Hey everyone,

            Today soreness crept into our bodies like never before.  The soreness is a little overwhelming, but it is a good soreness.  We earned this soreness doing what we love, and doing it well.  Today we had a 8am practice in which we mostly drilled situations.  I went with Willie Parks again, and our drilling became more of live situations.  In between practices we had the UPENN guys over at our hotel room to rest and hangout before our practice at 245pm.  Once our second practice came around, it was clear how much pain the world team and national team were in.  A lot of the team opted not to practice, leaving me with not that many practices.  However, I managed to get a good workout in with world team alternate Bryce Hasseman.  The practice consisted of a short drilling session, then a bunch of sparring, and then a couple matches.  I learned that Bryce and I have similar ideas when it comes to drilling.  Over the last year I have come to see that drilling is more fun and beneficial if we spar.  This means that it is very high resistance and match like, but individuals are still allowed to get their moves. This is kind of similar to what we do at UVA, which we call flow drill, or just flowing into your moves naturally without thinking about them.  I also got to get some quality work in with the coaches here.  Kerry McCoy, Zeke Jones, Brandon Slay, and others gave me some good pointers.  So far, it has been an awesome experience out here, and a great opportunity to make connections with the nations best wrestlers, while also being able to test yourself and show the nation where you stand.

Until my next post,

Brent Jones

UVA 197

Hey everyone,

            Today was probably one of the best days I have had with wrestling in a long time.  This morning we woke up to an 8am practice with the national team.  It was a good parterre day morning practice in which we worked a lot of different positions and transitions.  It was half drilling and half live, or as Zeke Jones calls it “sparring.” I had the pleasure of working with JD Bergman and was able to defend him and turn him.  Immediately after practice we had to go on a 3 mile run.  Usually I hate runs, but this one felt pretty good and I was able to hold my own with the rest of the guys.  In between practices, we got the chance to eat lunch at subway and show off our hotel to the UPENN guys.  The cold pool water definitely felt good on our sore bodies.  In the afternoon we had another tough national team practice.   I was in the zone for this practice and quite possibly wrestled the best I have ever wrestled during a practice.  The practice consisted of drilling positions technique and then 3 matches.  It was pretty cool to see that coach jones had the team doing the defense and offense to my chest lock that I was hitting on everyone, and the peak out that I hit on everyone.  He literally told me he was going to make the whole team do them, so it was pretty cool.  With both practices I saw that everything that we were doing, we do at school, it is just the intensity that makes a difference.  I could tell that Chris and I had a lot more intensity in the drills and a higher pace, then a bunch of guys in the room.  I had a great performance with our matches as well.  In my first match, I pinned James Yonushonis twice.  In my second match, I threw JD Bergman and pinned him.  In my third match, I won the first period 5-0 and got a quick takedown to a pin against world team member Jake Herbert, before Zeke Jones told other people to go with him.  I was feeling good and could wrestle a lot more, so after practice was over I accepted an offer to wrestle live against Willie Parks (the guy who beat me in the quarters of the Olympic trials).  I felt awesome.  I threw him a couple times, got a lot of takedowns with only giving up one, and pinned him.  It was quite possibly my best wrestling practice ever.  After practice was over, we got invited back to the Burak household (the same family from 3 nights ago) for dinner.  It was very tasty and much appreciated.  When our stomachs were good and full, we got to play a game called sting ball.  It is where you play doubles ping pong, but when a team scores, the losing team has to take off their shirts and turn around and allow the winning team to hit the ball at their back to create a welt.  The team wit the most welts at the end of the game loses.  It was highly contested and competitive, but it was a fun ending to a great day.  Well its time to hit the sack and prepare for another long day tomorrow.

Until tomorrow night,

Brent Jones

UVA 197

Hey CWC,

            Today was quite the adventure.  We conquered the Clog, also known as “the incline.”  It was an uphill battle from the start, that had us climbing 5000ft, but it was defeated.  It was fun to see all the people out on the trail, but they all turned into competition.   After passing people on the trail, we would say to ourselves that we weren’t going to let them pass us back.  The UPENN guys made the trip with us, and we got some great photos of the event.  Other motivational factors to defeat the altitude and pain, was to pick a part way up on the trail and get there without stopping.  We all tried to play a prank on Chris about the false peak that is 3/4ths of the way up, but it backfired in our faces.  Normally a person who did not know about the false peak would be crushed to make it to that peak and see that they are not done by a long shot.  Chris remembered me mentioning the false peak on the flight out, which I thought he would forget, and a tourist mentioned it as well, killing our plans for a good laugh at a heart broken face.  Once we reached the true peak, we got some pretty cool shots of our group of wrestlers on the last couple of steps.  This was not my first time doing it, but the workout was definitely arduous and gave a great since of euphoria to accompish.  Another surprise along the adventure was that we encountered Navy’s heavyweight Steele along the way.  He had just driven out to here from Maryland with his girlfriend to partake in some of the training.  The views were breath taking on the way down the 4 mile hike back to our car.  The path seemed never ending, but we finally got to go to the stream that ran through the mountains.  It was great to reach down and feel cold water and throw some on your head to cool off.  It was warm and hot at the bottom of the mountain, but cold and windy at the peak of the incline.  After we had finished our adventure we got to see more big horn sheep and take pictures with the startled animals, who for some reason had been chased by a crazed man.  That was quite a site to see, because we thought that the sheep would turn around and just take out the dude terrorizing them.   The rest of the day was spent tasting the local cuisine, and a favorite place that Charlottesville has itself (chipotle), and getting much needed rest.  Tomorrows schedule seems like it will be quite a tough one with 2 full national team practices, and a run.  It is with a sore body and a full stomach that I mush say goodnight to you all.

Until tomorrow,

Brent Jones

UVA 197  

Hello CWC,

            Today was our first full practice with the national team that was run by coach manning of Nebraska.  It was bright and early at 9am and we did something we usually do at UVA.  We were allowed to warm up and everything only to end the practice with easy in, hard out situational live with the positions we saw when watching the European championships film.  We had to focus on our setups and were allowed to get into the situational position before our partner went live.  It was actually pretty tough for me to do because I was wrestling up with two of the heavy weights again.  All in all it was a pretty good practice that left us even more sore and exhausted.  After a refreshing nap, Chris and I returned to the wrestling room to put ourselves through a 25 minute airdyne sprint workout.  However, during the end of the workout I had to answer the beckoning call of Zeke Jones, to come help out the world team members with the moves I kept throwing them with during the mock world championships (the chest lock throw).  Tervel Dlagnev and Jake Herbert were having a tough time defending my move, so Zeke asked me to tell them what I was doing and allow them to get a somewhat live feel of the move.  It was great to help out my former university world team members and to feel like I was an instrumental part in their training, but I also got to get some in some work to improve my own positioning. After my services were done, I stayed around to watch John Smith and a couple of the other coaches wrestle with Shawn Bunch.  After our workouts were complete, Chris and I got to relax a little before taking a taxi downtown.  We ended up going for a steak dinner at a nice little restaurant called “The Old Chicago.”  It was very pleasing to get a good solid meal in and to eat outside to experience the downtown area and the great weather. Our night ended with exhaustion once again settling in as we waited to watch one of our favorite shows entourage.  Although we are tired and sore, it might be hard to sleep with the excitement that lies ahead of us in tomorrow mornings workout.  We are going to conquer the incline.  For those that do not know about the incline, it is a trail that climbs a mile and a half up the side of the mountain called “Pikes Peak.” For a veteran of this climb, it is still the hardest workout I have ever done, but it gives you such a since of accomplish when it is finished.  Details will have to wait until tomorrow, especially with the news of how Chris takes the mountain trickery that lies ahead.

Goodnight CWC,

Brent Jones  

           Today was a day for new beginnings and learning.  We started off the day with a nice 40 minute drill with the world team and then we introduced members of the U Penn and Nebraska teams to a true circuit lift, UVA style.  They could hardly hack our circuit that Chris and I put them through, but everyone enjoyed the workout. Afterwards we had a great film session with the world team members, in which we watched the European championships finals and analyzed each match.  It was kind of cool to see that the European wrestlers were using the style of wrestling that we incorporate into our program at UVA. There were a lot of underhooks and reshots and high amplitude finishes, just like we do at UVA.  The thing that got me the most though, were the constant attacks after looking like they were dead tired and not in stances at all. They liked to bait you into thinking that they are tired and that you can just beat them with ease.  They also loved to get into the miracle position.  This position in international rules is not a take down and you can still score from here.  They love to be side by side, Zeke Jones made a big point about this during the film session. After films we decided to take a trip out to hike the garden of the gods with some of the U of Penn boys. It was an awesome time.  We were literally rock climbing and going on adventures to see good stuff. On the way there we even got to see a herd of big horn sheep that was really cool.  The hike was amazing. Not only was it a workout, it just satisfied all of our adventure/site seeing cravings.  The views were spectacular, the caves were awesome, and the wild life we saw was breath taking.  I might have got a little sunburn but it was well worth it to see Chris scaling walls in sandals.  Along the way, we got to meet some of the nicest people.  They were like the western forms of the Artusio’s; simply saints in all aspects of life.   They made us dinner which was comparable to a 5 star restaurant.  After giving thanks and saying our goodbyes Chris, the Penn boys, and I got to go watch the UFC fights. They were very surprising.  As for now, I am writing this blog to say hello to everyone in Cville and the CWC/UVA Wrestling community that made this magnificent day of training and sight seeing possible, but also to say good night to those we hold dear to us. 

Until tomorrow,

Brent Jones 197

It was a great day of wrestling at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs.  We kicked off the day with a 25 minute walk to the center to get registered and make a meeting with the world and national team at 7am. During the meeting, we set up matches for a world championship tournament simulation and met with the coaches and the other athletes.  Chris and I were itching to get the plane ride out of us, so we wanted to get a nice hard drill in.  Zeke Jones gave us permission to interrupt a never ending John Smith motivational speech to the Greco team, only for one of the Greco coaches to kick us out of the room for a little.  Once the everlasting talk was concluded, we were allowed to finish our drill and sweat out some of our frustration from the morning.  This frustration comes from the fact that we arrived at the OTC without a schedule or meal plan.  Going into today, all we had known was the 8am meeting because Jake Herbert sent me a message with the information.  We then tried to get a meal plan to satisfy our cravings of years past with arguably the best food of any cafeteria, but were sent in many different directions in doing so, only to walk 10 minutes to get breakfast and lunch at 7 Eleven.  Once our hunger was diminished, I played tour guide for Chris and officially introduced him to the OTC. 

            The afternoon brought a long and grueling world championship simulation.  They set up the atmosphere in a very cool way for the competition.  They played noises of the world championship arenas on the speakers, and brought in pretty bad officials.  One can only agree with their decisions on the bad officials, because USA does not get calls on the international level.  Even the Canadian team that was here did not like the officiating.  Anyways, I was set up to have a very competitive set of matches for the day.  My first match I had to bump up to hwt, and wrestle my former university world team member, and current 2009 world team member, Tervel Dlagnev.  Tervel is a big boy, but I wrestled well and threw him twice.  My next match, I also wrestled up a weight to get revenge against the man who beat me in the quarterfinals of the Olympic trials last year.  I saw to it that there was not a repeat performance on my behalf.  In the semifinals round, they squared me off against Jake Herbert.  Jake is also a former university world team member of mine, and it was an entertaining match for all to see.  Zeke Jones came up to me and complimented me on my performance for the day, and as he turned around I tried to get a lock of his hair as Jim Harshaw requested, but Chris pulled me away to get a ride to dinner and the Hotel with Joe FLO from Flowrestling.com.  It is always an interesting experience when you have Joe Flo around, but it was well worth the ride back to our hotel.  Chris and I also got lucky to get picked up by the Navy boys while we were half way on our journey back to the OTC to watch the matches scheduled for the finals.   It is very humbling to see Chris and I’s training status compared to everyone else here.  We feel good and ready to conquer the arduous times that we will encounter on our stay here.  Today ends the same way it began, Chris and I sitting in bed telling stories to get a laugh, and resting our bodies from the trauma it has been through.

Jones and Henrich have made it to the OTC.  They will be training with the US World Team for the next week or so and helping them to prepare for their journey to the World Championships in Denmark next month.  I (Jim) have asked them to keep me posted daily with a paragraph or so about what they've been up to.  I'll post their journals here so check back. 

CWC is sponsoring two of UVA's finest wrestlers, Brent Jones and Chris Henrich, on their trip to the Olympic Training Center this month.  They'll be training with the best wrestlers in America and some of the best in the world.  We plan on sending a video camera with them so they can document the trip so check back for video footage.  Thanks to your generous financial support we're able to take advantage of opportunities like this!  If you've not donated this year please click the "Donate" button at the bottom of the homepage.  Whether it is $25 or $1,000, we depend on you.  This trip will cost about $1,500.