Ups And Downs

A double edition of the blog this week, as for some reason, I kept finding reasons to not write last weeks blog. Its been a steady couple of weeks, not busy, but steady.

First up was a trip to Butlins in Skegness for an appearance for All-Star Wrestling on the 13th. I really do enjoy my trips to All-Star, and I make no secret about the fact that I’d definitely like to wrestle for Brian Dixon more regularly.

Of course, working for ASW, that definitely means ‘Jurgen’ has to be available. As mentioned before, I always knew that the ‘Jurgen’ character wasn’t ever going to completely disappear, especially when I get opportunities at ASW. I don’t mind, a lot of people seem to work under a different name here. Anyhow, I lucked out in being in a car full of guys willing to work hard, and have fun whilst doing it, which made the journey enjoyable.

I arrived to find out there’d be a 3 match card, and I’d be wrestling All-Star mainstay ‘Tony Spitfire’ in the opening bout. We barely talked about the match until we made our way to the massive Butlins ‘Skyline’. I’ll be completely honest, a lot of what he said didn’t stick in my mind, and as a result, a tremendous start to the match saw me ‘shit the bed’, and screw up the match. It was a cluster as Spitty tried to salvage my cock up, and my mind seemed to just go ‘bluerghhhhhhh’.

I was fuming with myself. Spitty pretty much chewed me out after the match, and to be fair, absolutely everything he said was correct. Its been a while since I let something get to me in wrestling, and I’d dwell on this match for days after, knowing that I’d be back in Skegness the following weekend, and had a chance to rectify the mess.

Anyway, job done, ring down, home by midnight. The day wasn’t complete shite after all. Fueled by frustration, a Sunday at the gym and a date with the squat rack.

The next day, I took the intermediate training session at the House of Pain Academy, based mostly around mat wrestling. I do enjoy training people, and its something I’d like to branch into at somepoint in the future. I take a number of my own classes when asked, and we work super hard on polishing basics, conditioning and I approach it with the mentality of the training in Japan, which is how I love to train. Hard work, intensity and honesty. Which is all well and good for people who are ‘my’ students, but with someone elses, in this case, Stixx’s trainees, I’m occasionally apprehensive about fully going into detail about corrections and praise etc. I dunno, they’re not my students to drive away if I work them too hard, and ultimately, its not my school to pick and choose who I deem ‘good enough’, if that makes sense..? God knows haha. Anyhow, for the most part, the trainees in the session did well with what I was asking of them, and hopefully they took the feedback on board.

School half-term means that theres a plethora of ‘camp’ shows going on around the country, and on Wednesday I was booked on a Megaslam show up in Bury, after a quick morning gym visit. I wrestled the opening bout with HOP trainee Kyle Kingsley in an OK match. We planned nothing and worked on the fly with this one. Biggest issue with this match was the state of the ring, which had next to no padding on it, and there was no way I was having either of us take a load of bumps in this thing.

On a side note, this was the second time I’d locked up with Kingsley, the first coming a couple of months after his debut, and the difference between now and then is excellent. I was impressed by his ability and most of all, confidence, to be comfortable with working on the fly.

Onto Saturday, and it was again off to Skegness for All-Star. Following last weeks mess, I would be lying if I was half hoping that I’d just be a rumble competitor. No chance, the same card as last week. Opening bout with Spitty. This was probably the best resolve to my worries, because we went out and had a match that I felt really good about. As always, I asked for feedback after the match, and there wasn’t as much as last week haha. A lot was really sensible stuff. I think its fair to say, the All Star ‘way’ is something different to out on the indys, and I honestly thing the indys would be better off if more people got to work a lot of the ASW regulars. I learned a lot over the last couple of weeks, timing, working, positioning and probably best of all, really listening to the audience. I know a lot of that seems obvious, stuff I should know, and yes, I do, but in the ASW world, I was way off. I feel as though that will serve me well in the coming months. Working in front of those huge Skegness audiences has been a delightful experience too, as well as the aforementioned car trips with a good crew.

Its at this point that I’ll usually have something of a rant or a vent about something in wrestling, but I don’t want to end on that this week. Maybe next week…

Upcoming Appearances:

27/02 – House of Pain Wrestling, St Anns – VS LJ Heron

28/02 – House of Pain Wrestling, Calverton – VS Alex Gracie

Social Media – Click Links:

Facebook

Twitter (ENG)

Juken’s Parts Unknown T-Shirt Store

Twitter (JP)

Instagram

YouTube

Song Of The Week:

The feature I continue to ram down your throats! I toyed with the idea of doing a double header this week, but to be honest, it would have just been two songs by this band. Now then, this band I was given a bunch of CD’s by a fan when I was in Japan last year, as I think its common knowledge how much I enjoy listening to Japanese music, and wow, I was blown away.  I’d heard of ‘Wagakki Band’ before, but only really given them half hearted listens. Now this album sits on my playlist constantly, and is my squat rack music of choice. So, heres a ‘Wagakki Band’ video. Love it. Because its ace!

Market research

As I sit to write this weeks blog entry, I have an absoloute ‘boatload’ of subjects I’d like to cover, so I guess you’ll have to bear with me if I flit around a bit, once I’ve covered this past weekend.

 

Last weekend I returned to Leicester Championship Wrestling (LCW) for their first show of the year. I really enjoy working for LCW, and since I started there at the tail end of 2013, I’ve seen such a change in them, for the most part, for the better.

Saturday’s ‘rumble’ show beat last years rumble attendance house, with a 360 paid audience. The venue is great for the promotion and the full bleachers surrounding the ring I feel really add the atmosphere. Whilst it’s mostly kids and families, the roster is more than capable of catering this crowd, with a nod to the more ‘smart’ fans. Without a doubt, the family audience is the bread and butter of the LCW fanbase and I think thats a good thing.

I returned under the ‘Jurgen Heimlich’ guise, and to be honest, I don’t see that changing in Leicester anytime soon, but thats certainly not an issue, as I feel the character is right at home here. Anyhow, I faced off against Chris Tyler for his ‘Young Guns’ championship, in a steadily paced, yet action packed contest. Out of the three matches I’ve had with Chris, this was definitely our better one. We’ve both learned a lot since our last match, and I think this match showed it. There were one or two points I would have changed, but overall I felt it went OK, and Tyler won with his 450 ‘sploosh’.

Later in the evening, was the rumble, in which I tried to have a reasonably decent showing, without disrupting from the flow and story of the rumble, which Stixx later won. I got eliminated by my ol’ pal ‘White Tiger’. The swine.That was it as far wrestling was concerned for the weekend, but it was a positive weekend.

Behind the scenes, a steady trickle of ‘Juken’ t-shirts coming out of ‘Parts Unknown T-Shirts‘ (go buy one), and constant self evaluation of gym work. I know the gym talk must be boring, but I’m feeling motivated to keep working hard, and improve upon a part of myself that I feel has needed some knowledgeable work on. I’ve made it a mission to put my gym personal trainer qualification to good use, even if only for myself, by educating myself further and driving myself to work harder, when, at times its easier to sit on my arse playing Playstation, instead of making the hour trip to the gym, working out, usually 2 body parts per visit (or compounds on a Sunday), and an hour home. I’ve purposely chosen an out of town gym, because I want to give myself an incentive to get out and get to work, and because the clientèle are less ‘undesirable’ – I’m not sorry for being a bit of a snob after using a city gym in the past haha.

As far as this year is concerned, man, it seems more competitive than ever before,in terms of competition for work is concerned. Whilst this can be frustrating at times, its not a bad thing. The competition is higher because theres a higher skill level out there than before, theres people finally realising how important marketing yourself properly is. I had a bit of a test this past weekend, because I really want to try and figure out where my fanbase truly lies. I popped up a photo tweet on my Japanese and English accounts, and on Facebook, and sat back to review the interactions. A few likes and favourites on the English speaking account and FB – the Japanese account, I’m still getting interaction today, some 5 days later.  I find this a little hard to swallow. Certainly no complaints with the Japanese fans, who have always been supportive to my career since I first popped up on their radar. And whilst I’m not complaining about the English speaking fans, I find the way they interact with wrestlers much differently, and its very interesting.

I find here we let fans get a little too familiar at times, they want to be friends, and as a result, we certainly lose something of an aura to our pro wrestling persona. In contrast, Japanese fans treat pro wrestlers , regardless of experience, as athletes with respect, and more importantly, they don’t cross the line between personal and professional. Whilst we’re certainly friendly in Japan, theres an unwritten boundary which doesn’t gets crossed.

Now, this may come over that I have something of a chip on my shoulder with British wrestling and fans, but that really couldn’t be further from the truth. I do enjoy interacting with fans, be it taking pictures, signing stuff etc after a show, its rewarding seeing a kid smile when they’re chasing you with your photo wanting it signed and you stop and talk to them for a few minutes.

The purpose of my social media experiment was purely to see the trends of interaction from fanbases around the world. Certainly, first hand, the ‘on the ground’ interaction is a different experience, and I certainly have a preferred method, but its essentially non-transferable between the two countries.

Off on a tangent it seems. That lot was meant in cheerier spirits than perhaps it came across. I always feel as though I’m moaning when I talk about comparisons between the two markets.

Final thing I’d like to touch on this week, and its abit of advice to newer guys more than anything else.

Be professional, be humble, stay hungry.

This past week I’ve seen a number of online squabbles between newer guys coming into the job, and man, it doesn’t help you.  Now more than ever, you’ve really got to be careful of what you’re posting online. Its off-putting, especially if some of the more experienced guys are looking for people to put forward for bookings etc. Whether it’s your personality or not, the persona you portray online is pretty much the one we’ll take at face value. You’ve got to remember, we see so many trainees pass through schools, some stay, most disappear in a year or two, so we aren’t always familiar with you. Maybe instead of bitching on the internet, go training, get in the gym, get a tan, review your diet, study some tape – basically, anything but squabble. Additionally, if you do get work, the sentence – “Well I worked XYZ and ABC recently what have you done?”, certainly doesn’t endear you to anyone.

Upcoming Appearances:

13/02/16 – All-Star, Skegness

17/02/16 – Megaslam, Bury

Social media:

http://www.facebook.com/jukenprowrestler

http://www.twitter.com/jukenuk

http://www.twitter.com/jukengm (JP)

Instagram; Juken_gtmv

T-shirt store: http://www.partsunknown.co.uk/collections/juken

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JurgenHeimlich

Song of the Week

I’m still pushing on with this feature haha. This week, sod it, you can have a rad Korean pop song. No shame. No shame whatsoever.

 

Pic credit: Grae Davidson c/o Y2Grae Photography

Harder than it looks

Ahh where to start this week?

I felt last weeks blog was a bit messy, I tried to do some sort of intro,  then talk about the week, and then deleted a paragraph without proof-reading.  And the annoying thing is, I’m one of those who that sort of thing irritates massively. For no reason.

All that aside, this past week has been a mixed bag.
The gym push continues, full of enthusiasm and I can see some sort of progress. The weight I’m lifting is increasing, a noticeable difference since I gave myself a kick up the backside a couple of weeks ago. Keeping a record of progress is definitely a rewarding thing.
I’m writing this blog today, as its my rest day this week. Its also my ‘eat shit’ day. However, the only really shitty thing I’ve consumed is a single can of beer (Sapporro lager). That’ll do me, plenty of calories. I don’t really drink alcohol that often these days, I’d rather spend my wage on something worthwhile.

As far as wrestling goes, just the one match this past weekend, and that seems to be the pattern for the next few weeks so far.
The match this weekend was for ‘House of Pain’ the training school in which I started at. I faced off against ‘Danny Thomas’ in singles action. I see Danny as someone with a lot of potential. He has a decent look, and is certainly doing a good job in finding his feet as far as his character is concerned. I think he’s doing a great job, considering hes some 14 months into the ‘job’, and I earmark him to do something if he continues at his current rate.
This was our third interaction, second singles, and coming back from the ring I felt it was – OK. We had a little mishap towards the end run of the match, which meant I had to cut short a lot of my offence, and he wouldn’t have to bump. Unfortunately it came at a time where the crowd needed the pace picking up, and as a result, I felt the match lost its steam at this point. Whilst it certainly didn’t fall flat, we certainly could have done better I feel.
I watched the match back today and definitely there’s areas in which we could both improve.

I’m finding working the ‘babyface’ role challenging, but in a good way. I’m always learning, and I love to learn. I’m in a good place as far as being reasonably happy with wrestling at the moment. I love that there’s room to improve, and I don’t feel stale.
I’m certainly feeling positive about the year ahead, whatever it may hold.

Finally, t-shirts are now available online from:  http://www.partsunknown.co.uk/collections/juken

Social media:
http://www.facebook.com/jukenprowrestler

Twitter.com/jukenuk

Instagram: Juken_GTMV

Upcoming Appearances:

06/02/16 – Leicester Championship Wrestling, Enderby, Leics

Vs Chris Tyler *Young Guns Championship* #4th Defence + entrant into 30 man rumble

Song of the week:

Genuinely no idea if anyone liked this section last week, but goddamn, I’m gonna keep on with it. This week, early 2000’s I used to love the underground UK metal scene, and Onedice were a band I thought were ace. One EP then they disappeared. Meh.