Boxing Gloves, Shrimp, and taxis.

Me and Hide-Sempai. He wants to fight in America in the WEC promotion one day.

This is Zaki-san. I think he said he also fights pro, and is back for more practice. He did boxing drills with me and I have to say he is FAST.

Couple more of my training partners, whose names I still need to remember -.-

Sorry I look like crap, but it`s hard to look pretty when you`re sweaty and exhausted. I really do mean exhausted but it is always with a smile on my face because I really enjoy what I`m doing.

So, it`s been a few days since an update so here`s what has been going down.

I`ve gone to 3 days of Shooto training and it really has been a blast. I joined Shooto Gym Osaka, which has at least 3 pro fighters I`ve been training with, and one championship belt holder named Takashi Nakakura (guy pictured at the top right). This blew my mind. One of the guys is named Hide, and he was the one who helped explain to me what goes on and how things are run, and durring classes he helps me a lot since I`m a beginner when it comes to boxing and striking. He is really cool and nice, and I great friend. I`ve already made some really cool friends here, both in the Shooto Gym and in the apartment complex.

At the Shooto gym, the ranking system is like belt colors in Judo or Karate, but instead of belts, we have tshirts. White tshirts are the beginners (me!) and black shirts are the guys who have been doing this a while and have a lot of experience, and they teach the classes.

So far we`ve done a lot of boxing mitt work, drills, grappling drills and a TON of grappling and submission wrestling practice. Im not aloud to do striking sparring yet because Im a white shirt, but Im sure before I go home to America I`ll get the opportunity.

Back at home, I thought I was a decent submission wrestler (right Eric, James, Collin, David, and John?) but here if I`m not getting armbarred, I`m only getting a stalemate most of the time. It`s a little frustrating, but when I do win its just that much sweeter knowing that since everyone is so much better than me, I`m gaining a huge amount of experience which is only going to make me a better fighter :)

With boxing drills yesterday I got so tired I could barely though punches, because as I learned training with Mark Luigi back at purdue, a 1lb glove gets really heavy really quickly. I got bopped in the head with a punching mit a couple times becase I couldn`t move fast enough to defend. I am completely exhausted after our practices, but I am so happy that I am. It just means I`m breaking my body down to build up something stronger, with more experience behind me. It feels like a dream.

I also got a badass free sweatshirt/jacket thing for the gym which was free since its too hot here so they can`t sell it, and it was part of a spring promotion. I`ll surely add pictures of it later.
I had Taiyaki as reccomended by a friend, it was good. It`s like a fish shaped pancake and I got mine with custard inside.

My roomate Daniel.

Food we got that we cooked at our table.

Big crab guy.

Osaka is pretty at night, but its also dirty. As in like some parts of town are seedy. When Daniel and were walking around exploring and bar hopping, we passed a lot of street corners with girls and guys definately standing there waiting to be payed to get dirty. Some middle aged creepy ladies asked us if we wanted `masage` and we said no and ran before they could get any closer and spread super-aids. These people were everywhere, and I wonder if it feels a little scary to be alone as a girl in town because of all the creepers. We saw quite a few other foreigners walking around, and it was funny because a lot of them were like 40 year old balding fat white guys trying to hit on the girls. Daniel and I had fun sitting back and watching the goofyness ensue. By the time we got done walking around it was 5 am and the sun was coming up which totally messed with my sense of time, so Im feeling wide awake right now at like 11 (shit I have trainning tomorrow to be rested for -.-). All in all it was a great adventure though. Walking around was wonderful but it was another experience that made me really feel a little disconnected, missing everyone back home. Its a bummer that these stories and pictures are the best I can do to share my experience with you all because its kind of hard to convey a lot of feeling through a computer screen.

Me posing as the Glico man, a billboard thats a well known Osaka landmark.