310

Day 24 Weight: 13 stone 2 pounds

Day 24 Waist: 36 inches

Day 24 Chest: 40 Inches

So no major changes. But I plan to keep going with this and I'll hopefully see some physical gains at some point. Probably...

The 120-press-ups-a-day Challenge: Part III...

Alongside trying to train BJJ and Hapkido, this press-up lark is very hard work. Whoever thought of doing if is clearly a fucking moron. Oh, hang on, it was me. Hating press-ups sees me in good company, though. 

There is footage of legendary grappler and 'Gracie Hunter' Kasushi Sakuraba (pictured above) training press-ups while he's preparing for a fight. Even he stops doing them and grabs a breather the moment his trainer's back is turned. 

Anyway, the results so far: 
Day 17 Accumulative Press-ups Total: 1560

Day 17 Weight: 13 stone 3 pounds

Day 17 Waist: 36 inches

Day 17 Chest: 40 Inches

So nothing on the physical front has really changed very much. It certainly has not made me more rugged and macho. 

On the plus side, my scales give me a weather report. It's going to rain. For most of the week. Fucking technology...

Dating Tips...

Don't tell your wife that you can imagine her happily butchering the carcasses of various breeds of livestock with a chainsaw on your 23rd anniversary meal. 

Apparently, it's not 'romantic'.

But women are funny like that...

The 120-press-ups-a-day Challenge: Part II...

It's Day 10, minus rest days at weekends so it's actually Day 8, and the challenge continues. 

The good news is that it's getting slightly easier. I've managed to hit the 40 consecutive press-ups mark without a break a couple of times and I manage at least one set of 30 consecutive press-ups each day. This means I'm usually breaking down 120 press-ups into five sets. That will improve next week when the plan is to do it in four sets before I increase the daily number the following week. 

I will crack the 100 consecutive press-ups threshold at some point this year! Unless the Missus tires of me heaving and gasping in the bedroom every morning. Apparently, this is not an attractive sight. I cannot imagine why. I always assumed me in my Deadpool boxer shorts would drive any laydeez wild.

Anyway, the results so far: 
Day 10 Accumulative Press-ups Total: 960

Day 10 Weight: 13 stone 3 pounds

Day 10 Waist: 36 inches

Day 10 Chest: 40 Inches

PS. The picture is of famed wrestler Frank Gotch. It is not of me. Just in case you thought it was. We are often mistaken for one another...

Malcolm and the Murder...

Here's a short play I wrote and directed in the summer for the 2019 Guildford Fringe Festival. I filmed it during one of the rehearsals and I finally got round to editing it together in December.

I'm planning on writing a 90-minute story, comprised of six 15-minute episodes, using the same three characters later this year. That is alongside a new stage play that explores the impact of dementia and the polarisation of Brexit, rewrites on an old stage play about grief, and a graphic novel about Dracula that I'm co-writing with a friend. It's all quite exciting.

If you can be bothered to watch this offering, I hope you enjoy it.

Quote of the Day...

Canadian darts player and three-times World Champion John Part was commentating on the recent PDC Darts World Championship final between eventual winner Peter Wright and Michael Van Gerwen, the dominant force in the game and perhaps one of the greatest sportsmen in the world at this present moment.

Part was discussing Wright's poor record in the finals of major tournaments against Van Gerwen and he came out with the following gem. To paraphrase it, he said that Wright's previous losses have given him so much scar tissue that he wasn’t afraid of being cut any more.

If you've done anything to any standard before, resilience training is part of your routine. You fuck up and you learn not to fuck up quite so badly the next time. 

Part's words sum up much of what I have learnt from playing pool, writing and martial arts: that failure is actually training to fail less badly the next time... and eventually succeed. 

Love John Part! 

Image: @DarthMaple180

The 120-press-ups-a-day Challenge: Part I...

A new thing I am doing in the lead-up to my first BJJ tournament of the year, which is towards the back end of February, is trying to add muscle to my frame. I've never been particularly muscular, despite doing gyms and weights, so this is a new bid to add mass. 

The main reason for doing this is to protect myself by adding padding, which should help my body avoid injury. It should also give me extra strength, too, which is a nice additional benefit. 

Anyway, above is a picture of me post-Xmas and below are my measurements, so I can keep track of where I am and what I look like. 

Day 1 Accumulative Press-ups Total: 120

Day 1 Weight: 13 stone 6 pounds

Day 1 Waist: 37 inches

Day 1 Chest: 40 Inches

I will be an Adonis. Like Steve Beaton. Probably...

A Content Consumer Recommends....

Music

Heavy is the Head by Stormzy: Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr (according to Wikipedia) releases a new album and it's at times introspective and triumphant. I'm not sure I fully get grime music, but I buy into Stormzy as a trusted guide in unfamiliar territory. I bought into Gang Signs & Prayer and I buy into this. 

Everyday Life by Coldplay: I like Coldplay and I've defended the band against music fans who seem to think that war criminals deserve a less vicious critique. But this is thin stuff. It's them trying several musical hats on for size and finding out that most of them fit badly. The song Church is jingly-jangly upbeat, though. 

Thanks for the Dance by Leonard Cohen: A posthumous album and it's all the usual poetic, sardonic, melancholy and downbeat humorous stuff that will delight Cohen fans. Happens to the Heart and the Night of Santiago are lovely tracks.

Film

The Irishman: Martin Scorsese makes a sometimes engaging, often subdued and always over-long gangster movie about the delivery-driver-turned-Mob-enforcer who may or may not have killed Jimmy Hoffa. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino are on fine form and the film looks utterly beautiful and is carefully crafted. But I'm not sure there's enough actual content, narrative development, character engagement or drama for its 210-minutes of running time

6 Underground: Netflix goes all action with a cast including Ryan Reynolds, Melanie Laurent, Manuel Garcia Rulfo and Peter Beale from EastEnders (who's doing very well for himself since leaving Albert Square). Michael Bay directs and there's much to like in the set pieces, stunts and serious-meets-comedy script in what could be the streaming service's bid to create a franchise to rival the Fast and the Furious. But not as good.

Angel Has Fallen: Gerard Butler revises his role as crack agent, presidential bodyguard and all-round action hero good guy Mike Banning. This outing, however, he's on the run after being set up for trying to assassinate Morgan Freeman. OK, March of the Penguins was awful but Morgan was also in Seven and Shawshank Redemption. Come on, Mike! The film proves the law of diminishing returns on sequels to be correct.  

Scrooged: Modern-day retelling of A Christmas Carol with Bill Murray as a truly vile TV executive who learns the error of his ways thanks to four visiting ghosts. I have seen this film many time and it remains the second best celluloid version of the Charles Dickens book, behind The Muppet Christmas Carol. But that is high praise indeed. The latter movie nearly outshines The Godfather in my book.

TV

Giri/Haji: Eight episodes of crazed violence and unexpected joy from screenwriter Joe Barton. It's basically a gangster series about the Yakuza set in both Tokyo and London and it features some amazing performances, notably from Takehiro Hira as a conflicted detective who finds himself overseas trying to track down his criminal brother (Yosuke Kubozuka). It's engaging, surprising and a genuine pleasure to watch as the story unfolds over eight episodes. It should win some awards. 

The Thick of It: I am rewatching this from the start as an antidote to the recent General Election result. It remains fucking excellent.

Grading News...

I attended the annual grading at my new BJJ school and I got a couple more stripes on my blue belt to make me a three-stripe blue belt. I'm pretty pleased with this. I feel like I've made genuine progress this year: I now train in no-gi; I did OK when I competed in both gi and no-gi in the summer; and I'm certainly better than I was 12 months ago. 

The school also encourages students to test themselves in competition, which means quite a lot of my fellow grapplers have that battle-hardened edge. This is good because it keeps everyone sharp and on their mettle when we are rolling in class.

Four of my friends also got promoted from white to blue and pretty much everyone else got additional stripes for their endeavours. The two main teachers at the school also got their black belts, which was a great moment. 

When I left London Fight Factory at the end of last year, I worried I wouldn't find a place where I felt as comfortable and welcome. It really was like saying goodbye to a family. So I feel blessed to have found One Jiu-Jitsu in Guildford. They've made me welcome, worked with my skill limitations and helped a 50-year-old have the confidence to compete again. 

I'm aiming to move up a gear next year in terms of training and, with a competition already entered in February, I have a good reason to up my game. Let's go!

A Content Consumer Recommends...

Music

Black Gold: Best of Editors: Birmingham's finest current tunesmiths have released this greatest hits album with a few new songs and it's enjoyable stuff. The band have dabbled in both soaring and brooding guitar anthems, a bit of pop and lo-fi electronica, and it's not an unpleasant experience listening to the best bits of their back catalogue. Their new tune, Frankenstein, is also good stuff. But a new album of new material would be smashing.

Three Chords and the Truth by Van Morrison: I genuinely don't like criticising a Van Morrison album. The majestic Astral Weeks was the soundtrack to my first great love and I've been an admirer for some time. But this latest offering is thin stuff. It's like a VM impersonator decided to do a passable pastiche of other VM album fillers. On the plus side, I went back to Astral Weeks and loved every second of that. 

Giants of All Sizes by Elbow: The thinking man's Oasis are back with another album of mellow and tune-filled contemplations on all manner of things. It's both familiar and new and moving and comforting, like a lovely warm winter coat that will keep you toasty warm when it's pissing down with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage outside.   

Film

My Name is Dolemite: A wonderful comedy drama telling the tale of 1970s comedian and unlikely film star Rudy Ray Moore, who carved a new niche for himself and his motley band of friends in the world of Blaxploitation cinema. Eddie Murphy is great in the lead role and Wesley Snipes is excellent as his serious actor-turned-director friend. An absolute hoot of a movie.

Replicants: Keanu Reeves goes into 'quiet-voiced serious actor' mode to manfully chomp down on a limply grim cock of a sort of modern Frankenstein sci-fi script. The whole thing is gag-reflex-inducingly bad and even the Speed, Matrix and John Wick fella can't make it seem palatable. And, fuck, how I love Keanu, despite him and several other creatives I adore, including Anthony Hopkins, Richard E Grant, Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman and Francis Ford Coppola, driving a shit-stained stake right through the concept of filming Dracula in 1995.

Comedy 
Stewart Lee: Tornado/Snowflake: A constantly brilliant performer brings his latest show to the Leicester Square Theatre. Funny, smart, thought-provoking and beautifully crafted. An utter joy. I love him. Buy a ticket. The best stand-up I have seen.

TV

The Boys: Season One: Amazon's adaptation of the blackly humorous rip-comic-lore-to-pieces graphic novel series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson. Simon Pegg puts in an appearance as unlikely secret operative Hughie's dad. Karl Urban, Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty steal the acting honours in a superior ensemble piece. The second season is already slated to appear next year. Can't wait.

Pool News...

Another year of county pool has ended and it's been a largely forgettable one. I always knew I'd be missing a couple of games when the season began, so any hopes of England trials were always going to be slim. Having said that, I should have still been up in the running if I'd have taken my chances and being more ruthless and disciplined during A Team matches. I suppose a return of 18 wins from 32 frames is pretty decent at that level, though. 

I also played Seniors for the first time this year and it was OK. I struggled most of the season adapting to playing early morning matches when I was usually practising before the county match proper and I carried quite a bit of luck with me, too. But 20 wins from 28 frames is a good if somewhat flattering result. 

The main issue this year has been consistency of approach and performance. After a poor outing at a big tournament 18 months ago, I changed some things around and I've finally worked out how to mix my attacking instincts with self-preservation. I was still thrown by the new pattern of limited practise and early starts I've had to adapt to on match days, though. 

I'm not sure that I'll be back playing county pool next year. I have a new career to carve out and I want to focus on getting my Second Dan at Hapkido and move towards getting my purple belt at BJJ. Those ambitions require physical demands that I may not be able to put my body through for more than a few more years. So they have a definite 'Best before' date.

I also don't want to do anything half-hearted any more and I feel as though I've done that at pool a lot this season because I've been trying to focus on too many other things. I also don't want to do something just because it's a habit. 

The answer for next year is probably to do less better. I just need to work out what that less is and how I get it. But if pool is the thing that goes, that's OK. I've done 715 frames for the county and more than 600 A Team frames. I think I've served my time.

Phone Trouble...

My longish-serving mobile phone is on its last legs. It wasn't massively expensive, but it wasn't dirt cheap either. I am annoyed, however, that something I have taken excellent care of is on the way out after 30 months of use.

Consequently, I have been spending a few days looking for a replacement and also experimenting with new ways to get some extra life out of it. This has been driving the Missus slightly crazy and she has practically begged me to 'just buy a new fucking phone'. I say 'begged'. It was more of a threat. 

So we are in the pub on date night. I am about to show her something when my phone crashes. She goes to the loo. When she returns, I am still trying to restart it. She sits down and places her hands over mine. 

But it is not a romantic gesture. 

She then speaks in a calm and reasoned way.

'For the love of Christ. If you don't buy a new mobile, I am going to take that phone, beat you unconscious with it, then ram it up your arse sideways and let you bleed to death.'

Date nights aren't what they once were...

Carry On Teacher: Part I...

I am trying to work out what I want to do for the next 17 years of my working life. 

I don't mind journalism. But the industry has changed beyond all recognition in the past five years. I enjoyed doing it and it formed a significant part of my working life and it paid pretty well. It's also where I met The Missus, and it funded our life together and allowed us to bring The Boy up and for us all to do lots of cool things together. So I am not ungrateful, although I also worked bloody hard for everything I got out of that industry. 

But I'm not sure I want to be part of it any more. So I'm exploring other options... 

I like the idea of script editing and I think that would play to my skill sets. I also still have much love for Corrie and Emmerdale, although landing a job on two of TV's biggest shows is probably an ambitious call. And I'm up against bright young things with trust funds to pay for their work experience.

I'm also continuing to write and punt scripts out. But that is also a long-shot and, even if something is good enough, it still has to land.

So I'm looking at teaching. Ironically, I was going to move into teaching following my first couple of years out of university, but I got into journalism and it paid the bills while I was doing the things I anted to do. And it was the same story when I arrived in London, too. 

But now me and The Missus has a steady routine and we're not those young and ambitious people any more. I also like the idea of doing something that has the potential to do some societal good, rather than some of the tawdry shit I've been working on recently.

I'm quite excited by this. It's the sort of thing that can even energise an old cynic like me...