So this week has had me in a bad mood so far and sucked the motivation right out of me but I’ve picking up the slack. I will get back to training hard again today and will continue on despite this minor set back. I definitely will have to talk to Chuck to make sure the sparring partners know that we’re sparring and not trying to murder me. It seems to be a bit confusion there, at least for this week. Outside of all the negative stuff, all the sparring before that last round with me getting busted open, all went better then expected. I locked in a couple submission moves and even tapped Delonn. He says we were in a stand still, but he still TAPPED!  

So all and all, I felt good about 95% of the sparring, just the end was a little upsetting. And so, I’m off to hit the heavy bag for a bit and try to lose more than 12 pounds, as this number seems to be sticking. I hit 12 and my body won’t let any more fat go. I know I can cut the weight. I just need to keep working. Eventually I’ll get over this 12 pound hurdle and move closer to the 37 pound weight loss goal. Wish me Luck. 

-Baby Kisses

I found myself having the worst day of the week during sparring But not with the sparring, with my crew. My camerawoman had a family reunion and I didn’t find out about it until the day of sparring and with such short notice I couldn’t find anyone to fill in. Then, Evan told me my sound man Tom had camera experience. So, we juggled around some positions and Tom took the job. He did an amazing job! He even caught me vomiting in the parking lot after sparring. I think this is the first time I’ve been excited about someone filming me vomit.  

Sparring went better than I expected. I’ve decided to not go into details on my sparring, as I want to leave some surprises in the film for you but I did pretty good. I have to learn to stay on the balls of my feet which Evan and Brandon will be over during week four to help me with. Outside of that, I’ve learned that if I want to survive on the ground against an MMA fighter—I need to learn some submission moves. Since I can’t be taught moves by a professional, I’m playing my MMA video game, watching some fight footage online and watching how they do things in order to learn moves. I’m working on two moves this week, which I hope to have a chance to use in week four’s sparring. Speaking of week four, my MMA gear will finally be here. It was suppose to be here last week but the shipment got stuck in Iowa or something. Oh well, I’m excited to wear my first ever MMA gloves. I’m also worried about wearing head gear because now it invites being hit in the head. Something I don’t expect to be much fun but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do and this man is going to do his damnedest to not get hit in the head.  

I’ll let you know how this tactic works next week. If you don’t hear from me, then the tactic didn’t work that well.  

-Baby Kisses

Then, I get a call from Adam about my cameraman asking for money. Our film company is in the root stages and somewhere along the line I gave my camera guy the impression he would get paid up front for filming this movie. Upon learning it was deferred payment, I found myself one cameraman short and seeing as I only had one cameraman, I’m not feeling so good about it. Then, I got some good news when my assistant camera GIRL, accepted the head DP slot. So everything is back on track and this will be my LAST week of sitting around nursing wounds, I’m not going to get anywhere if I just sit on my ass crying. Next week, I start training and we don’t stop.  

-Baby Kisses

I was taught how to fall without being killed. I hesitated, as I don’t want to go against my own rules of being untrained. However, it was necessary for me to learn so I didn’t get hurt in the dojo, which I completely understood. So, this was the one exception. When you think about it, I basically learned how to be knocked down and in no way would anyone describe that as learning to fight.

Then, we moved on to sparring. First, I took on Keen (I’m sorry if I misspelled your name), although the entire day, I thought his name was Ken. So, I do remember his name now. We fought for five minutes; actually we fought for like a minute or two, then I gassed out and attempted to fight for the remainder of the bout. I felt pretty good about it and thought I did fairly well. Then, I took on a new student at the dojo but don’t let that fool you! She was new at ninjitsu but holds a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and yes I said SHE. Now, before you jump all over me for fighting a girl—I’m a fat, out of shape blob, with a gas tank of two minutes max and no fighting ability. She has a black belt. She did mostly kicks but I think I kept my own until she kicked me directly on the finger tips of my left hand. I’m pretty sure she broke my pinky at the least but I don’t have time for that. So, we’re letting that heal on its own…I’m sure it’ll be fine. Then, she kicked me in the mouth. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, except this was our first sparring session and we didn’t have head gear yet. So it stung a bit, I tasted some blood but I ignored it…until she mentioned that I was bleeding. It’s one thing to make me bleed, but then to mention it to me? Well, I got a little frustrated, caught her next kick then, sent her flying in the air and to the ground. I even hit her with a nice hook to the head. It’s the first and probably only time someone will cheer for me hitting a girl. For the record, she had full head guard with face shield and I didn’t try to hit her hard.

Then there was Chuck, my last opponent for the day. Now he’s the second highest black belt in the dojo and I was a little intimidated. But Chuck is a friend of mine and I didn’t like the idea of hitting him that much. He tapped me in a few seconds. Then we went for round two, he got me in a choke-hold, but I broke free and was actually on top of Chuck on the ground. It would have been more exciting but I was so tired I could only lay on top of him and pray for Brandon to end the match.

We ended with Adam taking on Keen. It was pretty much a Keen fight and in the end. Adam left with a forearm that had a pear size welt swelling out of it. I felt pretty good about my first day and then I watched the tape of my sparring and what I thought in my head, didn’t match what I saw on the screen. I looked like one of those mummies from the old horror movies, all stiff and dragging around the place. It’s funny how your perspective of things doesn’t always match reality. The first day is over and now I see I have a lot of work to do. Wish me luck.

-Jared Whitton

BREAK TRAILER from DanielWoods on Vimeo.

CutThroat Entertainment on NBC4 Columbus from Tom Heckman on Vimeo.

CutThroat Entertainment and BREAK were part of a featured story on NBC4’s news broadcast.

Legend Tripping: Our first webisode series, Legend Tripping, will be going into production here within the next few weeks. Stay tuned for the first episode in July.