I’m closing in on the end of a year of living next to Mt Fuji. I honestly cannot believe how quickly it has passed by. It literally seems like just yesterday I was flying over here and driving up the hill to the base and wondering how the next year would go. As far as training goes, it really couldn’t have gone much better. I was able to train very frequently and can’t think of one time I was unable to train due to anything but an injury that was my own stupid fault.

My lifting ability as well as my knowledge of training and the lifts themselves improved greatly as it was really the only thing I did. If I wasn’t lifting, I would try to read articles or watch training hall and competition tapes to truly understand the lifts themselves. If you are a beginner lifter I highly recommend watching as much video as possible of both other lifters and of yourself. It can be anything from the Ironmind training hall DVDs, The Kono project DVD that shows the lifters with Dartfish analysis, to the Weightlifting Seminar DVD that Greg and Aimee shot in Portland.

In my last article, I was just ready to go home for a couple of weeks to visit the family and get up to Mike’s Gym to do some lifting and hang out. It went very well and I returned to Japan for another few months before I went home again in July to visit with the family and compete in the California State Games. The meet didn’t go exactly as planned, but I put up a 110/130—a 20 kg improvement from the year before and enough to squeak out first place in the weight class.

I would have most likely done a hell of a lot better if I hadn’t screwed myself 2 hours before weigh-in by thinking that because I was at 92.5 kg that I could eat and drink as I pleased and ended up having to run around like a moron trying to get ½ a kilo of weight back off before the official weigh-in. At that point I decided 105s, here I come next year. The meet was a blast as it always is and it was great competing alongside Aimee, Greg and Sage. The next week the family and I headed off to Oahu for a week before I headed back to Japan to finish up the final leg of the tour.

While I was in Oahu, a good friend of mine had set it up so we could train with Tommy Kono at the Nuuanu YMCA. It was truly awesome to meet the man himself and pick up a few pointers while I was lifting. He changed a couple of things on my setup while I was snatching and just talked weightlifting with us for a couple of hours. To be able to talk to a guy I have read so much about was great and a day I will never forget.



On my initial flight over to Japan, I had set certain goals for myself to accomplish in the year I was here. I wanted to add some weight to what I considered a skinny frame and to get 120/140. I was able to accomplish these goals while I was over here. In hindsight there are some things I should have worked on while I was here and didn’t, the big one being flexibility throughout my legs and hips. My idea of warming up usually means taking a couple of extra snatches at 90, and in weightlifting that isn’t smart.

In the first week of October I was lifting for max effort in both of the lifts as I was working my way up in the snatch I took 110 and landed a little forward. Didn’t think much of it and proceeded on. As I squatted down to take 115 I felt a clunk in my right knee—no pain, but it felt odd. So I walked around for a bit and every step I took I got the same clunk. I dropped back down to 100 and no problem all the way back to 115 and I stopped after making it. Cleaned up to 135 with no pain but still getting the clunking feeling. The next day my knee was swollen and stiff as a board and with every step I took I was getting the clunking feeling.

The next week I took it somewhat easy—just light snatches and cleans—but it wasn’t getting better and I was getting swelling in some odd spots. So I consulted myself down to the orthopedics department and the doctor wasn’t able to find anything obvious and ordered me an MRI (If you want a real experience, try going to a Japanese civilian hospital to get an MRI). So after another week of waiting for the results, it turns out I have a medial meniscus tear in the posterior horn. I believe I have a tear, but I am also sure that its an old injury and what is slowing me down is the swelling I am having on the opposite side if I spend to much time in a full squat. As I am writing this, I am currently sticking to the power versions of the lifts and working on bring up other weaknesses such hamstrings and my back while sneaking in some bodybuilding-type exercises at the same time.

I’m injured and that sucks, but it’s my fault, not the style of lifting or anything else. Plain and simple, my laziness caused this injury. I should have been more flexible in the quadriceps and hamstrings. It could have happened doing anything; it just happened during the snatch. I learned that not only is warming up essential, but so is cooling off. It’s not the way I wanted to end the trip, but the way I look at it, I got to spend a year giving weightlifting everything I had and there aren’t too many people who get the opportunity to give what is essentially a hobby that much attention and dedication without it impacting their personal lives. I trained harder and with more volume and intensity than I ever have in my life and got up everyday looking to get more, and I will come back from this stronger than before the injury. Like I said earlier, hitting my goals of a 120 snatch and a 140 slean & jerk was worth every second I put into it.

It was truly a great year here and I will miss this place and the men I worked with very much. At times I think it went by too fast, but it is time to go home back to the place where my family is and I can train alongside other lifters… and of course some In and Out. Oh and the snow is coming soon and this So-Cal kid doesn’t feel like doing that again. Learning the lesson of “black ice” isn’t one I will be forgetting anytime soon.