Vacations

...they are nice aren't they? The only bad part about them is having to bring them to an end. Mine ended with some wrestling Saturday night as we made it back in time for the second half of XCW's doubleshot weekend and the tourney to finally crown a heavyweight champion after the belt was stripped of Kieth Lee months ago. I was tired as hell at the show and imagine Mrs. Envi and the little High Yellow Envi were hot and tired as well. We had spent 20+ hours in the car total to drive from Phoenix, to San Antonio to retrieve my dog and then up to Denton. Not fun being in the car that long, still working out the kinks of that jaunt let me tell you. It was good to visit my dad and my best friend who I had not seen in 3 years, way waaaaay too long. I told him we didn't need to let that kind of time lapse again, I know life kinda takes you along at it's own pace, but we have been friends since we were 6 years old and you just don't get that kind of friendship again you had with the ones you grew up with.

Came back to have a lot of wrestling TV to catch up on. Two eps of ROH, two Smackdown's, two Gala Lucha eps and an Impact. Made it through the ROH and Smackdown. Loved seeing KENTA/Strong, a stiff hard-hitting match, I wish it could have gone longer, but it was good. Impact, well the first hour I watched, was nauseating as usual and why oh why do they just throw in all these gimmick matches on the broadcast like they are nothing? It lessens the impact, no pun intended, when you actually try to have them be meaningful in fueds. Just dumb. But of course, it's TNA we are talking about right? Right.

Ordered the Bash PPV last night. That was a good one with Rey/Jericho stealing the show as everyone knew they would. It was a good PPV overall even if I thought the Punk/Hardy match was lacking something, can't put my finger on what, but it was lacking something. That and I just hate Jeff with a passion. But it was good to see the PPV actually worth the money as opposed to Wrestlemania...60 bucks, four hours and only one match on the card really worth seeing. Yeah, I need to find a sports bar that shows WWE ppvs like Scoreboard in Victoria does.

Can't complain though. Got away from Texas for a bit with Mrs. Envi and the kids, well half of the set, the other will come in a couple weeks and I can't wait for that. But out of Texas, different states, road tripping, seeing friends and family and then back in time for some wrestling.

Good stuff.

On our way to San Antonio tonight and then Cali tomorrow. Bunches of driving.

Giving armdrags the finger...

Steamboat armdrags. Those deep deep ass ones the Dragon throws on people, yeah we were doing those last night, or at least learning them. I was not giving them, but I was receiving them. I have learn, in some cases painfully, that there are certain moves that other people do that you must go with them and just take it and roll with the impact and if you don't they can yank your ass anyway and it's going to hurt. What we were doing was sort of one of those things and I caught my finger on the mat and came down on it and it was not fun at all. It's a bit swollen now, and sore, but ah well, it's still in place and it's moving, so I am looking at the bright side of things. It's just one of those things you have to get. I did add a couple armdrags to my list of stuff that I have learned. Just have to do more repetition to get it down.

Still need more chaining work to get that down so I don't get in certain holds or situation and then my brain locks up wondering where to go next and breaking the flow of things. Luckily Mrs. Envi has been paying attention when she has attended my training sessions and has picked up on things and can be a practice partner for me. Granted I will not be giving her snapmares and such, the headlocks, waist/wrist-locks and all that I can go through, to get the practice in and further burn them into memory of things I can do.

Going to Cali this weekend. The long awaited long ass friggan drive. Won't see Smackdown tonight or ROH Saturday, but I have already mentioned the wait to see the KENTA/Strong match. I know it will be worth the wait. It will be good to go on a vacation and actually travel some place vastly different. Definitely a fan of anytime I can get out of Texas. And the week break from work will be good. And the week of rest from wrestling training will be good too, to shore up any nagging aches and just to get my mind freee of the worries of training and just be relaxed and refreshed in a couple weeks when it is time to go back and get back into it and work towards that deadline I have for myself.

The camera holds like 700 pics and I firmly intend to use em all on the journey and when we get there and with her fam, my brother from another mother and his wife and my dad and such. It should be a fun trip and I am looking forward to it.

How do you not do what you know you are doing?

So my philosophical issues with myself remain. I will further be awesome once I figure this shit out let me tell you. But I got my haircut today and the barber was one of the teachers from the Tourniquet School of Fighting, which runs in the evenings M-F in that same barbershop. I had been wanting to do martial arts for a long time and happens to be getting a haircut months ago and saw one of the other teachers working with a couple of students. I later did something for work involved with the school and ended up taking it for about a month as April was a free month for all in the class. The class is Shaolin style gung-fu, mixed with some boxing and some grappling. It was awesome and kicked your ass at the same time. Their big thing was the core and strengthening the core. And the workout before you even got into learning the techniques was a killer every time.

Well I was talking about training with the guy, Jamain and first off he said it was great to know I was training and he copped to not actually thinking I was 100% serious about going through with the training, so I got my props for that. But I was telling him about the issue I was having with wanting to be great like yesterday. And how I was over thinking things and he said he noticed the same thing in the gung-fu classes that I would mess up something and then contemplate it a bunch before trying it again, thus further screwing it up.

Damn.

So that's the dilemma, how do you stop doing something you know you're doing that you should not be doing? And am I further screwing things up for myself by continuing to think about over thinking? I swear it's a head scratcher to say the least.

Read a couple magazines in the shop while I waited. Fitness mags, one with an article on abs and how to get them, maintain them and all that. I have abs, nice ones, I might add, but I want to find a workout I can do to maintain them as I don't want to take them for granted. And I just want stuff to do outside of wrestling training I can do on MWF when I am not in training. Weights, cardio type of stuff that will only lend itself to the squared circle. Will be working on that in the upcoming week. I'd like to come back from Cali with something ready and fresh to implement.

Training tonight...hoping to freestyle tonight. Still have a score to settle and wanna go at it with Joey and see how I fair against a guy who'se bigger than me, but not much taller than me. Whereas Sed was bigger and taller. And Pierre needs to show himself so we can get it going.

Moving mountains.

Stretching and thinking

...well one of those you need to do, the other you don't. I get to training early enough and I need to stretch out before I begin training. You would think this would be obvious given the fact I am using muscles in ways I have not before in any sort of sport I trained for before. But sometimes the most obvious thing is not clear to us when it should be. So from here out trust I will be stretching, I don't need to pull something and sideline myself for weeks with nagging hurts when all I had to do was some simple stretching and work myself out. Lesson learned.

Thinking I don't need to do. I know this is all a work in progress and I am learning and building up to things. I am learning something I knew absolutely nothing about before, so I will make my mistakes. I will be good eventually and my goal is to work on being the best. But of course this won't happen overnight. I think that's my issue as I continued to crap on myself when I messed up on something instead of just getting up and hitting the shit again. Stupid of me. I feel last night was my worst night of thinking and over thinking as I kept breaking my stride on bumps, running the ropes and hiptosses. When I just cleared my head and let it flow, they were good, when I started thinking of say the 3rd one being good and trying to quickly analyze that so I could make the 4th and 5th one good I started screwing up again. Not good. I am all impulse in so many other ways in my life and yet here I abandon that and wanna think and shit. I need to flipflop those two philosophies, lol.

My goal is to be wrestling before the end of the year....it's still June. I have six months before the end of the calendar year...I'd like to be wrestling in 4. Benoit did not just walk through the door of his first training session and walk out the best technical wrestler ever. It took work and lot's of it. I will be great one day, that is the goal. I just need to not trip about the work and the pitfalls of said work.

Need to work away from training to keep myself in shape. To work my wind up. We were doing drop down drills last night and boy do they wind you. One of the wrestlers from the XCW roster who wrestles regularly on shows was there last night and doing drills and was sucking wind and admitted to letting himself get out of shape. I think, I don't know 100% I will admit as I am not wrestling yet, but I think there is the temptation to let yourself slip and take your wind, cardio and overall fitness for granted because you are wrestling actively each week. I got that from him anyway. That's one thing I won't do. I will be in better shape than the people I go up against and they will be sucking wind, not me.

Study and training

Jim Ross posted in his blog about the passing of legendary Japanese wrestler, Mitsuharu Misawa, and mentioned the need to study him,

"It's a damn shame that the vast majority of American wrestling fans won't give a second thought about the untimely death of "a Japanese wrestler." I encourage all fans to find DVD's of Misawa and watch him in his prime, in the 90's especially. If one is really serious about about being a highly skilled, pro wrestler, then study the late Mitsuharu Misawa."

I will admit to not being familiar with all the Japanese wrestling greats, Misawa included. The ones I know of are Ultimo Dragon, Liger, Kenta Kobashi, Tajiri and the Great Sasuke….not much by any stretch of the imagination.

And of course there’s KENTA, Dragon Kid and Cima who am getting into recently and will study them.

Study. What does it mean to study? Oh I know what it means to study for a test or things like that, but in the world of wrestling what does it mean to study someone. You often here about people studying tapes or studying this person or that. What exactly should you be looking for I wonder. Sure I have watched wrestling all my life, and sure I have my favorites and I like to think I know the difference between a good and bad match but upon studying, what should I look for? What notes should I take? I know when I see particular guys, the favorites of mine, Benoit, Hart, KENTA, Red, Henning, Guerrero, I see things they do I like and think, hey I might want to do that. But what should I be studying. They way they execute moves? When they use particular moves in their arsenal? Things like that? It seems on the one hand to be a no-brainer, but I don’t want to assume and assume the wrong thing and create a habit I have to later break. I’ll just add it to my questions for Eddie in training tonight and make sure I get it answered.

Another question would be working out outside the ring. He said the best cardio you can do is the freestyling we do in the ring in training. But of course outside of that, you need to be doing something. Now I have been in sport all my life. Baseball and soccer as a kid. Wrestling and track in high school, track in college.

I know from those sports what I did to get in shape, with the running and such, but of course wrestling is a whole other sort of animal. So I will get his perspective on what I should do outside of the ring to build up my wind.

Can’t win titles sucking wind and being tired out against the competition. Can’t be the best if you can’t make it past five minutes. That won’t be me. I’ll be in the best shape of anyone, anywhere. That’s my goal: to be that much faster, stronger, more in shape, than anyone else who is in the ring against me. It will be a long road to that, but it's a goal I will work to achieve.

Monday

It’s a Monday. For me, Monday’s are more make it through the day to watch some wrestling at night and watch then up early for work Tuesday and then training. In between I work and I hover on Facebook debating wrestling stuff with people. It’s good when you have people post who actually have something decent to say and raise good points. A lot of the guys I agree with, I disagree with as well so it balances out. I just hate the people who come in and say “OMG WWE rulllzz11!!!! TNA is gay111!!!!!!11!!” That’s just fucking dumb. And yet people do it. And people who have not heard of ROH should just be shot. That’s my opinion.

It’s going to be a long-ass week for me well long couple weeks for one reason. KENTA/Strong is set to be this weeks main event on ROH on HDnet. I will be loading up the family with Mrs. Envi and heading to Cali to visit her family and see my best friend. Will put me out a week of training but it will be OK. It’s something she has been looking forward to and I haven’t see my best friend in what…damn…3 years now…

I read the taping results from Philly a few weeks ago so at one point in time I knew the outcome, but I have since forgotten it and I am glad I did and now I am just pretty much salivating over the match. I love KENTA. I will namedrop him a million times in this blog I imagine as I love his hard-hitting style and his move set. Basaiku Knee! FTW!

I need to see more of him. I have watched several matches and am scanning Youtube to add matches to the wrestling playlist I have on my profile there to watch. I need to find which DVD has KENTA/Danielson and get it. Well hell I need to get a lot ROH DVDs. I’d like to have a vast library of promotions from all across the country and internationally. I want to see all the styles and different types of wrestlers and I just want to learn.

Definitely glad the day came along when I discovered there was more to wrestling than Vince and Ted Turner. I discovered that in high school sometime with my first taste of ECW. Then as I spent more time online I learned about indy wrestling and Japan and wrestling there. It was a good day. A day where a sort of lightbulb went off in my mind.

Glad it did or I would drive myself batty bitching about WWE and Raw and the stale main event seen there, how they should give younger guys a shot, how I hate Batista’s lack of being able to not hurt himself or things like that. Smackdown is awesome. So is ECW. And if I didn’t have indy I would bitch until I was blue in the face about TNA and how much of a croc it is that Christopher Daniels has had no title reigns.

But c’est la vie. It is what it is. But I have DVDs and of course the awesome that is XCW locally.

Wrestling...TV and live......

Sunday is catch up time for wrestling on my DVR. Ring of Honor and the crapstorm that is TNA Impact. ROH was good with matches from Steenerico and a good main event of Chris Hero against Jerry Lynn. Jimmy Rave squashing Grizzly Redwood did nothing for me.

Impact started off with more stuff I hate like Jeff Jarrett featured in the spotlight. I didn't care for him in WWF, WCW and don't much care for him now. I want TNA's guys to be featured, but alas. They're having a first blood match on TV...sorry a nation of violence first blood match which completely makes it super awesome. God TNA and their need to make these crazy ass gimmick matches is nauseating.

Last night was another good night of wrestling Pilot Point, TX with XCW...granted it was a hot, hot ass night. I for one will be glad once we get the a/c working or figure out someway to get some more cool air flowing in there. The ring area was cooler than the locker room though.

The action in the ring was great topped off with a main event match of Tim Storm and Masada. I was looking forward to that match in particular as I figured it to be a hard-hitting brawl. There was a lot more technicality to it. I talked to Misada after the match and he mentioned the stigma hardcore wrestlers have, that they can't wrestle. But he disproved that.

Other matches had his running buddy Showtime Scot Summers against Apoc, another good match.

A lot of Robert Evans on this show which was great. I love his promos, his antics and his matches. The guy is entertaining as can be.

Guys like that I can't wait to get in the ring with, Evans, Kevin Douglas, Joey, Scott even Hugh. I moved Sed in training I can try my hand with Hugh.

Big or small I will take them all.

Wrestling TV thoughts

So given the fact that I am in training obviously I watch a lot of wrestling.

A lot.

I know some folks around me may get tired of that amount of wrestling they intake on a weekly basis (not naming any names like Mrs. Envi or anything), but it's what I do.

My week consists of :

Sun-AAA on Galavision
Mon-Raw
Tues-ECW
Wed-(open until XCW gets back on MavTV)
Thurs-Impact
Fri-Smackdown
Sat-Ring of Honor on HDnet

And that's not counting the DVD watching I do during the week, though it has slowed as of late. AAA I am just getting into recently though I do need Mrs. Envi around for translation so I can follow the show beyond the action in the ring.

Raw is a show I used to like and look foward to watching but now is crappy show in my eyes. Far too much backstage shananigans, the promos are too long and the matches are too short. The consensus of all the reports I have read is that Vince sees the show as needing to be more entertainment driven. And he sees it as the "A" show and devotes his time and attentiong to that and his roster of HHH, Randy, Cena and Show in the main event scene. That is fine with me.
Why's that? Because it leaves shows like ECW and Smackdown to be driven by wrestling.

I like many old school ECW marks was excited at the thought of ECW coming back to TV after the second one night stand. And then I like many was disgusted when seeing the initial offerings of this WWECW. I was pissed and pissed for a while. But I just came to the realization the old school ECW is dead and this WWECW is being used to groom new talent and then move them on to the other shows. It's worked for Miz, Morrison, Punk, etc. So I like in that regard. ECW of old gave us hardcore shit yeah but it also gave us great technical wrestling and was the debut of many of the stars we came to enjoy in WCW and WWE.

Impact used to be good back in the day. I remember when it was an hour, man you knew you were getting at least a good match out of the X-Division every single show. Then it moved to two hours, started bringing in former WCW/WWE talent and things changed. I am not saying they have been useless or they are washed up or can't contribute, it's just how they are used and how they are pushing down homegrown talent. That's my issue. AJ is a friggan two-time triple crown winner and he is pushing a fake belt when he should be in the thick of it for the heavyweight belt. Daniels too. I understand that Jarrett founded the company and did a lot for it, but damn I am sick of seeing him in the main event seen. I want new, fresh on my TV. Impact was supposed to be the alternative to Vince's shit. The few redeeming spots for me on impact are tag team wrestling with an actual tag team division, the Amazing Red and the Knockouts, women that actually wrestle and have ample talent and not just ample fake assets.

Smackdown has been the best source of WWE wrestling. It's straight forward good wrestling and I like that.

ROH on HDnet I had been waiting for. I love ROH from what I have seen. I won't say I am a rabid hardcore fan like some. I know I have a lot of catch up work to do on my DVD collections, but I am glad they have a show for more people to see it. I have been on the boards and seen the talk of how the show has changed since Gabe left and blah blah. But I like the show. It was a bit rough at first, but I think they have hit their stride and are consistently providing some great matches. It will be interesting to see how they balance TV continuity with suspending PPVs and the other live shows they run. The only thing ROH did bad recently to me was the whole deal with Flair and his ambassador role which I think was some of the dumbest shit. The guy looked bored, looked like he didn't want to be there and could barely remember the name of talent. On interview segments he basically put himself over the whole time. It just wasn't cool. If you believe the sheets it was supposed to be a way in for Reid Flair to wrestle in ROH but then he got busted for heroin and all. So that fucked that up and thus left Flair with no reason to stay there and to go back to the 'E.

So those are my wrestling TV thoughts (man that is a weak concluding sentence) I'll be posting those in addition to my tales of training and my lumps and bruises as I make my way to the XCW ring.

Training 6/11/09

Ah, another day of training has came and went.

Last night was cool as I went over a couple ways to take a wrist lock. I had gone over them before but was having some brain fartage last night. I will say I think part of it was from extra people there. Also there last night were Big Sed (current XCW wrestler), Sid Murder and Mad Dog. Sid I know has wrestled for XCW before, not entirely sure about Mad Dog. But they have wrestled for the company I want to wrestle for at the end of this, so there was an early intimidation on my part because they had done it already, you know? But even then, they were learning as well, there were fundamental things they needed to tweak as well as the fundamental things I have been learning. So that made it better for me. I just need to block things out, not give a fuck about what others think when they see me and I will be better off. I am going to have to learn to block shit out anyways to an extent I would imagine when I get in the ring for matches. So I need to start it now. I already know I am an uncaring prick when it comes to what people think of me out and about in my daily life, I just need to translate that to my work in the ring.

Let it just be me and my trainer.

We did more freestyling last night. More work on cardio, which I am loving still. We started in referee's position on the mat, one person on offense, one of defense and you go for two minutes. Good stuff. Mad Dog and Sid need some cardio work, that's for sure. And me, I was matched up with Sed. Sed kinda scoffed or chuckled at that as he was stepping in the ring. Me I just saw someone to take down. I have said before I like working with people of different sizes to teach myself how to adjust to the height, weight, power and agility of the person I am going against. Eddie later said he wanted to put me against Sed as I will be going against a lot of guys who are bigger than me and he doesn't want me to be intimidated, "not that I think you are intimidated" he said.

Good save Eddie. Lol.

When I was on the defensive, Sed pinned me one time. The other time, while it looked like he did from his sheer mass, Nite could see that I was bridging with my neck and I was off my back. When I was on the offensive, I nearly took Sed over a few times. One of those times, only the fact that we were in the ropes saved him. Sed had to resort to holding on to my shorts and then my shirt as time was winding down on our round.

I was winded, but felt good taking it to him like that. It's all about leverage really. Also knowing where to jam your head and when to push helps to. I'm a little guy but people need to and will learn that I'm a powerful one in my own right.

Lesson learned. If not, we can go next week and I hope we do, and they will see.

Besides, Eddie and I have a score to settle.

Stormy times

North Texas is under a thunderstorm watch. Ah good times. I especially loved the torrential downpour of last night where coming home from Wally World I missed the turn I need to take for my street because I couldn't flipping see it. Nice. And then totally getting soaked going from car to house, yeah that was awesome too.

But of course why am I complaining when I live in a region of the country that gives me awesome triple digit summers.

Love it.

Bright side. Wrestling training tonight. Have to finish the podcast for this week, I really want to get into a habit of doing it earlier I'd like to release it on Wednesday, but I just dragged ass on it this week.

Another bright side. Started sending Lords of Pain the show news for XCW for them to post and the first one is posted so that will be more potential eyes seeing what is going on with XCW. I am all about promotion of the product. I like to think I am a part of the XCW fam, maybe like the outter circle, working my way in, but working none the less. I want to see anything I am a part of succeed so I will do what I can, when I can to make it happen. And I will definately pound the pavement to get more people to know about us.

Hopefully the weather in Pilot Point won't be bad, we had a stormy ass night, once up there, with lightening striking the ground not far from the building XCW is in.

Hoping for clear skies up that way.

I suppose this can function much like Twitter and you can post updates straight to your blog. Man I am way behind.

Testing the ability to post blogs from my cell.

Training last night...

Training continues and got some extra sprinkles of awesome last night as my trainer switched to former WWE developmental wrestler, Eddie Craven.

Awesome.

Warm ups will be a little different as Eddie's thing is keeping legs strong and doing a lot of squats.
A lot.

Did a lot more bumping last night. A whole lot more. So i am a little bit sore this morning. My rope running was awesome on like one side of the ring and then it would fuck up on the other side of the ring.

Odd.

I was getting frustrated with myself as I wanted to do better but Eddie explained, as did Nite and Steph on the way home that I of course am not going to be perfect at this starting out of the gate. I am going to suck at doing some stuff as I learn it.

Eddie said at one point, "where have you been...nowhere. What do you know....nothing."And that is true. I need to not think about shit so much and just let things flow and just do them, listen to their pointers, get up, try do it better the next time.

Wrestled freestyle with Eddie for six minutes at two-minute rounds. Awesome. Granted he got the better of me a bit as he is a lot taller and bigger than me and I was a bit winded, and hadn't done that in years, but damn it was fun. Reminded me why I loved wrestling in high school. Although maybe I should have thought better of trying to gator roll Eddie. I did it, but it took some doing to accomplish it, lol.

Eddie asked me if I had any questions which I told him, given where he has been I have a bunch of fanboy geeky ass questions from a guy who's wrestled Rey, Punk and the like and rubbed shoulders with all those guys. But I am not going to hit him with all those at once. Have some other questions pertaining to moves and stuff but I can get to those in time.All in all it was just cool. To be trained by him, in the ring with him, just cool. Looking forward to more and to getting better from here.

OK then....a real first post...

So blogspot is new to me though I know it's pretty old for some. I guess I shall do the typical about me, introduce yourself sort of thing first off....

Currently I am a journalist covering county government and producing video for the Denton Record-Chronicle, http://www.dentonrc.com/ in Denton Texas. I am the father of twin sons, Jacob and Caleb Lewis. I am in a relationship with Stephney and live with her and her two daughter, Angie and Naiya in a nice town house where we pay too much for cable TV.

The short story...born and raised in Washington, DC. Educated there, continuing to North Carolina in high school at the Asheville School. I was kicked out after the first semester of my senior year, (nice right?) finished my senior year at Ruston High School in Ruston, Louisiana.

Attended college at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston where I majored in English at first before changing my major to journalism. I met my kids mother when was there. Married her (god, don't do it people), things got more difficult then. School suffered until I split from her (she tried to kill me a few times) and scraped to get aid back, get my GPA up and graduate in August of 2006.

Moved to Victoria, TX to work for the Advocate, covering education, then moved (not by choice by any means) to faith/family. Had to get out of there so I found a job in Denton and moved there with Steph.

So presently working and trying to get several personal projects off the ground related to filmmaking -http://www.taurian-films.com/ (under heavy construction) -, comic books, podcasts and pro wrestling.

I currently produce a weekly audio podcast for XCW located in Pilot Point, TX. That can be heard at http://www.xcwprowrestling.com/

I am also training with them, head trainer is Eddie Craven, a man with 11 years experience and a former WWE developmental wrestler.

And of course I can be found on the requisite social media sites

Myspace
http://www.myspace.com/sebastionenvi

Twitter

About me

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