Today I weigh in for the Dave Schultz tournament. There was a group that weighed in yesterday, and they are wrestling today. I on the other hand, weigh in today at 2:30. It is nice to have so much time between weigh ins and our competition. We usually weigh in the night before, but they have bumped it up a couple of hours. I don’t feel like it really affects me that much because I don’t get too heavy. We get a 2 kilogram allowance which is nice. Later this month at the Pan Am championships we will have to make scratch or exact weight. Anyway for this tournament there are a lot of foreign teams that are here. The training center is looking like a zoo now with all of the competitors that are here. I think the place that feels the affects of the crowding the most is the cafeteria. There are so many athletes, and tournament help that get their meals at the cafeteria this time that the workers in the cafeteria are working at a mad pace just to keep everyone fed. They kitchen staff tends to stay pretty most of the time as it is, but when you add all of these other people into the mix, it can get really wild. Times like these make me very thankful that I live off complex.

I am looking forward to getting in some more matches. It is a perfect time to tune up for the Pan Am championships that are coming up so soon. I have some family that are coming in from out of town to watch this weekend, and there are some people from church that are planning on coming to check out the competition. It is nice to at least have one competition that takes place in an area where I know a lot of people that can come and watch. I feel bad for some of the people who are trying to work it in to their schedule to come watch. For one reason, I usually never have an exact time to tell people when to come watch. I can tell them that if they stop by between 9 and 2 that I might wrestle, or that if they stop by between 4 and 8 to wrestle they might see me. It is kind of like waiting for the cable guy to show up. You never know what is going to happen.

Glad to be home., originally uploaded by jbar2008.

I am glad to be home . Trips are always fun, but really there is no place like home. Actually I am pretty happy that we made it home yesterday. The weather in chicago has been pretty bad lately. On Monday when we were flying to Chicago from Denver, we were delayed for about three hours due to fog in Chicago. I didn’t realize how bad it was untilwe were landing in Chicago. One minute we were descending and I looked out the window and couldn’t see any city lights. The next minute we touched down and I was surprised. At that moment I better understood the delay. The weather was bad when we were leaving Chicago too. A little while after we had taken off over 700 flights were canceled flying out of Chicago. In fact the lady that I sat next to on the plane had been stuck in Chicago since Monday. She seemed happy to be getting home as well.

Anyway now it is time to get back to work. I weigh in tomorrow to wrestle in the dave schultz international open on Saturday. There are a lot of tough teams in town, and this tournament should be a great one. I am so excited to compete again especially at home. It would be nice to compete at home more often, but I am happy to compete at home at least once a year.

Chicago Cup, originally uploaded by jbar2008.

Tonight the men’s greco team had a dual meet with the Bulgarian team. We beat them 5 out of six matches. Lindsey Durlacher started the night off right by beating his opponent. It was a close match, he found a way to win. Willie Madison lost to Armen Nazarian, and for those of you who know who he is you know that he is tough, a multiple time Olympic and world champion. Harry Lester looked explosive as ever and dominated his match. TC Dantzler was a home town favorite and won his match by turning his opponent in two consecutive periods. I won my match. I have been wanting to score more on my feet and I was able to do that tonight as I won my match. Dremiel Byers also won his match by reverse lifting his heavyweight opponent from the mat and tossing him over his head for a bid five point throw. We wrestled in the welsh ryan arena at Northwestern University and there was a pretty good sized crowd there to watch it.

All in all the event was very well organized and it was a lot of fun. We started the day off by working out at niles high school, and I actually met one of my high school coach’s coach. He coached down in the San luis valley, coincidentally where my wife is from. It is amazing that it is such a small world. A few years ago I didn’t even know that the San luis valley existed and now I run into people with ties there all of the time. After our workout we went to city hall and met the mayor of Chicago. We snapped some photos and had a good time, then we ate at the espn zone and played some games there. When we has finished with that we went back to the hotel and rested before it was time to head to the competition site. We went to the competition, signed some autographs, wrestled, had a nice meal and now it is the end of a long day. The event was great though. I wish that we had more events like this one, and I hope Chicago wins the bid for the 2016
olympics.

family picture, originally uploaded by jbar2008.

Well I have finally taken the time to get a picture set up on the blog. It has taken me quite awhile as I am sure that you can tell. I am really excited about being able to post pictures while I travel too. Apparently I can post pictures from my email on my phone so I think that is amazing. However, when I am travelling internationally I am not sure if I will be able to make posts like that, but I am still really excited about this.

It is Saturday morning, and I just couldn’t sleep. This usually happens as I am still adjusting to the time zone. Anyway, yesterday was a pretty good practice. I lifted weights in the morning and drilled a little bit. I am really trying to get better at my body attacks. I have decided that I definitely have to have some better attacks on my feet if I am going to win in Beijing. I have been watching a couple of guys who have mastered the body attack and they are very successful in their matches. I am also still thinking about the tournament in Turkey. The first Turk that I lost to pretty much just out hustled me on our feet, and I am upset about that. I don’t think that an American wrestler should ever get out hustled on our feet. Most of us have been through the college grind and really know how to battle, and that is definitely something that I want to start taking advantage of in my wrestling.

In the afternoon practice, we wrestled matches. I am still feeling a little under the weather, but I am getting a lot better. I am still waiting to get my lungs back to full capacity. I wrestled with the Italian guy and the Kazakstan guy. The Italian guy has a good reverse lift and a good straight lift to the right side. I am glad that we can have foreign guys come and train with us so that we can get the chance to wrestle with them and figure them out a little better. The kazakstan guy has a good side lift and a good reverse lift not to mention a good gutwrench. He is pretty solid on the feet as well. He doesn’t do a lot from the feet, but he is really strong and holds good position. If you push the pace on him though he starts to open up a little bit.

We have this weekend off of training, and then I leave to the Chicago cup on Monday. We are going to be wrestling at Welsh-Ryan arena at Northwestern university and tickets are ten dollars. If anybody lives in the Chicago area it would be great to see you there. Today I will probably be packing. It seems like I just got my bags unpacked and now it is time to hit the road again.

I am ın Istanbul, Turkey. The trıp over here was relatıvely trouble free. We made all of our connectıons and had no trouble, except that when we arrıved ın turkey, no one was here to meet us at the aırport. we waıted around for at least an hour before we were able to get some cabs and head to a hotel. ı was so exhausted last nıght but ı was able to stay up untıl nıne oclock before ı went to bed. ı am hopıng for a quıck sleep transıtıon thıs tıme around. my last trıp was pretty rough as far as adjustıng to the tıme zones go. ı am determıned to stay up today so that ı can sleep well agaın tonıght.

last nıght after we settled ınto our hotel we went out to eat at a restaurant. they have some pretty good food here. everytıme that ı have been to turkey ı have lıked the food and last nıght was no dıfferent. ı had a lıttle meatball plate that was delıcıous as well as some chıcken shıshkepab that was amazıng. I am sure that ı have wrıtten thıs before, but as long as ı lıke the food somewhere anythıng else can happen on the trıp and ı wıll stıll be just fıne. ı have a lıttle cold rıght now but ın a couple of days ı wıll be feelıng great. ı thınk that weıgh ıns are on frı and saturday and then we are rollıng.

after dınner we walked around town a lıttle bıt last nıght and looked at some dıfferent shops. there were a couple of stores that were sellıng some really nıce suıts that were pretty ınexpensıve. ı hear that they are even better ın some of the bazaars. hopefully we wıll be able to make ıt to one of those soon. there ıs also a lot to hıstory here. there are some really cool mosques here and there ıs even a sultans tomb here. ıt ıs a dıfferent culture.

2/1/08

Well when I was in the middle of writing that post while I was Turkey, my time ran out on the computer that I was using so I didn’t get a chance to finish it. Anyway the trip was alright. We ended up changing hotels and it was a pretty nice place to stay. The food was good and the hotel was clean, and they had a nice sauna. I was sick all week though, and that wasn’t a whole lot of fun. I pretty much just stayed inside of the hotel and watched the seinfeld seasons that I took with me. We have all nine seasons and I watched about six seasons so you can see that I had some time on my hands while I was laid up in my room. I weighed in okay and wrestled. I must say that I didn’t have an outstanding performance. I won my first match against an american. Can you believe that we traveled however many thousand miles and then we end up drawing each other for the first round of competition? After that I wrestled two turkish wrestlers who I lost to. I really just didn’t show up to wrestle. I don’t have an explanation for it. We had a couple of guys place. Durlacher made it to the final, and we had two guys take fifth place. Mark Rial 0ur 66 kilo guy got some really bad calls in the semifinal. He should have been in the final. He turned the turkish world champion in a front headlock, put him on his back and pinned him. The turk passed out while he was in the front headlock though so after they called the fall and were getting to raise Rial’s hand, some guys fr0m the side table called the official over and they waved off the fall and the pin. Rial ended up losing the match. It was definitely some homecooking as far as officiating was concerned, but I guess that is going to happen now and then.

Most of the other guys went downtown in Istanbul to check out the market. I guess they had some really nice suits that were pretty inexpensive, and there were several guys who ended up buying some. There were also some nice hand tied rugs there that a couple of guys bought. I am not much of a souvenir guy so I usually don’t buy a whole lot of stuff on trips. When I first started traveling internationally, I bought a lot of little trinkets; but they were mostly just junk. I try to remember to take pictures now and then on my trips and I write in my journal while I am gone so that usually suffices to provide memories.

We have a bunch of teams in town right now getting ready for the dave schultz tournament. I have been wrestling a little bit, but I am still a bit under the weather so I am trying to get some rest and get healthy. Yesterday while I was wrestling, I felt like I was working with half a lung. I am hoping to feel better by the end of the weekend. I am competing next Tuesday in chicago at the chicago cup. We are having a dual meet with Bulgaria. Then next weekend we are wrestling in the Dave Schultz tournament here in Colorado Springs. All of these competitions right now are practice to get ready for the pan am championships at the end of the month. That tournament is an Olympic qualifier, and I want to be fully prepared for it.

Anyway on a side note I just want to thank everyone who is helping me and supporting me to do what I am doing. The Wrights have been extremely helpful. BJ has been keeping up the site and doing a great job with it. He is always ready with whatever I have for him. Josh has been real helpful in setting up a clinic and some other fund raising. Thanks guys. I really appreciate it.