I went to Nationals to support my teammates from HBJJ.  I shot a bunch of video and took a bunch of pics.  I shot video during their matches and photos in between, so I don’t have a lot of action shots.  Here are some of the stills.

Here’s Sam in the bullpen.  I was waiting to video his match but somehow it happened and I didn’t even know about it until it was over.

Adam getting ready to rock.  Adam just moved from Crosley Gracie’s academy in Norcal.  Adam won a silver and fought five hard matches.

Here’s no-gi world champion Alex.  Alex didn’t compete today but instead was on hand to coach a lot of the HBJJ fighters.

Here’s Rachel putting a collar tie on some guy who happened to be walking by.  No, seriously, that’s John a purple belt teammate.

Dane won a few matches and then was eliminated in a very tough match by a cross town rival.

Just a couple of bad asses.  Andrew, the dude on the left, is competing tomorrow.

This dude is living my dream.

As I was waiting in the doctor’s office this morning I had nothing to read but a dog-eared copy of “Shape” magazine which was packed with fascinating workouts designed to lift my derriere. After leafing through “Shape” I started reading a brochure on genital herpes and then finally was reduced to reading the side of a box of cotton swabs.

Finally the doctor barged in and promptly kicked my foot on the side with the sprained knee. It was an accident, I think, but it really effin hurt. Anyway, after a lot of poking and prodding the doctor determined that I stretched my Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL).

Just for good measure the doctor ordered X-Rays. As I was lying on the table the X-Ray technician laid a lead sheet the size of a hand towel over my groin. I was all, “I don’t think that’s big enough.” But she zapped me with the X-Ray anyway. Oh well.

Looking at the X-Ray was pretty interesting. I think the picture must have been enlarged because my bone looked as big as the handle of a baseball bat and the knob part was the size of a Red Delicious apple. It reminded me of that caveman movie where the one dude with the big forehead gets bludgeoned with a femur.

Anyway, I don’t need surgery, thankfully. I just need to somehow find a way to ride a stationary bike. I guess I’ll call 24 Hour Fitness and see if they have a month-to-month membership. Obviously I can’t train for at least a couple of weeks which sucks.

On Saturday I injured my knee while rolling.  Basically a really big dude fell into the side of my knee during a takedown.  I heard a pop and I went down hard.  I got ice on it right away and managed to walk out of the academy but there’s something wrong in there.  I have an appointment with a sports medicine doctor on Thursday morning so maybe I’ll have some good news but probably not.  In the meantime I got a really good brace that is stabilizing my knee so I can walk around sort of.  I am totally bummed out.

I had this mole on my neck and it was getting chafed by the collar of my kimono. One day we practiced collar chokes for an entire hour and by the end of it I was convinced the thing had been rubbed off. When I checked it out in the locker room mirror I was surprised to see that it was still there, only bleeding and angry-looking. If you’ve never worn a Judo of Jiu-Jitsu kimono you might be surprised how stiff these uniforms are. The manufacturers know that collar-control is important in Jiu-Jitsu and so they make the collars as stiff as a radial tire. I get friction rashes all the time, typically around my neck and shoulders.

Anyway, I was kinda bummed about my mole because you’re not supposed to subject a mole to too much rubbing. You can get cancer that way. So I went to the doctor to have it removed. I was expecting to have to beg to get it removed since the insurance companies generally characterize mole-removal as a cosmetic procedure. But the doctor took one look at it and was like, “okay, let me get my tools.”

I had to lie down on my side with my mole facing up. The doctor injected some chemical directly into the mole. He kept warning me that it would be “uncomfortable” but honestly I didn’t feel anything. After a while he started carving at my neck with a scalpel. I guess someone had mis-labeled the scalpels and he was pretty miffed. I was all, “don’t you hate that?” Just trying to make conversation.

After a while he said, “Now you might smell an unpleasant odor. It’ll smell like something’s burning because I’m using a hot wire to close the wound.” As soon as the hot wire touched my neck I heard a faint sizzling and then detected the scent of ostrich burger with a subtle top-note of rosemary. I actually started to salivate. I guess I was hungry.

Afterwards the doctor showed me the mole in a little vial. It looked like a little pink tooth - nothing like the big brown bump that had been riding on my neck since I was born. A week later I got my biopsy results and the thing was benign. So BJJ hasn’t killed me yet dammit!