Week in Review

Sooo...no classes at the Valley for a couple of weeks. Had 4 classes this week, and generally felt pretty good about all of them. I've really been working on getting my hips to face my opponents. I think I'm doing better at that, although there are times when my guard (usually open) is still ridiculously easy for some of these guys to pass. Need to keep working on that.

Since most everyone works open guard here, I've been incorporating it into my game. Not sure how this is going to translate at tournaments, since it's still relatively new and I don't have much confidence in it. For example, I can't execute a sweep or submission from spider (or any open guard for that manner). All I can do is control. Doesn't seem to make much sense to incorporate it into my tournament game unless I get at least one or two go-to moves. 'Nando showed me last week a sweep from spider but I've since forgotten it.

I didn't do any strength training last week, but will be ramping it back up this week. Will be interesting to see how it effects my rolling stamina. So far it's been really good, but I know that adding 3-4 lifting days back in is going to have an impact.

My emotional state has been pretty good this week, although I've noticed during rolls in which I'm getting dominated that I stop caring that I'm getting dominated. I don't give up on the roll, but I stop caring about how many points I'm behind b/c it seems impossible that I'd ever be able to catch up. Seems like a lousy attitude, but not sure what to do about that.

In addition to the hips, next week I want to focus on not sitting back on my butt when I end up in a neutral-type position with my opponent. This happens to me when I attempt to pass guard and they push me back, or they resist my attempt to establish side-control. That's a loss of points that is relatively easy to prevent. I'm so used to trying to create as much space as possible the second that I feel threatened that I revert to this when my passes are being rebuffed. Need to get in there and keep butt off of ground.