Shake It Off

Man, yesterday was the most painful Kenpo class that did not result in an injury. Last week the school was closed for the holidays, so I was really eager to get back in there and get to sweating. And boy did we sweat; the air conditioning was off because it kept flipping the circuit breaker. It had to have been 100° F in there, and I had the thick gi on, too. From just 1.75 hours in there, I think I lost about 5 lb of water (even though I drank a liter of water in class).

Afterwards my hands were shaking pretty bad from fatigue, and I was having tremendous problems trying to type on AIM with Velius. Even today, my hands are still kinda twitchy. I’m not actually that sore, aside from one side of my neck and the rib muscles just below the armpits (I don’t know what they’re called), but my whole body just feels incredibly tired and I have no strength. However, it wasn’t all bad.

The Good

• Experienced weightlessness during this really cool throw: It would have been nicer if I didn’t experience it 4 times in a row. Also, weightlessness was followed immediately by a hard slam onto the mats.
• Got to be the attacker in a hair grab technique: Normally this is not anything special, but the defender had an afro! It was a strange feeling grabbing a handful of fluffy afro hair.
• Good success with a technique: I had good results with a new move I was trying out. I would fake a kick and then step forward and onto the opponent’s front foot (to trap it). This worked surprisingly well against people who were planning to dodge by moving away.

The Bad

• Gi felt like it was 25 lb: The sweat was flowing, but it was so humid that it didn’t help.
• Exhausted early: I went too hard in the beginning since I thought we were just doing self-defense techniques for the second half of the class, but then we did like 30 minutes of continuous sparring T__T.
• Twitchy hands: Typing is still frustratingly difficult, and attempts at FPS sniping last night were pretty laughable.
• Bad luck in sparring partners: Although most of the attendees last night were lower ranked opponents, I drew both black belt instructors and the highest-ranked student that night. The last instructor took it easy on me at least.

The Ugly

• Got heart shifted from left side to right side: So while the other instructor had pity, Sensei did not. I was way too tired (this was during the last 10 minutes of class) at this point to dodge, and all I could do was throw some half-hearted jabs to make it look like I was doing something. Instead of letting me off the hook, Sensei proceeded to feed me a steady diet of very hard sidekicks to the chest.
• New pushup drill: After we did our normal regimen of pushups, a new exercise was added where you do a pushup, and while still in the upright pushup position, you cross over (crab walk, sorta) and do another pushup. It’s like pushup ‘walking’ across the room, and back. This excercise totally sucks and I hate it. As soon as you start getting tired, it gets really hard to cross over, and you start falling over and looking like an idiot.

It’s Only Funny When It’s Not True

Q: I’m a diehard Knicks fan, should I be excited that our starting center (Curry) and starting power forward (Randolph) both have breasts?
– Lenny P., NYC

SG: Look, there are very few times in a man’s life when he should not be excited if breasts are involved, but this might be one of them.

(from the most recent Sports Guy mailbag)

/Sigh

First Time PPV

Bunky and I experienced PPV for the first time, and it was disappointing. Well, we only sorta experienced PPV… because we didn’t have to pay for it! We originally ordered the High Definition PPV of UFC 73 for a hefty $49.99, but when the broadcast started, the sound kept cutting in and out, and there were odd pixel artifacts on the screen at times. I called Comcast to complain about the signal and asked to be refunded $49.99 so I could purchase the Standard Definition version for $39.99.

Unfortunately, when I switched to the SD channel, it didn’t work at all. Then, when I switched back to the HD channel, that one was no longer working. I made a big point of saying how disappointed I was with Comcast’s service, and they told me to keep trying both channels, but that they would credit me for both purchases. Miraculously, as soon as I hung up, the HD version started working, and the original bug pretty much vanished =D.
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Yet Another Draft Day Gone By

Ahh, the NBA draft… every year I sit back and watch the Knicks make a bunch of meandering moves. I’ll give Thomas the benefit of the doubt with the picks, since he knows how to pick young talent. However, in terms of steering the ship, it looks like New York is not out of the choppy waters just yet.

For NY, the big move of the night was the trade of Channing Frye and Steve Francis for Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, and Raptors guard Fred Jones. At first glance, this seems like a steal. Channing regressed horribly after his encouraging rookie season, and Steve Francis has a bad contract and a slew of injuries that have limited his time on the court. This is pretty much a repeat of last year’s trade when the Knicks got Steve Francis for the washed up Penny Hardaway and Trevor Ariza. Without considering contracts, these sound like good deals. Unfortunately, this is exactly how the Knicks front office thinks.

The major problem with these trades is the opportunity cost. I would say that the Knicks are better talent-wise with Randolph, since he adds points and rebounding. Neither of the players the Knicks gave up are factors on the court anymore. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, because NY always takes on horrible contracts in these trades, they can never participate in any trades that would significantly help the team. Here are two analogies:

• You have time for one shot before the clock expires, and you are down by 3 points. The opponent does not defend the paint, allowing you to score an uncontested layup as time expires. You lose by one point.
• You have a bicycle and you really need a van to move your stuff. You have $20,000 and find a motorcycle that usually sells for $15,000 on sale for $10,000 (although it is still overpriced). You buy the motorcycle, and the next week a van goes on sale for a reasonable price of $15,000 but you cannot afford it now.

Finally Zach’s large contract will haunt the Knicks for years to come. Next year he’ll make a little over $13M, and it escalates to $17M in 2011. New York could have conceivably been under the cap in 2009, but notions of signing a free agent have now gone out the window for 4 years.

These are exactly the sort of things that keep happening. Of course this isn’t even addressing the fact that Randolph duplicates many of the few strengths that the Knicks have, while not addressing any of their weaknesses. To be fair, there are rumors that Randolph will be an upgraded version of what the Knicks hoped Frye would become, with an agile mid-range jumper, and the ability to create his own shot. I will have to see it to be convinced.

It’d be one thing if the front office had a history of making great trades, or if this was part of a master plan/combo trade, but the last few years of management don’t back up either of these theories.

TUF 5 Finale Predictions

Tomorrow night is the finale for the Ultimate Fighter 5. Mixed Martial Arts is one of the very few sports that Bunky will watch with me, so of course there’s always that extra bit of excitement of watching with another fan. Having the fight between the coaches be free on Spike is really nice; unfortunately, I heard that next season’s title match between Serra and Hughes will be PPV only. Here’s my predictions for tomorrow night:

Pulver Vs. Penn
Penn by Submission in the 2nd round. Unless Penn is in horrible shape (definitely a possibility) or Pulver gets a really lucky shot in, I don’t think Pulver has a chance. He’s a likeable coach, but I think Penn is too strong and too skilled for a striker like Pulver. Pulver will probably do well to move to 145 in the WEC, and I don’t see Penn having any problems taking Pulver down at will. On the ground, it’s all Penn, and I doubt Pulver has the tools to avoid Penn’s sick submission skills.

Gamburyan Vs. Diaz
Gamburyan by Unanimous Decision. Unless Nathan just jabs the hell out of Manny, I see Gamburyan pulling a wet blanket on Diaz in a repeat of the Gamburyan-Lauzon fight. I think Gamburyan’s takedowns and striking are just barely good enough to hang with Diaz, and Gamburyan’s ground game should be able to neutralize Diaz’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Gamburyan has no neck to get caught in a choke, and his arms are freaking huge, making it more difficult to secure an arm bar. I get the feeling this might be a boring fight.

Melendez Vs. Lauzon
Lauzon by T.K.O. or submission in the first round. Melendez’s striking isn’t that great and he doesn’t have the wrestling necessary to control Lauzon. Lauzon is going to come out of the gates like a monster and just destroy Melendez.

Wang Vs. Miller
Miller by Unanimous Decision. Supposedly Wang has some good submission skills, since he has a black belt in BJJ. Unfortunately, he is kinda a moron. If you read his interviews or watch his one fight, he just doesn’t have the mental aspect down at all. He’s going to try and bang with Miller, and while Miller has strong submission skills as well, Miller will probably let the fight stay off the ground for an easy win against Wang.

Emerson Vs. Maynard
Maynard by Unanimous Decision. Maynard has great wrestling and decent striking, but he has no submissions and mediocre ground n’ pound. Emerson’s striking is better, but not really anything to write home about. I think this will be a combination of nasty leg kicks from Emerson and boring lay n’ pray from Maynard, with Maynard controlling 2 of 3 rounds.

Berube Vs. Garcia
Garcia by K.O. in the 1st round. I’ve only seen a little of Garcia, but I know Berube sucks and has little skill. Berube should be out of this fight before the water finishes boiling.

Geraghty Vs. Wiman
Geraghty by Submission in the 3rd round. While we didn’t see too much of Geraghty in the quick loss to Lauzon, he must think pretty highly of himself to think that he’d be safe on the ground. I’m not completely sure about this one, but I think Wiman is not very good on his back. Wiman does have some good striking skills, however.

Sword Vs. Leites
Who? No picks. This is the only match where neither guy has a nickname.

Huerta Vs. Evans
Huerta by K.O. in the 1st round. I have no clue who Evans is, but I read that he is some scrub that they are serving up to Huerta. I’ve seen a little of Huerta and know that he’s tough, so I figure that this is a gimme from the UFC to Huerta.

Witness

Lebron James must have gotten tired of mailing it in because he has really shown up in the playoffs, particularly against Detroit. In last night’s double-overtime victory (against a great defensive team, and excellent individual defenders), Lebron did everything he could to will his team to victory in an critical road game.

James took this game over like he had never taken over before, scoring 29 of his team’s final 30 points and dropping 25 in a row for the Cavs at the end as Cleveland defeated Detroit 109-107 in double-overtime Thursday night to take a 3-2 lead in the Eastern Conference finals.

Well, you can’t say he had no help, since someone had to help defend on the other end, and Lebron didn’t score all of his team’s final points, but that is just ridiculous. Man, just read over the 4th quarter and both overtime play-by-plays! Lebron set all of them up himself, there were no assists given out in this time period.

The crazy thing is he wasn’t even just chucking them up. Check this line out:

18-33 (54.5 FG%) | 10-14 (71.4 FT%) | 9 REB | 7 AST | 2 STL | 2 TO

Lebron even shot 2-3 from behind the arc. Dang, if he had made a few more free-throws… but he still scored 48 points. From the beginning of the fourth quarter till the end of the game, Lebron only missed 2 shots. The rest of his team was horrific offensively (way to shoot 2-10, Sasha Pavlovic) aside from second-highest Cavaliers scorer, center Zydrunas; still Lebron had more than twice the points that Big Z had. Meanwhile, every single Detroit starter scored in the double digits (with 3 breaking 20), and they still lost.