Silva vs. Crocop

I am a fan of Kazushi Sakuraba because of his poker face he has when fighting. Although dangerous he has this expressionless face without much rage and likes to acknowledge the skills of his opponent even if he wins or loses a fight. Mainly a wrestler, he has fairly enough striking skills. But I found it sad watching him loose to the animal like Vanderlei Silva in all 3 fights they had in the past. Silva is like this beast that is going to eat you alive. Although one of Silva’s popular fights was when he lost by knockout to Vitor Belfort with Belfort’s extreme punching power and fast hand speed. You win some, you lose some, but Silva’s history has proven he is one hard person to match in the octagon and PrideFC. Being a practitioners of several martial arts myself, I like watching UFC and PrideFC as well as reading and interacting with others like in UFC and Pride forums.

Mirko Crocop on the other hand is this lean mean Russian fighter, formerly in the armed forces with great striking skill and precision. Crocop is popular for his high left roundhouse kick to the head that has already knocked out many opponents in the past.

These two fighters are really tough ones, and face Crocop and Silva together? What do you get? They fought September 10 last year and here is the result:

Pen Spinning and Book Spinning

Russian friend of mine Mishon who I also work just randomly asked me one day: Hey dude, can you do this? And he was holding a pen with his thumb and pointer finger slightly off-centered in a horizontal position, moving the pen up and down loosely held giving the illusion of a bending pen.
And I said, yeah, and just did it right away, and then I showed him the illusion of a spinning pen holding a pen between your pointer and middle finger. And then I showed him the spinning pen on your thumb. Which for me were things I did since I was kid.

He asked me where did I learn this and when did I learn it. And I cannot even give a good answer, since from where I came from, everyone seemed to know how to do it. I grew up in another country, in the Philippines and went to school there. And I believe I started spinning pens in 4th grade. Why? Because everyone else was doing it. I guess the first person I have seen it was from my cousin Jong Medrano who showed it to me and my sister started doing it to since everyone in school was doing it. I started doing it and many friends of mine were doing it. It was like a natural thing in school. And it was not only from my school, but all across the country.

Mishon was asking further why do we learn it, and I said, I really don’t know. And I said further, it is also the same reason we do book spinning. And he asked how. I just took any book and started spinning it on my finger. For some crazy reason, many people from school was doing this. And I was doing it too, sometimes you see the whole school spinning books and pens and I remember vividly my teacher Ms. Cherry Desiderio (Whom i believe has a new last name already) hated this spinning movements while in class. And if she saw anyone doing some pen spinning or book spinning, she throw away your pen or book. (But she was still one of the cool teachers I had.)

Now that made me wonder, what is it with the Philippines, that many students know pen spinning and book spinning like it is a default talent?

I’m not used to a cold environment

I slept the whole Saturday and work up at 7:00 in the evening. Just ate light, did a few email checking and a few work stuff and went to the gym, since it is part of my new year’s resolution to get back in shape. I went out at around 1:00am on Sunday. It was so cold and I was thinking it won’t be cold inside the gym. Since it was early morning, there was only two other dudes working out. So the body heat was not high and the air conditioning was still running where I can feel a light wind of cold air inside the gym. I was in a sweatshirt, keeping the body temperature up, and while working out as blood circulates and my body heats up, I feel, the cold air conditioning wind on my head, and it is just a large temperature difference between my head and body that I feel like getting sick. I feel my nose freezing up as my head heats up. It is cold but it is dry that it feels like my throat is drying up. In the middle of my working out, I decided to go low weight and just finish my workout as quick as possible. And after a few minutes, I just didn’t feel right being in a cold area. I grew up in a hot and wet country and I was just not used to what i was going through. So I decided I am stopping working out for now. Maybe I’ll try working out again when it’s not that cold.