The training camp here in sunny Florida is progressing well. One of my good training partners here and the mma veteran Ywes Edwards fought last Saturday, losing a close fight against the tough Tony Ferguson. I*ve watched Ywes’s fights in Japan’s Pride Bushido events back when I was only starting my bushido… Jorge Masvidals fight is getting closer and he is starting to be in pretty amazing shape, as he must be in order to capture the Strikeforce belt in San Diego, California on December 17th from the reigning Californian champ. Gilbert melendez is currently one of the world’s best lightweights and a tough opponent for anyone and anywhere.

Jeremy Stephens was flown in last week to strengthen the already world class camp and perfect any issues at these last moments. Jeremy is staying at the same hotel as I, rides with me to training and wherever else we may head. He really enjoys this place and the training, as do I. We spent the weekend getting acquainted with the local nightlife in a great crowd, just having a blast. In between location we visited an awesome penthouse fight studio checking out the UFC- and boxing fights. Definitely a good change from the daily training routine.

I bumped into a Finnish honeymoon couple a few days ago. Jyri and Sari Manninen, who came to this hood after having spent two weeks in Puerto Rico and the Dominikan Republic. We met at the beach in Fort Lauderdale for a morning swim. From the we cruised over for food and shopping at the endless shoppinghell called Sawgrass Mills and finished Sunday night off by eating huge main courses and amazing desert at the Cheescake Factory.

Training here has been versatile and challenging in many ways. The focus has been on mma training and refining of different areas. Being around such talented coaches and sparring partners gives a wealth of skill and knowledge to learn from on a daily basis. I had to take a short break from sparring as I seem to have received a slight concussion that manifested itself in headaches and dizziness. In between training I have been expanding my knowledge of the strategic dimension of martial arts by reading Sunzi’s, Art of War – book that dates back a few millenia. I borrowed this book from a friend of mine called Jasse Junkkari who owns a vast amount of martial arts related literature. For those of you who do not yet know Jasse, he is one hell of a lifestyle-ninja and skilled sports masseuse. You can find him at GB-gym. That’s where I go to get smoothed out each week, putting my body back into shape after tough training sessions.

Now I am off to the Fighter’s House to do some recovery and laundry. The House is owned by Liborio, right next to the gym, and currently home to a few training partners and Mirzads skateboarding bulldog.

Last Satuday, after a tough week of training we went to check out a Bahaman kitchen, that offered a great selection of sea food.

From there we continued to the Hard Rock Casion, where we met Dan, ATT’s owner (along with Liborio) and manager of the ATT’s toughest fighters. We played cards and then went to see the Bellatorr 58 event along with some twenty guys and cheer other ATT fighters. Almost every match was damn good, but the final fight was truly phenominal! Alvares and Chandler taking it on for the lightweight title! An amazing fight where in the fourth round Michael Chandler finished with a submission securing the title. Then we continued by having a dinner at the Casino gourme-Steak house, also at the expense of Dan. It was a good weekend, relaxing from the training and enjoying the locale and the sun. Laundry, laying in the jacuzzi and talking on Skype. The new week started again with some tough wrestling, where round after another I get a better understanding of the secretes of american freestyle-wrestling. This is Ywes last hard week, his last before the pre-fight week, which he will spend back home in Texas zoning in and getting his weight right. on the 3rd of December he is up against the tough Tony Ferguson, in the UFC TUF 14 Finale.Ywes kid Ivan flew over from Texas to make sure dad is in shape as the fight gets closer.

Yesterday I was greatful for everything in my life that I have had the chance to enjoy, and to appreciate the fact that I actually have one. Thank you to everyone for everything because today is Thanksgiving Day. Here is a short history lesson for you who don’t yet understand what the whole party is about: the story of thanksgiving . For me it basically met that after morning practice all the restaurants where shut, I got to seek my nourishment from Burger King. That reminded me again of the holy trinity of nutrition, quality, price and taste. You rarely get everything you want. Food is either cheap and healthy, but it doesn’t have tha taste. Or its healthy and tasty, but you have to pay a fortune for it. In most places the food is cheap and good, but damn unhealthy! Rich Attonito from New Jersey who moved to Floridan 6 years ago is the Raging bull, who got into the UFC through TUF 11. Sometimes he loses it when things don’t go to plan.. Grappling gets tough on selfesteem, when Mike Brown at 15kg lighter, controls as he wishes when on top, and raging bull says he has not once escaped from under Mike Brown in 6 years. Mike Brown, a bulldozer from Portland, former WEC champion and current UFC fighter, is the supreme title holder of the top control..

Some have been asking me about the secrets of my diet. I dived my sushi dinner from the ocean

If I have learned something in the last week or so, my wrestling is the part of mma that needs to be developed the most when compared to the all-American and State champs, who keep on skipping into the mma scene one after another, at an increasing pace. Ofcourse in mma that gets evened out quite a bit when you can attack them with good movement and a sharp striking but when you leave your leg out for a moment and you’re on your back staring at the ceiling lighting. I have witnessed this in quite a few wrestling sessions with some top notch wrestlers that have just recently moved here. This is the first time I get to compete with wrestlers of this level and am going to do my best to get the best out of it.

In addition to wrestling we have been perfecting our ground game with Jorge as well, we’ve “played” mma with Ywes and sparred full on. Our sparring sessions have been usually 8 x 5min rounds and you can really feel it get heavier, especially as my conditioning took a bit of a hit during the afterparty of the last fight and some other recovery methodologies. Fear not, however, as I have been winning a good percentage of the rounds and doing especially well in my stand up. My conditioning is returning fast and will be back up to speed as soon as my body gets used to this new and hard training pace.

Pudzianovski is here as well, practicing mma and getting ready for the upcoming KSW promotion taking place in Poland on November 26th where he will be up against James Thompson. He mentioned that over 12 000 tickets had already been pre-booked, which gives quite a good idea of how popular this guy is back home. His world’s strongest man days are now a thing of the past and his weight has apparently dropped almost 100 lbs in one year. A few facts about this man: Mariusz Pudzianowski (born 7. February 1977) is a Polish stong man, who has won the world’s strongest man title in the years 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008. Puzianowski was born in Biala Rawska and started training at the age of thirteen. He attended his first competition in Plock on the first of May 1999 but achieved international recognition only upon his debut in the world’s strongest man competition in 2000. He made fourth place that year. In 2003 Pudzianowski was first in thid place but his doping test showed up positive. He was disqualified and was banned from competing for one year. He is 186cm tall and weighs 142 kilos. Pudzianowski has also set up his own band, Pudzian Band, with which he has appeared since 2000.

Pudzi is a bull!!!

On saturday we were at Hard rock watching Bellator 58 live with the ATT-posse. Had a great night, especially the main event Alvarez vs Chandler was awesome! The dinner at casino’s steak house after wasn’t bad either.

Love the training at ATT

I received an email a few week ago from ATT in which they told me they are setting up a training camp in preparation for Jorge Masvidal’s Stike Force title fight and asked my to join the camp. I managed to finalize the related planning and took off this Wednesday. I flew from Finland to NYC and from there to Miami, from where I rented a car and cruised down to Deerfield beach, where the ATT manager had booked a hotel for me. I arrived just after midnight, after having travelled 20 hours. Due to jetlag and the sudden change in daily rythms I did not feel like sleeping. With a slightly odd feeling in my body I got up in the morning, had breakfast and arrived at the gym at 10:30. It was good to see some old friends again, we updated ourselves on the latest news and started our training.

First we had a training session with the wrestling coach Kami and master Liborio. A few national wrestling champs were also in our ranks including Jorge, Ywes Edwards and one young human monster whose name I can’t just now recall. It was cool to drill and wrestle with Ywes and Jorge, who are both damn skilled and laid back guys. Jorge is originally from Cuba and Ywes from the Bahamas. They are training partners and friends these days, despite having kicked each other in the face a few years ago at bodog:

Jorge vs Ywes

Our daily training had started well again and I was stuffed to be back training in this environment. And you can’t complain about the weather when the sun blazes from a clear sky reaching 30 degrees Celsius when walking out of the gym. Then lunch at the sushi buffet, taking care of a few admin tasks and back to the hotel for a short rest, hydration and preparation for the evening’s sparring session. The evening saw an amalgamation of some tough mma fighters including stars often seen on tv. Sparring was fun even though due to my jet lag I was mainly focusing on a relaxed and conservative approach as being tired and confused added an interesting spice to our scraps…

Once getting to my temporary home I ate and watched the newest TUF episode where the boys were up to some jolly pranks. Akira hit the sack after a few big swings, and so did I. After almost a full two days without sleep. I was in the forest trying to hit a wildcat I found there with a snowball. I was pretty anxious to see if it would attack me or run away! The alarm clock rang and it was time to head off for breakfast and another day of training.