Ronda Rousey (dot net!)

I have to say I enjoy my life quite a bit these days. I wake up whenever I feel like it, have fun and interesting workouts all week long. I honk at golfers mid-swing for my own amusement when driving down Rose Ave (they take themselves soooo seriously, it’s hilarious watching them get so pissed off). I do my best to ignore all the billboards and comercials throwing Jennifer Anniston’s 40 year old titties on my face and everything with one of those famous-for-nothing kardasians on it.
Jesus, Lamar! What were you thinking? You’re an NBA superstar, why did you pick the wookie?

My job is pretty much to fight and teach, both of which are quite enjoyable. I’m starting an after school judo program at the middle school my sister Jen teaches at in Watts. And not only do I think it will benefit the kids enormously, but I planning to use it as a feeder program for the West Coast Judo Training Center, where I teach and train on the weekends.
Thanks to the poplarity of my mother’s blog we have got a good number of judo gis donated for the kids, the WCTC is letting us borrow a crash pad and we’re also being lent a small number of mats until we can find the funding for ones we can keep.
If by any chance you are compelled to help out, my mother is organizing the funding for the program, and can be contacted through her blog

I’m been trying to keep this on the DL for a while, but I am kind of multitasking leading up to this Olympics. I’m not only teaching and doing judo, I’m also working on my own MMA career as well. Not only do I think career-wise it’s a good investment of time, but if I play my cards right I think it will help American Judo gain popularity a lot more than an Olympic gold medal would.

I was having my first striking lesson at Main Event Gym in Glendale/North Hollywood/Armenian Central and they already had me giving interviews for my first fight projected to be in august. Striking is going really well so far and I couldn’t ask for nicer and more patient coaches to help me. I’m sorer than I’ve been in a while just because of the difference in striking workouts from what I’m used to; but hopefully I’ll fall into a rhythm with this new training schedule sooner rather than later.
They even had me take some of those super serious fighter pictures, where I had to try my damndest to hold that face before bursting out laughing.

Last Olympics judo didn’t even make it to on TV. It was on live internet stream on the NBC website. Even if I won a gold instead of a bronze I really don’t think the amount of exposure would have been that much different. A few more highlights might have been shown than of the bronze medal run, but that’s about it.
I mean USA fencing just won more medals in this last olympics than in all the past games combined.
Oh, you didn’t know that? Neither did most of the USA sport watching demographic. How would a similar switch in USA judo’s fortune be any more televised?
But think of this, what if by 2012 I’ve already had several title fights? Been all over spike tv, and to the disgust of my mother, made maxim’s top 100? What if while doing this, the kids program in Watts is a huge success? If there’s an MMA star/good samaritan fighting in the Olympics you better believe its gunna get way more hype than someone you never heard of, winning a gold medal in a sport you’ve never heard of. It would be forgotten about as soon as the olympic season was over.
You know what made Apollo Ono famous? Dancing with the Stars, not speed skating. Yes the speed skating got him the but the show, but the show made him a household name. Why was speed skating all over the tv and media in this past winter games? It wasn’t because people cared about the sport. its because Steven Colbert told them it was cool! And had a hilarious picture in spandex on the front of Sports Illustrated.

I guess what I’ve been trying to say, is people care much more about hype than about actual results. I’ve been kind of afraid to make it a known fact that I’m doing just as much MMA training as judo, for fear my funding my be cut, and that the National Governing Body as well and my old coaches having an even lower opinion of me. But just trust me, this is a good thing. I’m going to make it work, and I dare you to doubt me.