Roxanne Modafferi's Blog, page 15

The Great Tohoku Earthquake

Today is March 11th, the 6 year anniversary of the Great Tohoku Earthquake. I’m not Japanese, but this disaster tore my heart apart as much as 9/11 did.

I was in Tokyo, about far away from the earthquake as Maryland is from Boston, when I felt the ground shake and stuff started falling off shelves in the supermarket. I dropped my groceries and rushed to the door with everyone else and watched the buildings sway. I met my co-workers and a few students in front of the Shinyurigaoka Berlitz school and we waited to see what would happen, all checking social media. Trains everywhere had stopped. Classes got cancelled. My teenage student said solumnly, “If we felt it this much here, it must be SO big there. I worry about a tsunami.” I thought a tsumani was just a tall wave, like the kind you surfed on. I thought I saw a disaster movie once where people run from a wave.

The truth is worse. A real tsunami is when the sea rises up, black and ominous, and swallows the coastal cities. It boils through the streets, picking up and carrying along cars and trees and ships and smashing them into buildings.

I spent the night at my office and watched footage on my co-worker’s laptop. I cried my eyes out. How many people had died? Certainly not everybody could have managed to evacuate!!

The next day I made it home and then heard about the powerplant damaged possibly exploding, sending radioactive clouds over Tokyo!?! My boss told me to come into work but screw that, I called her boss because I knew him, and he told me I didn’t have to go. LOL I traveled west to Nagoya and Osaka to get away and slept at a friend’s friend’s house.

I write a blog like this every year, but I will never ever forget. I’m crying just remembering the videos of destruction.

The gov claimed they had things under control a week later, (they were lying but at least it didn’t explode more) and I went back to Tokyo and tried to continue with life. Things weren’t the same. I had to stop eating peaches, and check the labels on the produce to make sure it wasn’t grown up there in Tohoku. Farmers and officials claimed that everything was safe, but they were obviously lying to save their businesses. There was NO WAY the food was okay up there. And it later came out I was right. And the economy up there went to hell because nobody was buying the food from up there, but sorry, I don’t want to die? People lost their homes and had to move into temporary houses. People are STILL living in temporary houses to this day. The world forgets these things because it’s not top news anymore. But the power plant is still not okay. They Japanese are still pumping water in there to cool the reactors, and have developed a system to clean the water. It was and probably still is leaking out into the ocean, contaminating the fish, etc. It’s a mess.

I remember taking a volunteer trip one year after the disaster with my gym, because my teacher’s friend lives up there, and handed out supplies. We also built a park with nothing but our hands and a shovel and hammer.

Some news just came out that the radiation was worse than they had estimated…but it’s better now!

my visit to NY and NJ to visit family!

I took a trip from Thursday to Sunday to visit my other half of the family! YAY!

As some may recall, I made this big plan for Christmas to see my Dad, Mom, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. Then I thought I would be fighting in Invicta in January so I canceled half the trip and only saw my dad so I could have enough time to train. I was gonna see my mom, too, but she FORBID me to come, stating that it was because she was worried about me driving in the a potential blizzard that never actually happened… and I think that was the most hurtful fight I’ve ever had with her in my life….

Just saying, Mom.

I would drive through a billion ice storms to see youuuuu! But then I’m a bad daughter if I worry my mother sick, right? I already worry her enough with my profession…gah!

I had fun visiting my dad and then found out I was NOT offered any fights January, so it was kind of all for nothing…

So that was an emotional time…



A fighter never REALLY knows when they’re going to fight. Some in the big leagues get fights set months in advance so they can plan around it, but also there are last minute offers to consider. My fight wasn’t being set and I really wanted to visit my mommmmmmmmmm and relatives! So I decided, screw it, and booked a trip two weeks from then (when I decided), which was last week!

It was a wonderful whirlwind and went according to plan!

“A perfect plan isn’t something where things happen perfectly. A perfect plan has the flexibility to change if need be.” ~Makishima Shogo, Psycho-pass

The plane from Denver to Newark was delayed two hours because of snow (HAHAH IRONY! grrr!).



I arrived, rented a car from Enterprise (I love them), drove to my Aunt Connie’s house! Saw my cousins and their toddler! He can talk now! That’s what happens when you visit once a year. haha

Stayed up late chatting with my cousin Joe-Joe to wait for my Aunt and Uncle to get home. I remember playing with him when he was baby, and now we talk about weight-training, fighting, and teaching together! haha! Then I chatted with my aunt until midnight.

Woke up Friday and Cousin Alison and her baby came over.



We all had breakfast and then I drove north to a small city in update NY where I saw my aunt, my mom’s older sister! I chat with her on the phone sometimes, but it was nice to sit down and chat. We met up with my Uncle for dinner and it was really nice.

NAGA tournament, students, friends, fighting

First, remember these Japanese words, they will come up later: Sempai (a senior, older team-member, upper-ranked belt); kohai (a junior, newcomer, lower-ranked belt) . In the Japanese culture, the sempai have a moral responsibility to look after the kohai.

Next, wanna say thank you to my fans who became my friends, Jack and Jan, for the lovely dinner last week at the Orleans! They play KENO in the Orleans and I first met them when I walked by them on the way to run stairs and they recognized me as a fighter.

great week- Katie & TKD, kids promotion, training

This week was great.

I went back to training on Monday still feeling burnt out and a little over-trained, despite taking Sunday off from training. Well, I didn’t do MMA but I did yoga and lifted weights and did sprints…. *ahem*

On Tuesday, I felt like my body was really fighting a cold and I felt really crappy and exhausted, I only did jiujitsu class and skipped kickboxing. “Only” jiujitsu. Hah. Double classes in a row are hard… anyway, yeah! So tired. Got some chores done, though. Didn’t go to my language exchange. ;_;

Wednesday I woke up SO excited to go to Katie’s TaeKwonDo tournament! It was the US open, and lots of people flew in from other countries. I woke up early (3:50 AM) because I was so excited, got up at 4 AM, ate breakfast, and then went to 24 Hr Fitness gym and did some weights and Lorenzo’s Hellish Strength and Conditioning Leg explosive jump squat routines. x_x I still felt crappy, so I did two sets (which contain a bunch of activities) instead of 5 (which render me useless for the rest of the day.) Then I did some of Lorenzo’s Hellish upperbody and abs workout. Have I mentioned that Lorenzo is the best physical trainer I’ve ever worked with? I’ve had to skip the past two weeks and I’m sad but rejoicing at the same time, you know what I mean? haha

I’ve still been doing his stuff on other days, though. My diamond pushups have gone from 6 max to 11 max. YAY #results I will make the efforts as long as I know what to do and how to do it. Guide me and I will get it done.

So I forced a decent workout and then went to Westgate Casino were we waited around ALL morning and into the afternoon, but I expected that. Tournaments are like that, not knowing when you’re fighting and always running behind. We got to see only the first of her three matches. She won the first!

I won and got promoted at the BJJ tournament!

Yesterday was a major day in my life.

I drove to California with my teammates and competed in a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu tournament called “Jiujitsu World League.” It’s a big tournament but not the biggest in the country or anything like that. However, it had something that other smaller, more local tournaments didn’t have…. women in my rank in my weight class! For the past two tournaments I had hoped to do, I was able to check online and no purple belt lightweight females signed up!

BJJ tournament coming! Herbal Papaya capsules, anime, TV

I’m having a pretty good week. Last week was good, too, despite being exhausted most of the time. I’ve been keeping up very well with all my classes, plus cardio, plus physical training. I’m in great shape and so healthy!

BJJ Rowdy Rollers, overtraining, BJJ seminar

This Sunday, I went to a monthly or bi-monthly event called “Las Vegas Rowdy Rollers.” It’s a women-only Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training session held at various locations, this time, the Cobra Kai gym in North Las Vegas. I’ve heard about this before but never went, due to the fact Sunday is the only day I don’t train some kind of martial arts.

I’m hesitant to call it a “rest day,” since I never sit around and do nothing. I take a 30 min walk mixed with sprints, and then go to Yoga, and sometimes run stairs. That’s it. I’m usually so exhausted or sore from the previous day’s training I just want to lay down and watch anime, or go to a movie. Sunday is usually my movie day.

Well this Saturday, instead of doing yoga, stairs, BJJ, and kickboxing classes consecutively, I did a BJJ seminar hosted by Syndicate with Marcio Pontes. He is formerly Jose Aldo’s coach and is in the States to corner Naldo, who fought on WSOF a few weeks ago in NY. So that was So fun and educational but we didn’t roll hard, so I still had energy. Plus I had gotten elbowed in the eye on Tuesday and it still hurt, so I didn’t wanna do kickboxing.

Graviola vid, jiujitsu stuff, double-teaming, Invicta preview, anime

I made another video for Herbal Papaya! This time talking about the Graviola Powder product! Check it out! It’s only a minute long.

I wrote a preview article for Invicta 21! I got exclusive interviews with Celine Haga (that women has such an inspirational story! Please read!), Andrea Lee, and Raquel Pa’aluhi!

http://mmasucka.com/2017/01/09/roxanne-modafferis-invicta-fc-21-preview/

I really wanna fight MMA! I really hope I get on the next Invicta card!

I wanna do the http://nabjjf.com/ tournament on Jan 21st but there is STILL NOBODY IN MY WEIGHT DIVISION wthhhhhhh ;_;

There IS ONE PERSON signed up for the BJJ World League on Jan 28th. http://www.jjworldleague.com/ I gotta lose weight for that. They’re both in California. I really want to compete in January because I hope I’m going to fight in March but nothing is set yet.

I’ve been doing every morning gi jiujitsu class lately. They’re so great! The numbers are increasing more and more! We have new people all the time, and a few belted folks moved in from out of town or other gyms. Yay. Captain runs a great class. Last week he taught this reverse triangle from back control that had me super excited.

I had the honor of training with Captain’s friend Marcio, a black belt and coach from Brazil. He was so tired but still kicked my butt, and even gave me advice, which I had to have Captain translate.

Yesterday, after the big kid’s class, I asked Rick (head kids coach) if he would roll with me, and he spent about 15 minutes with me and alerted me to a few mistakes I was making.

My 2016 in pictures

In February, I did an MMA seminar at KSA in Tennessee!

Kerry and Emma visited for a few weeks from England to train!

I was invited to watch The Ultimate Fighter Season 23 elimination fights, where Jamie, Khalil, and Cory made it into the house. I got a nicer picture with Dana than I had before (when I had a huge black eye), and I took a pic of the camera crew interviewing Coach John because he’s awesome. I actually got in trouble for taking this cuz somebody noticed. They told me to delete it but I didn’t. lol Hey, I didn’t take a picture of any of the actual fights!!

In March. My kids class is growing, from three kids to a small group!

I started getting treated by Teri, the most fantastic massage therapist I’ve ever met, and she made my pain go away! My training and life improved so much!

Also in March, Invicta 16 happened and I got to become Mileena!

I got to meet my good friend Patrick, who I’ve known online for years but had never met before!

I won!

My friends dressed up and it was incredibly epic.



I won!

In April I got to see my Aunt Mary and Uncle Steve, then I went to my baby cousin’s baby shower with my Dad and Marion, so I got to see all of my family except my Uncle Fran!

My Christmas vacation trip

I had a nice Christmas vacation.

I went to Boston from Friday to Tuesday morning. I trained not a bit other than taking two walks, jumping jacks, squats, and push ups. I ate A LOT. And it was great.

Throughout the year, I don’t talk to my dad as much as my mom because he’s so busy at work, so it was great to get to spend time with him. However, the first day I was there, he gave me the anticipated speech about how he wants me to stop fighting and consider another line of work. However, this time, it was way more forceful and kind of bummed me out for most of my trip. I’m prepared for my parents’ disapproval…. what parent REALLY wants their kid to fight for a living? But kids also desire their parents approval in general, and it sucks I can’t get mine.

Hey, if I were flat broke and I came to him, “Dad, can I borrow five thousand dollars to hold me over to my next fight?” then that is a different story. If I were him, I’d tell me, “No, dear, you need to take responsibility by making do with a more well-paying part-time job, or get a full-time job and train at night.” But I’m NOT doing that.

Of course I want a family and kids SOME DAY, and more money . I don’t date because a boyfriend is distracting, and I only meet people at my gym, and I don’t wanna date anyone from my gym. My step-brother just got engaged. My two cousins are married with kids. If I have a kid, I wanna be able to quit my job for a few years to take care of the infant and have a husband who has a job in which we can make do. I will not fight. I will not be one of those parents to brings their babies to the gym to cry while everybody else is trying to train. It’s not a priority right now in my life.

whoaaaaaaa I went off on a rant there. I’m sure my dad is glad I haven’t settled down with a fighterguy.



I’m actually not allowed to write anything on social media while I’m visiting because Dad demands privacy. I got in big trouble for posting a picture of pizza on instragram…. One of my step-siblings ratted me out by accident…. thanks. It’s just pizza….

I’ll probably get in trouble for this blog…unless I block all my step family on Facebook.