Roxanne Modafferi's Blog, page 10

Wedding in Mass, promotion, studying Japanese, training, update!

I kind of fell off with my Japanese studying and I’m ashamed of myself. It has been my yearly resolution for years, five years exactly, ever since I left Japan. I’m not talking to my Japanese friends as much, not studying my notes, not writing as many blogs…. I have to do something and be more strict with myself. One reason is that I discovered I could take naps after breakfast. People ask me what I do when I wake up (unintentionally) at 4 AM every day. Well, after breakfast, I clean, do chores, use social media, study, write blogs, watch anime, stuff like that. But then I started falling asleep while watching anime and woke up an hour later feeling GREAT. So I intentionally started putting on slow-moving shows like the old Godzilla movies (sorry Serena) which knock me right out. There goes my extra hour.

Results of my kids and my BJJ tournament! Belt promotions!

I feel very relieved and accomplished for completing one of my goals of fighting in a jiujitsu tournament this year as a brown belt. I was promoted last year by Captain in Feb 2017 after winning a tournament in California. It was one of the happiest days of my life! Since then, I had back-to-back MMA training camps, during which I put gi training on the back burner. Then I got involved with the Ultimate Fighter from June through August, and then had to train for a finale fight in December. Also, Captain left Syndicate, and Casey got knee surgery. I know how poorly I would do in a gi tournament if I didn’t train gi.

I know I have so many holes in my jiujitsu game. It’s a never-ending journey. I am strong in some areas and have holes in other areas. It’s also been on my mind to promote a bunch of my kids but I wanted to wait until they competed a few times as white belts before they moved up in competition. On the other hand, I didn’t want to hold them back TOO long because it’s good for kids’ motivation to get new belts, and also show their levels in class. It’s just that at tournaments, people sandbag. There are kids who’ve been training for like 3+ years and are still white belts, or put a white belt on just to compete. That’s wrong!

Anyway, I decided April 29th would be the day! The day of the tournament, the day my students competed, and the day after that I would promote them no matter how well they did.

I had to cut weight. I dieted down to basically my MMA fight weight, and cut a few points of water the morning of. Then I weighed in with my gi on and ate breakfast, while Serena warmed up the kids. The Jiujitsu World League organization is INCREDIBLY well-organized and emailed us all our division times a few days before. THANK YOU. So thanks to that, I knew I was going at 2 PM and the kids were going at 9 AM. I would have plenty of time to recover from the stress and tiredness associated with that.

The only thing was they ALL went at 9 AM. Ky and Ayden were on Mat 1, Artem was Mat 2, and Illia (pronounced “Eli” -he’s Russian) was on Mat 3. Illia is eight years old and his little brother Artem is five, almost six, I think.

So Serena went and sat with the first two boys, who are her little proteges, I sat with Artem, and glanced over at Mat 3 every minute or so, occasionally walking over there to make sure Illia (pronounced “Eli”) wasn’t up yet.

I was giving Artem my prefight speech (John’s prefight speech) about how not to be nervous because this is the same jiujitsu that he loves and does every day but the only difference is the environment, when some parent cried out to me, “Roxanne! Illia is going on Mat 3!!!”

WHAT? I jumped up. He was literally engaging with his opponent. WTF I just looked over there two seconds ago!! I didn’t have a chance to give him “the speech” yet! damn it!

I leaped out and made a mad dash down the tiny aisle between the bleachers and the judges table. I slammed into like three or four along the way, people making them grunt, stepped on somebody, knocked something out of somebody’s hand which clattered to the floor behind me…. SORRY! I was a madwoman. Get out of my way. My student is fighting.

I think I only missed the first twenty seconds. This kid was good! Strong! There was a messy takedown engagement, scramble, Illia (pronounced Eli) ended up on his back. I screamed, “Get your guard back!” He got his guard! Then ensued the struggle to pass guard. I was telling Illia to break his posture, pull his arms up, etc. Stuff happened. There was a scramble. Illia got mounted and the kid went for an armbar. The ref stopped it without a tap, but that’s usually with super little kids! These kids were older! WTH! Refs often stop kids matches too quickly without giving them time to tap. DAMNIT. Illia got up, like ‘wth I didn’t tap!’ I was so pissed.

Jiujitsu stuff! Training for my fight vs Barb!

Can you believe that something dumb like sleeping on the airplane hurt my neck? I got a tight muscle on Sunday and it got progressively worse and worse all week to the point where I could barely turn my head and train on the Saturday one week later. SO STUPID. -_-; Life happens? Remind me to never sleep on an airplane! (I frequently say this lol)

Thanks to my massage therapist Teri Wallace. What would I do without you? She always fixes me!

Anyway, it’s been a great week and a half. Some highlights are my kid students – I’ve been giving a few of the struggling ones private lessons and I can see vast improvements almost immediately! Like, I taught Lucas techniques on how to avoid getting mounted by blocking with the knee, shrimping, and framing, and he’s getting mounted like 75% less.

I have one child who gets really frustrated with herself, which didn’t used to happen. I think it’s because her level is higher now so I think she expects more of herself. I wish I had studied child psychology in school. I didn’t think six year olds got that way, but I guess she did! I told her, “You’re one of my best students, and just because you couldn’t do something, didn’t mean you were doing it wrong. Maybe the person was stronger or bigger or it wasn’t the right time. So don’t get upset, breathe, and try something else. I’ll always be proud of you as long as you do your best.” She didn’t get upset.

YAY so we (Serena and I) figured her out. Then, I saw her get stuck under someone’s powerful grapevine and I saw her face start to get upset. I ran over and calmly coached her out of it.

Like 60 seconds later, she got on top and did the SAME THING to the other kid!!!! I was like, YES!!!



(and I coached the other kid out of it, just to be fair lol)



She’s competing soon. I gave her and another boy a private on Monday and they did so well!

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!! LOOK AT HER ANGELIC FACE.

Anywho.

My own jiujitsu training has been great.

JoJo, our new Scottish UFC fighter teammate, has been a fantastic training partner. She joined Syndicate recently so she has a different style, strength, etc. She is good at foiling my techniques, which is great, because it means I’m not doing them perfectly and I can perfect them better. Thanks, JoJo!

Conor McGregor last week, this weekend was a fight trip with Serena

So I had a really hard practice last Thursday…my head wasn’t into it. I had done a jiu-jitsu class at Dunham’s, which was freaking amazing, and left early to make it back to MMA sparring at Syndicate. I didn’t really feel like doing MMA that day, but helping Serena train for her fight was my motivation. I had a horrible performance but made it through. I had showered and was rushing out the door, when I heard Serena talking to Mama Wood (Coach John’s mom) and say, “He’s okay, he wasn’t injured at all, but Mike…”

Um, WHAT?! Why would he be injured? Somebody said Conor McGregor broke a window in a bus and glass cut up his face.

…..my brain could not even processes that information. It just couldn’t. I think I muttered, “What the heck” and then kept walking out the door to my car, leaving Serena and I think JoJo to follow me in a few minutes. John being okay was extremely important to me, so as long as he was okay, I’d process the rest later. I had just been in fight mode for the past four hours and was utterly exhausted. After I dunked myself in the cold plunge and recovered, as well as my food digesting, my thought process started activating again.

WHAT THE HECK. McGregor did WHAT? He sneaked in through a back door and threw a dolly through a window of a bus, and shattering glass cut up MY teammate Mike Chiesa so that he wasn’t allowed to fight, glass went in Ray Borg’s eye so HE couldn’t fight, and Artem was part of the episode so HE wasn’t allowed to fight. Plus their three opponents. That’s six fighters who trained their butts off for months who won’t get paid, won’t get fights, have their career advancement halted, etc. I heard reports that Ray won’t be permanently damaged…I hope.

Glass in the freaking eye? Dude, what if someone went blind? McGregor was after Khabib….so he attacked a whole bus and involved innocent people? That’s disgusting and criminal and a felony. I want to hear his statement on the matter, but it doesn’t really make a difference because he committed the act, right? Dana White condemned the heck out of him, and like 5 minutes ago I read a news article saying that he’s changing his stance and ““We talked,” or something, Mr. White told reporters at the UFC 223 post-fight press conference. “I think that there’s a mutual respect between us and obviously this week, I had so many things thrown at me. To focus on this show was insane. We’ll get back and we’ll focus on Conor McGregor.”

Whatever, man. He makes so much money for the UFC of course they can’t ditch him, even if he did criminal things. Just don’t dare call him a martial artist.

Okay I wrote that last week and never posted it.

I still enjoyed watching the rest of the card. We invited some friends over, including Andrea Lee and her husband Donny, who were in town! How cool!

Where are the brown belts at? JoJo is here, Just Tap

You see me posting about jiujitsu a lot, don’t you?

So it’s my favorite thing ever, and all last year when I had back to back fights, I did less gi training because it wasn’t really helping me prepare for the fight. (There’s a HUGE debate on that! If you have an opinion, feel free to email me at actuallydontemailme@gmail.com) LOL So I’ve been holding back my excitement to compete and get better at gi.

I looked at competing March 31st or April 7th in tournaments in Cali and Phoenix, but big surprise…no other brown belt females signed up!



I don’t know where you are, but I will find you and tap you out.

haha!!

But seriously. So I emailed the Jiujitsu World League people and asked, “Hey, are there any other brown belt females?” A guy wrote, “Yes, but they all canceled due to lack of other brown belts,” and I wrote back, “WELL CALL THEM BACK!!!” He tried but apparently nobody responded. ;_: So I paid online to sign up for the April 7th one to get my name on the website, but come one week before, there was a deadline to cancel, so I got a refund. *sigh*

In my jiujitsu world on the POSITIVE side, and this is super positive, I’ve started visiting Dunham’s Jiujitsu Academy. I really don’t want to go anywhere other than Syndicate to get training, to be honest, but they have really high-level light-weight gi-players there. I got permission from my Syndicate coaches to go for jiujitsu practice. I love them! Rene is such a phenomical instructor, and I feel myself improving just after two weeks of going. He calls attention to little details in technique, which is making all the world of difference. I’m retaining and recovering my guard more in gi and also MMA practice. I’m able to manage my space better using my feet and arms in better conjunction.

Here are pics from last Saturday!



It was great to run into Damien, who I’ve seen around the Vegas BJJ circuit for a few years! He has a Scar’s tattoo on his arm from Full Metal Alchemist. ^^

Raquel and Tammi can tap me out. YES!!!!! It’s what I NEED to get better!





I’m coming back for more, baby.

Annie is so fun to train with!

I love training with her! She is better than me at striking, and shows me stuff like knees and elbows but has SUCH great control that she doesn’t really land the normally taboo, dangerous stuff other than a touch. I know I can go with her and not worry about getting knocked out or getting a concussion. This has been a problem for me in the past. And she’s a nice person.



And SHE’S going to get better at take-down defense, I’m sure, since I’ll be constantly trying to take her down in sparring class. hahaha Then I’ll get better at foiling her defense, and she’ll foil my foil and the joyful circle will continue!

Serena’s fight is coming up!



She’s on the poster! Far left!

Holy crap I can’t wait for this fight. I also can’t wait for her weight-cut to be over. I want my energetic nacho-buddy back so badly.

fights, jiujitsu, training race, updates, Sarah is visiting

I’ve been feeling frustrated and burned out. Every day I come home in the evening not having the mental energy to even watch TV. I just want to sleep and not be tired anymore. I’m tired of running stairs twice a week and doing burpies and tons of physical training.

For me, life is a race to see how much I can get done. Training is a race. I always need to do as much as I possibly can in a day to get better. Who knows how much time I have left to fight, or train? Or walk? Or live? I could lose my leg tomorrow and never train again! Live in the day like there’s no tomorrow!

I think it’s a combination of my beliefs and my Modafferi blood. There’s a fire burning inside me (that only goes out when I get food poisoning LOL) to GO GO GO. Modafferi’s can’t relax. lol

I’m in fight shape, near fight weight (FIGHT DIETING FREAKING SUCKS)

… I found out I probably won’t offered a fight date for a while. Yesterday I was upset. I went home and ate a mini refried bean burrito. (it’s sad when a tiny amount of carbs is your cheat meal. I know I would have nightmares if I did more! I had one a few days ago where chocolate was pouring out of my locker!) But let’s look at the positives: I HAVE A UFC CONTRACT! I’m so happy and proud and honored! Thank you!



They want me to fight again!!

Last year in 2017, I fought SIX times! I won 1 by armbar, 3 by TKO, and lost 2 by close decision.

My training has made me stronger and better so far! I’ve never felt so strong and healthy. As time goes by? Pppffftt the world will be like….WHO IS THAT?



haters I don’t have haters, but doubters will be like, “I thought she sucked!?” And I’ll point to my sherdog record that says “KO” and say “um people who suck don’t KO people by accident in the UFC.”

I wanna fight! Fantastic training, stronger, Transformers, sponsors

I had a really really great week!

I woke up on Monday feeling energetic, and just “on,” you know? I had my plans set, I was excited for them, and it turns out that I had a lot of success. My brain absorbed the info, my body produced results, for the most part. It was awesome!

Amanda “The Lady Killer” is visiting this week! and I got food poisoning

It’s been a busy, unusual week!

Amanda Bell has been visiting for the week. I first met her at an Invicta a number of years ago, and became friendly acquaintances. Keep an eye out for her fighting in Bellator!

We had this special moment together after we both lost our fights…. I had just fought Vanessa Porto in Invicta 12, in 2015, one of my toughest losses. My face has never gotten so swollen. I was so angry that my mom (who I was living with that the time) had to look at her daughter like that. I posted this picture and wrote “It’s so important to keep smiling no matter what.”



We followed each other on social media and kept running into each other at events. We talked about training together some day, and we finally made it happen. It’s been great not only training, but hanging out, and getting to know her more.

Last Sunday, actually, after my yoga and massage session, after I came out of the grocery store, my car wouldn’t start!

busy, eventful week, Fear the Fighter shirt, training

BREAKING NEWS: I have a sponsorship deal with Fear the Fighter! They produced a T shirt for me and some profits go directly to support me. Check it out:

here is the link to order: https://www.fearthefighter.com/products/roxanne-the-happy-warrior-modafferi-custom-tee-pre-order

Last week had ups and downs!

I got kind of frustrated with a few techniques that I learned and couldn’t do. However, I remind myself – be thankful that I got through those times of failure, because I have to fail a bunch of times before I can succeed once.

I didn’t feel on the top of my game Monday or Tuesday, but I got through practice and did some stuff. I’m grateful for great coaching and great training partners. Serena was sick all week!

About great training and my family visit!

My fan-turned-friend, Katie, came to Las Vegas to compete in a big Tae Kwon Do tournament at the end of January. Congratulations for getting second place, my friend! Then she came and helped me teach my BJJ kids class, and then we took her to BJJ class the next day, and made her stay for MMA practice. She hung with the MMA fighters! Well done!