I had a spectacular visit back to The States for Christmas. It kicked off with my return to New England Submission Fighting, Kirik Jenness' MMA gym in Amherst, Massachusetts. I had trained there six days a week for the four years I studied in college. They raised me from a baby grappler, who's playground was the NAGA grappling tournaments, to an adult MMA fighter, who traveled across oceans to go to work.

Kirik Jenness, myself, and James McNally.

There's a difference between training with my acquaintances at Wajiu-tsu Keishukai, no matter how skilled they are, and friends who are close to my heart. One snide remark from one of the guys at NESF makes me fight like a crazy person, and the words, "You can hit me harder, you know," always brings an excited grin to my face.

One of the guys, I forget who (Dave Roy), even gave me a Christmas gift in the form of a huge red goose egg on my hair-line. This amused me and was even the source of pride until I realize my father would be less than thrilled to see it. Much less than thrilled. I attempted to buy some type of cosmetics to cover it up, but being completely make-up illiterate, I might as well have finger-painted myself like a Apache warrior with different shades of brown. The staff at Walgreen's were talking about foundations, and I'm thinking, "What does the concrete base of a house have to do with my face?"

Not wanting to waste anymore money, I abandoned the make-up idea and instead changed my hair style. I clipped it so a lock of hair surreptitiously fell over the goose egg, hiding it from view. Relieved, I was driven back to Boston by my wonderful friend James McNally, and had one last training session at Sityodtong Muay Thai Academy in Somerville before finally joining my father and his fiancee for the Christmas holiday.
In the days after Christmas, I enjoyed spending time with my sorely missed mother, and friends from high school and college.

Brendon and myself eating roasted squid on a stick in the Meiji Jingu shrine..

Upon returning to Japan, I still had a few days off from work. My college friend and wrestler Brendon Reed visited me in Tokyo, taking a break from teaching at the English School Nova, which happens to be bitter rivals with my own company, Berlitz. We visited famous sights such as Ueno, Asakusa, and Tokyo tower.
My aunt had given me this wonderful suede coat and hat. I realized, and my friends immediately pointed out, that I resembled something of a sailor if I flipped the rim of the bucket hat up. I promptly did this and posed for Brendon with a package of pickled octopus in Ito Yodako, my favorite super-market in Japan.

New Years was nice for another reason- it made a great topic of conversation at work. Before jumping into a lesson when most likely the student hadn't even looked at English in a week, it's good to warm them up by asking them how they are and what they've been up to. For the first week and a half of January, I could simply ask, "So what did you do for New Years?" This let them practice using the past tense, and was good for whatever level the student was at. I heard answers from, "Nothing, I watched TV" to "I took a trip to Niigata to go skiing with my family."

Surprisingly, New Years isn't as big in Japan as it is in the United States and other places. It's more of a quiet family time, and a blessed break from working 9 AM to midnight, plus Saturdays. I'd guess that literally three quarters of my students didn't do anything but stay home and watch the special NHK New Years program on TV. The remainder either went skiing or went to bed early. Of course, claiming only to sleep didn't get them out of the hot-seat- I then proceeded to grill them about traditional Japanese culture and customs around New Years, until by week two of January, I could have written a book from all the information I gathered.

After all the New Years excitement settled down, I focused on training for my fight March 4th. One day, Canadian pro-fighter John Louro joined Keishukai for the short term. He'd come for a few months on a holiday visa to train, and helped me work take-downs, boxing, and various other things to prepare for my upcoming March 4th competition.

Amanda Buckner, myself, Debi Purcell at the Smack Girl press conference.

On February 13th, Debi Purcell, one of the pioneers in women's MMA, arrived in Japan to fight Hitomi Akano on Smack Girl's February 15th card. They named their show "Decent of the Goddess," probably in reference to Megumi Yabushita, who's name sounds like "Megami (means 'Goddess')" She was slotted to fight another American star, Amanda Buckner. I met Debi on Tuesday, my day off, and helped her, her boyfriend Trevor, and coach Jeremy Williams find acceptable things to eat according to her diet restrictions. She had to cut to an unnaturally low weight of 135, which I can sympathize with. We also did a little bit of sightseeing in Asakusa.

Later, I helped translate the interviews into Japanese for Smack Girl, which was exceedingly difficult for me. There were a lot of things I didn't know how to communicate even though I knew wanted I wanted to say. It motivates me to study Japanese, but dividing my energy is more difficult than I had previous imagined.
Unfortunately, Debi lost a tough decision to the Japanese girl, but it was worth it to her to have the opportunity to get back into the ring, and even get a free trip to Japan. Everyone was saying beforehand that she would never fight again after having 16 knee surgeries on the same knee, and after tearing her ACL three times. She's one of my heroes for her courage, perseverance, and wisdom. I can't wait to fight her sometime in the near future!

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