More Better

How does nearly a month pass that quickly?

I've been enjoying myself more at class in the past couple of weeks. Not sure exactly what should be attributed to the turnaround, but it is welcome. I feel like my rolling is better than it has for a little while. 

Today was an off day because not only did we do takedowns...but they were Kelly takedowns... and he used me was the uke... and I was drilling with Kasey... and I had a tough conditioning workout yesterday (power cleans + push press and burpees). All in all, I was pretty spent midway through the drills and had nothing left for the rolls. Which was perfect, because I rolled with Kasey, Jason S and Chuck. Just kill me. 

I asked James to give me a bit of advice for top half guard b/c people were fairly easily sweeping me from there. A simple detail of using your trapped leg to pinch down into them has helped tremendously. I'm not necessarily making good progress from that position. Sometimes I'm able to scoot over and finish a reverse half guard pass, but it's a huge improvement from being immediately swept. 

I switched up my Fundamentals class curriculum a bit and did a "paths to back" class last weekend. I didn't have quite as much prep into it as I would like, but I was still happy with how it turned out. Chair sit side to side to retain the back, chair sit from side-control if they turn away and arm-drag from closed guard. I was going to throw in a rolling back attack at the end but we didn't get that far.

Jason is pestering me near daily about Pans. I will probably cave.

Little Talk

I was at my wit's end regarding feeling like crap after class so I asked James out for lunch last week to get some advice. I was looking for suggestions on how I could approach my training in order to see/make progress during rolling. 

It was a great discussion. I told him that I haven't felt like I've made any progress in my rolling over the past year, and the fact that I'm getting dominated by some of the blue belts makes me feel like shit. He said something to the effect of "Well, you aren't thinking about quitting, right?" and I responded that I have, in fact, seriously thought about it multiple times. He made the point that sometimes when you're improving in an art you don't necessarily improve in all areas at the same time. My overall knowledge and my teaching abilities have improved over the past year even if my rolling hasn't.

What I really appreciated about the discussion is that he didn't sugar coat things. He said that he was coming up on similar feelings because his game has stalled a bit b/c he doesn't want to "lose" to his students. He said he knows at some point it's going to happen and that it would favor him to just accept it and try new things anyway. 

I felt pretty good about things after the talk. Not amazing, but it did help. Went to morning class the next day and immediately got destroyed and felt like super poop again. I suspect that hormones are also playing a role, which is really exciting. 

Went to Sunday class for the first time in several weeks and had a good class. Didn't have a plan going in, but decided to work on the shin-to-X-guard and sweeps. Got a lot of different looks and quite a few repetitions. Had some decent rolls on Sunday and Monday morning.

I'm going to have to come to grip with the fact that my brown belt rolling ability is not going to be like Kelly, Chaz, Jason or any of the other guys' rolling ability. That is a difficult truth to accept.

Going to take a look at Ryan Hall's Arm Triangles series and probably the Passing discs again. Also picked up a couple of other instructionals that were on Black Friday sales.

Takedowns I Don't Hate

Lots of drilling last week, not much rolling. I was helping Sarah and others prep for their purple belt tests. They smashed the test. One of the purple best tests that I've witnessed thus far. It was awesome to see James get choked up talking about his wife. I had a feeling that he wanted to say more but was unable to get the words out. Great stuff.

I was part of the shark tank for Chris, and holy cow did he suffer. He had Kelly twice. Kelly did a particularly brutal KOB for an extended period of time. I think I stayed away from KOB, moreso stayed on top side, mount or harassed him from the back. I don't think he was prepared for the savagery of it. 

Seminar with Victor was terrific. He started with takedowns, to which I was thinking "Uggggghhhh takedowns...".  But this stuff clicked. Like...immediately clicked. I'm sure there's a fancy Japanese term for it, but basically your opponent has a cross-collar grip, so you get a grip under their arm (if they have a cross-grip on your right lapel with their right hand, you get a grip on their right lapel under their arm with your left) and then do some fancy shit from there. My favorite was a roll-under technique, but the very best part is that I felt relatively competent at most of them.

He also did some top half guard passes, including a back-step variation that completely flew in the face of the way that I've learned and taught it. I think if you're Victor, the variation will work well. If you're me, probably not so much.

Rolled on Thursday night and Friday morning, pretty much got my ass handed to me. Didn't get terribly discouraged by it though, just a bit. Still can't believe that people can take months off at a time, multiple times a year and still manhandle me. I'm such an egalitarian, but I need to quit thinking about jiu jitsu like that.

Was feeling kindof poo poo today so no advanced class. 

Fun Roll with Sensei

Completed the CF workout on Saturday. We did better than I thought we would, finishing the workouts faster than we had practiced, completing all of the presses unbroken and even getting in five overhead squats when I thought we may not even get one.

My shoulder was fine through most of it until the overhead squats, which were in the second to last workout. Several days later it feels much better and is probably around 90%. I'm really very happy that it doesn't appear to be something serious.

Drilled with Sarah during the rolling portion of class yesterday. After class I was getting ready to change for work when I decided I'd try to hit up James for a no gi roll since he's doing No Gi Worlds this weekend. We ended up having a fantastic and super fun roll, hitting a bunch of different positions. I wish I could remember more about the roll, but it's enough that we were both pretty jazzed about it. I came close (or he let me come close) to taking his back, I fended off back-takes and a number of submissions. Probably my best no gi roll in I don't even know how long. I was happy with my movement and how I was (trying) to control his body to get to my next position. Instead of trying to do specific techniques, I was thinking about how to manipulate our various body parts to achieve a specific position. Those are hands-down my favorite type of rolls.

Love My Gym So Much

I didn't realize how much I loved my gym until I trained at other gyms for a couple of weeks. Yowza. 

I did a Saturday class at a gym that my teammates and I have stopped in before at Pans. Wanted to get a bunch of rolls in with a brown belt FB friend but we were only able to go for one round. Back to AOJ on Sunday morning. Much more chill vibe on the weekends and fewer people. That was probably my favorite class there. Didn't get to roll a wide variety of people, but got to put a little work in and practice the bolo and long step from the private.

Did the drive home in one shot, 22hrs and only one cup of coffee. Was incredibly happy to walk into my gym after a full day of rest and be with my peeps. Showed the drills and techniques that I could remember off the top of my head. I think the crab ride to leg drag and crab ride to back take were the biggest hits. James seemed happy to have me back which felt good.

Had a roll with a big guy where I made the cardinal sin of getting him in my closed guard. I wanted to work open guard, but was losing it so defaulted to closed guard. Some day I will learn to stop doing that against people who have considerable girth, but that day has apparently not arrived. The roll mainly consisted of him leaning forward and pinning me down. I tried in vain to flower sweep, scissor sweep, arm drag and create distance by extending my hips. He was an immovable object that was crushing me literally and figuratively. At some point I ended up in a horribly tenuous bottom half guard with my arm trapped to my body. I vainly tried to use my legs to improve my position but no, nothing. I tried to get my arm free, either as an underhook or not, and had no success. I somehow finally got back to a more or less full guard before the end of the round. In the process my shoulder got jacked up which bothered me quite a bit yesterday. 

Normally I wouldn't be phased by an injury, but I have a CF competition coming up next weekend. It's a partner workout that Niki agreed to do even though neither she nor I knew how hard the workouts were going to be. There is, not surprisingly, a lot of shoulder involved in the workouts (at least the ones we know about so far). One workout starts off with 100 presses that we can split between the two of us, which is going to be awful. The person not performing presses has to keep their bar in the front rack position. RIP.

Jiu Jitsu as a Vacation

I decided to give myself a big present and treat myself to a week at AOJ plus a private lesson. It wasn't the primary purpose of my trip to SoCal, but I figured I'd take advantage since I'd be staying 5 miles from the gym.

I had everything lined up before I left, so it was just a matter of checking in before classes. After a ~5hr drive I went in for the Fundamentals and No Gi classes that evening. You have to rent or buy their no gi uniform, wherein I decided to stop hemorrhaging money and rent instead of buy. 

They get a lot of visitors on a regular basis, and it's not a super welcoming vibe. I knew that going in though, so didn't take it personally. Partnering up for drills was a little awkward b/c no one wants to drill with the unknown brown belt, but I ended up with a blue belt woman. She was nice but I could tell that she wasn't super comfortable. When we were given the option to stay with our partners or switch she found someone else very quickly. 

I really struggled with the drilling portion, partly b/c I hadn't even thought about jiu jitsu for over a week, and partly b/c I was in an unfamiliar environment not knowing a soul. When it came time to drill whatever we wanted to drill, I went for the baby bolo to leg drag and found myself blanking. Tried a couple of times and could not for the life of me remember how to do it or much of anything really.

After the drilling came the rolling, and I finally started to feel comfortable. Rolled with some blue belts, a purple belt and a big white belt. The big guy was using a lot of muscle and seemed like he was probably 6 months in or so. I made very sure to not let him get a dominant top position, swept and got the paper cutter choke. Most everyone else was rolling nice. A LOT of people sat out during rolling in the later rounds, which surprised me. 

Did no gi after the Fundamentals class and it was a small class, just six of us. Started with stand up technique which is not my jam, but we moved on to passing half guard which was a little more in my wheelhouse. Everyone had to roll with everyone, so there wasn't as much awkwardness. The guys in this group seemed older and more laid back, and seemed pretty cool. After rolling there was a final ab workout of butt scooting forward down the length of the mat...without using your legs or hands. I'm still feeling that one.

I did my private with Rafa yesterday where I got a lot of help with getting out of DLR, finishing the long step pass and finally some berimbolo work. He was nice, answered everything and was happy to go into detail. We rolled for a couple of rounds at the end, and he made sure to put me in positions to use what we went over. 

Today was the 9am Fundamentals with Gui. Lots of brown belts in that class. I paired up with a guy that was a bit of a character. Nice guy, just a bit out of the mold. Rolled during all the rounds, a couple of brown belts and blue belts. One blue belt girl had great footwork and wrecked my guard quickly and got a north south choke.

I stayed to watch the adult competition class afterwards for awhile. Similar to how we structure it with drilling and rolling. 

Overall the only thing that bothers me is how many times I was turned down for rolls. I can't believe that they were all worried I was going to injure them, but maybe some of them have an across the board policy of not rolling with outsiders. To an extent I don't blame them, but it's kindof a bummer to be turned down for no obvious reason.

A couple more days of training ahead and then heading back home to my happy little gym. I'm generally pretty friendly to visitors to our school, but I'm definitely going to make a point of being more outgoing and asking people that don't look like they could kill me to roll. It makes such a difference in your experience.

Aesthetics

Picked up a new gi from bjjhq b/c it was a Hyperfly...and it had brown trim. I mainly purchased it because it will look nice with the belt. I've been wanting to try a Hyperfly gi for a while, and the price and color made impossible to ignore. The jacket is pretty long, but other than that it's a terrific fit. I love the pants. A lot.

I ordered the same gi in white.

I also recently picked up an Inverted Gear panda gi in white. Huge jacket but I like it. Pants are the ripstop material that I don't care for and will probably end up shorter length-wise than I would like after a couple of more washes.

I'm on a white gi kick b/c I'm heading down to California next month and decided to splurge on AOJ training. I'm going to try to do 3hrs of class a day for 5 days and one class on the 6th day. I'm torn over whether to try their competition class or not. I mainly want to try it to see if I can bring back some ideas to my school, but I also suspect that it's going to be a pretty hard core environment in which I may die, look like an idiot...or both. I'm going to have to mentally prepare myself to get dominated by white belts and not be embarrassed about it.

I've had some better classes lately. I seriously contemplated taking at least a month off b/c my jiu jitsu has been in such a funk, but the upcoming trip has given me a kick in the pants. I had a fantastic roll with James last week. I could tell that he really enjoyed it, as he gets pretty exuberant after a good roll. I've had decent rolls with everyone else.

My lift + conditioning has really, really helped my rolling. I never feel like I'm hitting the bottom of the gas tank, even when I'm getting destroyed. A couple of breaths after a round and I'm fully good to go for the next. That has been a nice benefit. 

Lights Out

I knew I hadn't posted in a while but didn't realize it's been almost a month.

I covered the morning class today and decided to go basic with closed guard arm-bar, omoplata and triangle. Picked up two tips that most folks hadn't seen before on the omoplata and triangle, so hopefully everyone got something out of it.

Started off rolling with big Mike. I was doing a decent job of keeping him at bay, or at least recovering guard. I tried for an armbar with decent position from guard but didn't have his posture broken so lost it. He passed, I'd get to turtle, rinse and repeat. At some point he had a choke from a top position (I don't remember what) and was bearing all his weight down. I knew it was tight, but thought that I might be able to last until the bell went off. Suddenly, I was riding my motorcycle down a sunlit road.... and then I woke up and he was holding my legs and the timer went off. First time being choked completely out.

Rolled with Zack after that who got an arm-lock of sorts, then Chris F. and Jason W. All in all I pretty much got my ass handed to me. I wasn't too down about it, as people seemed happy with the class.

Back in Place

I had been feeling good about jiu jitsu the past couple of classes. My techniques was ok, the conditioning and lifting that I'm doing outside of class was noticeable, all was well. 

Then I get some rolls in today and I'm back in the dumps. I set myself up with high expectations ("I magically got better!") and reality came crashing down in the form of getting manhandled by both Jasons today and a sub-par roll with James on Wed. Had a better than expected no gi roll with Keith today. Got taken down hard by suicide throws a couple of times by Rachael but otherwise I did well with her.

So not to rehash the same old crap, but I'm at a loss as to how I can get the logical part of my brain ("of course you must be making progress if you're going to class consistently") take precedence over the emotional part ("swear to whatever gods that i've made zero progress in the past six months and haven't learned a damned thing"). I have got to find a way to figure this out, because the shitty feeling that I have after most classes is again making me think about quitting. I refuse to put time into something, not improve AND feel like shit about it.

Kids!

Had to take last week off because my body was super duper unhappy in a most unpleasant way. It resolved itself so that I could finally go about my business again. 

Sticking with at least one night class a week to help Rachael prep for Masters.

First class last night in over a week and it felt like I had been off the mat for a month. It was well over 90F and fortunately we didn't do a killer warm-up. Transitions through a variety of top positions, which was a great drill to get started. My transitions are not great.

Technique was submissions that start from back control and rely on a kimura grip. Felt pretty good with those, although I was reminded that I'm still pretty crap at breaking arm-bar defenses. Also, my transitions to kimuras in top side are not great.

Rolled with Rachael throughout, I think we did four rounds. I felt strong and in control of most of the rolls. Even when I was in a traditionally bad position for me (being knee cut passed) I felt good. I gave up one pass. I took the back and passed consistently. A week off was apparently a good thing. I'm definitely noticing an increase in my confidence with regards to what I feel my body is capable of since I've been lifting for close to 3 months. Very, very happy with that.

Before class, James asked me if I would cover kids classes while he was at Masters. Uhm..... I told him I'd come to the classes on Wed and see what it was like. Children are aliens that I don't understand and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. I think the older kids class would probably be ok, but I have some trepidation about the younger kids class. 

Speaking of kids, the private with one of the kids hasn't materialized, which I guessed might happen but I'm not too down about it.

Escape All the Things

Switched my schedule up a bit this week to train at nights to help Rachael prep for the Seattle Open. This means doing my workout in the morning, which is fine once I'm awake and warmed up. Had one of my best heavy lift sessions yesterday morning though so maybe there's something to morning lifts.

I bought the Bill Cooper Escapes series and decided to work on submission escapes for awhile. He shows some interesting techniques, some of which are going to take me awhile to figure out. One frustrating thing is that he describes techniques literally ("put your right hand here") and there's not much inclusion of mechanics or concepts. Some of the "why" I already know, but in other instances I don't and am figuring out on my own...which may be better for me in the end anyway.

It's inspired me to do an sub escape class during Fundamentals, since we rarely cover escapes in any of the regular classes. 

I finally got up the nerve to tell James that I wasn't doing Masters. He took it well and called me up after class to double-check that everything was ok with me which was really pretty nice. 

I'm noticing a full two months into working out that I'm feeling more confident as far as strength and cardio is concerned on the mat. Rolling has generally been feeling pretty decent. Still some ego crush rolls here and there, but by and large I'm enjoying most of the rolls regardless of the outcome and regardless of the choices that I made during the roll. 

I might be giving private lessons to a kid soon. I think he's around 10y/o or so. I'm going to give it one lesson and see how it goes. I generally have a really hard time relating to and talking with pre-teen kids because they're basically little aliens. If I don't feel like I'm doing a good job with him I won't charge the Dad and will recommend that he find someone else.

Triceptarous

I was foam rolling before class the other day and Sarah noticed that my triceps were bigger than she remembered. Less than two months of lifting and it's paying off...

Since I've decided not to do Masters I've had one class that was a real bummer but the remainder have been good. I've also been rolling with quite a few white belts, so there's that. Jason S and I rolled the other and while he dominated for the most part, I had a very legitimate sweep into side control that wasn't so much a learned technique as taking advantage of his weight and positioning. I was pretty excited about that.

Rolled with Kasey today, who was more or less letting me work (but I have a hard time telling). Got a paper cutter from top side that felt good. However, somewhere along the way my IT band got pissed about something and bothered me for the remainder of my rolls. Sat out the last round with Chris, who gave me some excellent advice for stretching and applying pressure. Hours later it's feeling almost a 100%. Will probably move tonight's workout to tomorrow just to make sure I don't goof anything up.

I'm feeling peaceful about not doing Masters.

Mind Games

I decided not to compete at Master Worlds. My mind isn't right when it comes to jiu jitsu, and  it won't be worth the pressure, $$ and time spent going to Vegas if my heart isn't in it. This is a less drastic measure than what I was initially planning on, which was to take a month long break from jiu jitsu. 

I've had a series of experiences lately in which I've been putting too much pressure on myself since being promoted and class just hasn't been that much fun as a result. And by "not fun", I mean I've left class a number of times miserable. In addition, I swear that I have regressed in technique. I am literally just befuddled when I'm stuck in someone's guard. It's like I'm back at my one stripe blue knowledge level.. 

I know that I know and can execute many techniques. The shit that I do when I roll though is so incredibly limited it's not even funny. I try to open up my game and I get creamed. I'm making a lot of poor decisions, some which are due to having a poor frame of mind. I absolutely hate being the only brown belt at our gym that gets tapped by blue belts. As much as I'd like to not have that be a factor, it eats at me. Of course, once I convince myself I suck, then I'm truly sunk.

The short answer is that I'm not going to compete for awhile and I'm not going to try to work my way out of this funk. I'm going to take a step back, try to ignore my belt color, focus on a couple of positions, chill the fuck out and hopefully start having fun again.

Privates

Forgot to include a snippet about my first private lesson as a teacher. Happened completely by accident. I was working out after class last Friday. Everyone else had left, and then one of my teammates walked in b/c he had a lesson scheduled with another coach. The other coach didn't show up so my teammate asked if I would give him a lesson. That's how I ended up teaching my first private lesson. I heard James comment to the guy yesterday on how well he was executing the back-step from half guard, which is one of the areas we covered during the lesson. Sooooo... he asked me to do another lesson with him tomorrow. :)

My rolls yesterday were not so great. I felt like the guys were just toying with me and I got submitted more than usual. I had Jason S and Nate to back-to-back which is a tough row to hoe. Nate's side-control maintenance has become very good. It seems like he efforts very little to keep you in place and he capitalizes quickly and efficiently on when you move to escape. I became quite frustrated, made a mistake and he got an arm-bar. I was upset with myself after that roll but got over it when I saw Nate controlling Jason. I wasn't so much upset about the submission as my utter lack of ability to a) prevent the pass and b) escape side-control.

Tonight I'm teaching passing, but haven't figured out exactly what yet. 

I Can't Shut Up

I have so very much to say during Fundamentals. Last Saturday I did ok for most of the class, but I was losing it a bit at the end. I need to take a few seconds to compose myself before I start on a new technique or am ready to close out the class and figure out what I want to say before I start yapping. 

I'll have plenty of practice in the next couple of weeks because James will be out of town. I'm only covering one class this week and then three in a row next week. This weekend I'm headed to a Girls in Gis event. I think there'll be at least 4 black belts on the mat and hopefully all of the non-injured ones will roll. While I don't feel that I deserve the belt that I have, I'm not going to shy away from some of the benefits that come with it. Being able to roll with pretty much whoever I want at other gyms is a big plus. Being the first (or near the first in line) after class means that I can make a beeline for one of the changing rooms and get dressed for work quickly.

I've been sticking with my workout regimen (Crossfit Football), lifting 4 days a week and going to class 6 days a week. So far my energy levels are holding up well. I'm noticing a big difference in my cardio during rolling. I don't feel completely wiped after class (unless it's all open mat) and I feel like I have energy *during* rolls, which is the most important to me. I need to use this to gradually turn up and maintain higher intensity for the duration of a roll. 

I STILL haven't picked an area on which to focus my training. Some day. Maybe.

New Gym Space

It's taken a little while to come to enjoy the new space, likely b/c my first several interactions with it involved quite a bit of tedious, not-very-fun-work. During the first couple of classes, the new puzzle mats were so slippery that trying shrimp down the mats was nearly an exercise in futility. The entrance and parking is in the back, and there's sortof a way to get from the back entrance to the locker-room without taking your shoes off if you're comfortable hugging a pole. The door in the back has two deadbolt locks but no handle on either side.

After a couple of weeks of classes, I've gotten used to the changes and I love the space. The high ceilings alone make it feel much more open. The additional mat space means that everyone can roll simultaneously, with no more folks waiting on the wall. It cleaned up pretty nice, and we have two changing areas and a decent bathroom. Having the big door up to let fresh air in when it's hot feels divine. All in all I'm pretty happy with it and am proud of James and Sarah for taking the risk to make the move.

I've been feeling better about my rolling lately. I'm trying very hard to let go of my fear of not being respected by lower belts (and subsequently reflect poorly on James) b/c they can beat me in rolls. It still stings and I don't feel like I'm a good representative of brown belts, but I'm not as upset about it as I was a month ago. 

I'm back to weight training and have so far integrated it ok with 6 days a week of jiu jitsu. I'm eating everything in sight which is reflected on the scale, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out for me during Master Worlds. Will cross that bridge in August. If I'm feeling strong and in shape I may stick with Heavy. I'd be at the top of that weight class right now anyway. 

I'm surprisingly enjoying the wrestling class on Thursday mornings. I've started to drill the techniques on Sundays as well. I'm also back to taking notes after class to help me feel like it's not all in one ear and out the other. 

Making small improvements in activity and mentality...

Moving Day

The gym is moving this weekend, so most of my time will be spent doing that. No classes Sat - Tue. 

I briefly toyed with the idea of signing up for Worlds when I saw the registration was still open this morning, but my rolling has not been anywhere near where it needs to be for that. I almost did anyway, b/c the black belt divisions look absolutely stacked and it would probably be a blast to watch in person.

Related, I really need to get my shit together for Master Worlds. I don't know what that means, other than I need to do better. I got wrecked by pretty much everyone at the Saturday open mat. It was almost ridiculous and was one of those days where I thought to myself, "welp, I've clearly reached my highest skill level in this sport, so I might as well find something new to try". I did surprisingly well when rolling with Russ, who must have been having an off day too.

I've been doing morning classes almost exclusively and lots of rolling with Sarah. We've been having fun, interesting rolls. She's completely shut down both my berimbolo and single leg X. She's been doing a great job of maintaining distance in her guard and separating my elbows from my torso. I kneed her in the face when drilling before class of all things. Cut her tongue in multiple places. :( 

Sunrise Squad

The Spartan Race was pretty interesting and draining, to put it mildly. My friend needed to stop a fair amount, so we ended up doing very little running. We got through the majority of the obstacles. I failed on the rope climb, monkey bars, spear throw and rings at the end. My friend made the monkey bars but failed the upside down lateral ladder thing. Took us 4hrs and 5mins to complete 5 1/2 miles. Oof.

I'm getting back into the groove of jiu jitsu, training every day except Tuesday. Also training for Murph on Memorial Day. Feeling pretty good about both, and suspecting that hormones are largely responsible for my lapses of energy and focus. I guess that's good in that it's a cyclical thing instead of an all-the-time thing, but also frustrating b/c it's inevitably going to occur again.

Nader started 7am classes on Thursday morning that consist of takedowns for a solid half hour and then some jiu jitsu stuff. It's been a small class but a good one, and a great way to start the day. Don't know if people will be as motivated in the winter when it's dark and cold at 7am, but we'll see.

In class I've been working on DLR to X entries. Drilled it almost exclusively on Sunday and was just starting to get the hang of it. I'm going to work RDLR to X entries next week. I think my goal for Master's is to have a solid standing pass sequence, a DLR/X sequence and a decent takedown. I'll let the rest take care of itself.

More or Less

I had some issues last week that kept me off the mat. Taught on Saturday and apparently my quads were not pleased about the many demonstrations of opening the guard. Incapacitated by the quads on Sunday so no advanced class. Monday morning they were still quite sore but did class anyway. Didn't feel better until the end of rolling. 

I'm doing a Spartan race this weekend, so having the entire week off last week of no activity was not ideal timing. I haven't been training as much as normal, averaging closer to 3 classes a week instead of 6. Planning on getting back into the swing of things next week.

Rolling has been ok, but I honestly feel like I know less the more classes that I attend. Not in drilling, as most techniques James shows I've seen numerous times and can execute them fairly well when drilling. But rolling I seem to be getting more clueless. I'm not pressuring myself (that I know of). Perhaps it's a lack of having a particular plan and being very reactionary. I'm having decent rolls with my peers, but am almost always on the defensive. That's not terribly new, but I feel like my offense is almost nonexistent. Some day... some day I will decide to really focus on one game plan and try to get good at a specific guard.

Impromptu Seminar

James sent a text out Tues afternoon to several of us to see if we wanted to do a seminar with a 6th degree black belt at another school that night. I hadn't heard of the guy before, but he was a Rickson black belt and that was good enough for me. It turned out to be just James and I, as everyone else had to work (or didn't want to go).

The seminar started at 7pm and we got there with about five minutes to spare. We started off with a mellow warm up that turned into an ab killer. I'm still feeling the effects days later. I don't have incredibly developed abs, but they're decent. I thought.

First techniques were self-defense based from a standing position. Good review on a topic that we never cover in our classes.

During the warm-ups I thought to myself that if I had my druthers, I'd want a 6th degree Rickson black belt to go over cross chokes, preferably from guard but mount or elsewhere would be beneficial as well. No kidding, the first thing he shows on the ground is cross-chokes from guard. The first variation had the palm down arm going under the palm up arm, which I hadn't seen before. The second variation was the more typical plam down arm on top, but with some details that were new. I was working with James which was awesome b/c he was really able to help me fine tune where I was going wrong.

After that it was some off-shoots of what to do if you have an arm overwrapped. A sweep from butterfly and then transitioning from top-side to a toe hold if they plant their near foot on their thigh. The final technique was a choke that was predicated on throwing someone out of your back-control and them turtling up, which is a fairly uncommon reaction in my experience. It was tough being the uke in that my instinct is to put my back on the mat on the non-choking side, not roll to turtle. 

All in all it was good to get exposure outside of normal classes. Haven't been to a seminar outside of our school in a while. It was also great to get some one-on-one time with James, as we haven't really talked at length in quite some time.

Tapping

Sooooo it's been a little while since I've been tapped by a white belt. Not a matter of years, but maybe 3-4mos. Got tapped by a 1 stripe via kimura in his bottom half guard last night. I had his back earlier in the round looking for a choke, but reset to a neutral position when we rolled next to a wall which I felt was impeding his escape opportunities. I was screwing around in his top half and next thing I know he has a kimura grip on my far arm. He cranks it and boom. Submission. I was very mellow about it, told him nice sub, round ended, no big deal. 

The thing that really irks me is that if the positions had been reversed, there's absolutely no way that I would have gotten that on a brown belt dude half my age when I was a white belt. It wasn't that he completely muscled it...I definitely screwed up in getting to that position in the first place. However, the truth remains that the gender/age thing is messing with my head.

I'm not begrudging him (or anyone for that matter), but it's very frustrating and it's stuff like that that make me question my veracity on the mats and whether I was promoted too soon. It would have felt just as bad if I was a purple belt. For whatever reason, I feel more obligation at brown belt to be good. I'm trying very hard not to get too hung up on the belt color and whatever responsibility I think comes with it, but I'm not often succeeding. How do I accurately judge myself against my peers?

Rest of my rolls last night went pretty well.

Didn't have my head in the game for this morning's class b/c of house selling stuff. Rolled with Sarah a couple of rounds and then was getting pretty well crushed by Kris E when he made a small error that gave me a chance to sweep and get on top. 

Normal, Whatever That Is

Back to a somewhat normal schedule. Only offshoot is training for a Spartan race in May, which consists of getting my ass handed to me on Saturday morning before I teach Fundamentals. This past Saturday was hill repeats, followed by an uphill log carry. My legs were so over the whole thing very quickly.

I had a surprising amount of energy for Fundies and the open mat after. Had about 18 ppl for my class which is down from the past month but still more than I'd ever imagined. Covered sweeps that started from closed guard. I think I blew a few minds of folks who were very new and hopefully at least refreshed the memories of more experienced students.

Felt pretty good on Sunday until I started drilling at advanced class. I went in with a game plan of "all passing, all the time". My legs were bitching about the hell they had gone through the day prior, so probably wasn't the best game plan. Got many good reps in but I was absolutely beat, and that's before the rolls even started.

Rolled with Chris, James, Sarah, Chaz and Jamie. I think. It was tough sledding, whoever it was. 

Accepted an offer on my house and now waiting for the process to finish it's winding road, but seems like it'll happen. Have looked at some places outside of town but nothing has fit yet. Priority #1 is distance to gym. Priority #2 is distance to work. 

Still doing my daily push-ups. Today is 96. I think I'm going to have to start splitting them up throughout the day. Doing 90+ push-ups before morning class seems to have a bit of an effect on my rolling. Not a ton, but some.

Pans 2016

The good:

James, Nader and Walter performing very well

Acai bowls

Cookie bar

Laying around in 80F temps for an afternoon

Rachael's logistical planning
Winning a match at brown

Having Hannette and Mackenzie recognize and chat with me

The meh:

Losing by dubious reffing in absolute

Having a 3hr delay in Oakland on the way home

The bad:

Team drama

Getting beat by Nika AGAIN (she's 3-0 against me)

My "takedowns"

Feeling completely fatigued in absolute

Got in on Wed early afternoon, didn't compete until Friday night. Wednesday was a super chill, relaxed day. 

Thursday we went to watch Nader compete. He did really well, taking silver in adult purple.

Sleep and everything was fine on Thursday into Friday. I thought I was only a couple of pounds under, so didn't eat much Friday. Big mistake. I was at least 7lb under (with gi). Had one of the bbqs but should have had about three.

Rachael went an hour or so before I did. She got a very tough Brazilian that seemed most interested in ripping her gi top off with a weird takedown grip. Rachael slipped on a puddle of water on the mat, her opponent was awarded takedown points and it went downhill from there.

I was feeling pretty good by match time. Wasn't quite as warm as I would like. Made the mistake of not using the warm-up mats. Went out there intending to fake a guard pull to ankle pick, did a shitty job, got taken down and again, downhill from there. Don't remember much about the match other than most of it was spent with her passing my guard.

Didn't feel like I belonged at brown after that, was pretty displeased with myself in general. Signed up for absolute anyway. Should have ran upstairs and had bbq and acai, but didn't. Dumb. No energy for absolute. Won my first match by points. No idea what happened or what the score was. Wanted to quit after that match I was so out of energy. Second match was brutal in that there was lots of movement. I almost tapped to fatigue. Very even match. Lost on points, again, I don't know the score. I was told by several teammates/coaches that I wasn't awarded points that I should have been. Whatever. I was happy to at least have a couple of competitive matches.

The team drama unfolded on Friday and was very bad. I had nothing to do with it, but was in the middle of it based on proximity. It continued for the rest of the weekend, which was unfortunate.

Didn't get to enjoy near the number of black belt matches that I wanted b/c of team commitments, drama, poor seating choices and no one else being especially interested in watching them. We had to be at the airport at 3pm on Sunday, so we missed all of the finals. 

All in all, despite the sour taste of the non jiu jitsu related crap, I'm glad I went. It was great to see teammates/coaches succeed. I had two competitive matches at brown, so I need to cut myself a bit of slack as far as skills are concerned. I still feel like I was promoted waaaaaaaay too early, but whatever. 

Peer Pressure

I have succumbed to significant peer pressure and signed up for Pans at the last minute. I don't feel like I'm rolling especially well lately, but I have been training quite a bit and am injury-free (knock on wood). I knew that I would regret not going once the deadline passed to register, so there you have it.

It will be interesting to see if my rolling improves once I lessen the frequency of training. That probably won't happen until next week, as I'm doing a double today, possibly Thu night class, Fri morning, Sat, Sun, and a double next Monday. No wonder I've been sleeping so well. :p

I've been rolling with Rachael exclusively at night classes to get her ready for Pans. Morning classes have been a good mix of upper and lower belts.

My biggest concern, as always, is stand-up. I need to come up with a gameplan fast. I'm not particularly enamored of my guard game now, but I don't foresee me coming up with a take-down combo in the next week. The woman who beat me last year is in my bracket this year. The dreaded three person bracket, no less. She shut down my guard game but good. 

Cram in Training

I've been in the midst of moving, Part 1 of 2 anyway. Selling my house in town (Part 1) and looking for a place with acreage (Part 2). I've managed to keep up fairly regular training, only dipping as low as thrice a week. This past weekend was tough, as I went Friday morning, taught Saturday, rolled in the open mat Saturday, did an hour straight of rolling at the women's open mat on Sunday, advanced class Sunday and then morning and evening class on Monday. Woof.

I haven't put my gym back together in my temp residence so I haven't lifted in a couple of weeks. Still doing the day-of-the-year push-ups (61 today).

Regardless of how much I train I'm not seeing improvement in my rolling. I'm sure that I'm overdoing it physically. I do feel like my understanding improves each day, so at least I've got that.

Still probably not doing Pans, but my registration for brown did go through today so I technically could. I can't find airfare cheaper than $400+ and already took time off of work to get the house ready to sell and move all of my crap. 

James let Rachael and I roll for the last half hour of class to prepare her for Pans while everyone else did KOTH. Competitive and tiring roll. Chaz wanted to roll after class and I looked at him like he had three heads... but I did it anyway. I finally ran completely out of gas after what I hope was at least 5min.

Probably Not Pans

I've noticed that I'm much more reactionary than usual when rolling lately. It's especially bumming me out when I have guard, b/c if I don't hit an immediate sweep I seem to just wait for them to try to pass and then I end up working from a disadvantageous position. It's weird. 

I'm guessing it has to do with the recent promotion and fear of looking like I don't deserve it. Overall I felt pretty good about the rolls I had on Sunday, even though I got demolished as usual. I drilled a number of different areas and felt like it was very beneficial. I need to open my game up and not be so hesitant. I have a fair amount of knowledge, but not much confidence in implementing anything above brand new blues. I also don't have much of a gameplan. 

Leaning towards not doing Pans. I doubt that I'll get my house on the market and sold before registration closes. There's also no way I can focus on the house and training at the same time. 

I'm still doing the push-up challenge. Currently on day 41. They are starting to come a little bit easier, but not much. Doing sets of 8. 

To Pans or Not to Pans

At the beginning of the year, I had a pretty good idea of which big tournaments I wanted to attend, namely adult Worlds and possibly Master Worlds.

Last night James announced he's going to Pans, even though he originally thought he wouldn't. Rachael and I are on the fence, mainly b/c it's more expensive now than it would have been in December. I want to go b/c James will be there, but that's a lot of money that I'd rather put to moving. I'm planning on selling/buying this spring, assuming I can find a house that I like and can afford. 

There's the added factor that the new brown makes adult Worlds less desirable. I wouldn't mind going to Pans as a new brown b/c there's a master's division. If I don't do Pans or adult Worlds that would probably be a sound financial decision, but a bummer too.

Anyway, class night was great. We went over the same thing as we did in morning class (take-downs from arm-drag). The leg drag that I was doing so well with in the morning I brain-farted on in the evening. Got it together though after several reps.

Rolled with Rachael (twice), Sol, Clay and can't remember who else. Overall felt ok with my rolls except with Sol. I have GOT to find a way to prevent his grips and letting the match go downhill so quickly. He gets to top side-control at will. Within 30secs of each roll he's in top side. Rachael easily won on points in the first match and we were tied in the second. I did a better job of sweeping her than I have been, but I also gave up a lot of sweeps as well.

Still Not Purple

James offhandedly asked me before class how I've been feeling putting on the brown belt. "Weird", I replied. "Very, very weird." 

I'm trying very hard to not get all tied up in knots about how I don't feel like I deserve it and how it's going to suck a little bit more when I get dominated by blue belts.

Monday morning class covered how to counter butterfly guard, most of which I hadn't seen before. 

This morning he covered takedowns from a standing arm-drag. One of them ended in leg drag, and both Sarah and I were pretty thrilled with it. Another one was basically a tackle and grapple. James brought out the crash pad for those of us who were a bit more squeamish about the tackle part.

Rolled with Sarah, Tyrone, Ryan and Niki (twice). I tried to sweep Tyrone but kept getting in submission positions instead. He focuses on not getting submitted, so I see it as a challenge to get subs anyway. I'd be better off trying for sweeps, as he generally has a good base.

Flow rolled with Ryan as he's recently back from injury. Spent some time going knee cut passes with Niki.

Watched a back-control escape last night from Mendes Bros that I tried after class but it wasn't really working out for me. When you are rolled to the choking side and you've freed or prevented the hooks, step behind them with your legs, bottom leg first. If they try to get the top hook back in (which most people will) it was impossible to clear it. James gave me a good tip of holding their top leg with my bottom hand. 

Planning on a double tonight.

Brown

Holy shit.

Walter was in town for a seminar and belt testing. The seminar went great, and he showed some low percentage but pretty neat submissions from really bad spots (bottom mount and on the sad end of back control) in addition to some more high percentage techniques.

The next day, I offered to help with belt testing since there were an odd number of testers and one of them was preggers. She did awesome, including an a tomoe nage takedown. She absolutely nailed it.

After the belt testing, it was a shark tank for the newly promoted purple that wasn't injured or pregnant and the two new browns. I participated in the shark tank on the purple and I didn't do great but ok considering he was trying like hell to stall out.

Onto the belt gauntlet. We're all lined up and Jenny goes through first. James tells the guys behind her to wait, pulls out a brown belt and announces that I was being promoted to brown. Again, holy fucking shit. I had to back up to the wall for support. I wasn't expecting to hit brown until sometime next year. Three stripes, why on earth would I expect a belt promotion? Utterly stunned, I started crying a bit, hugged James several times after he tied the belt on and then proceeded to the back of the line for the belt gauntlet. To say that I was stunned would be a massive understatement.

It still feels very, very weird. I have a number of thoughts about it, mainly that I don't deserve the belt yet. There's more that goes into it, but that's the main issue. I feel weird about the guys that were ranked above me a couple of months ago (namely Russ and Sol) that I've now leap-frogged in belt. Jason S too, b/c we were the same rank a couple of months ago. Just b/c I traveled and did reasonably well at tournaments doesn't justify the rank IMO. I mean, I went 2-2 at Pans, 2-0 at Masters and 2-2 at no gi Worlds as a purple. That's not an earth-shattering tournament record. 

Now I can do knee-bars, toe holds, slicers and the whole thing is just WEIRD.

Here's how I'm going to look at it. There's nothing I can do about it, except to continue to learn and enjoy jiu jitsu.

It kindof pummels my adult Worlds plans this year b/c while I didn't like my chances at purple, I thought that I might be at least competitive. But brown?

 

Overtraining

I think it's likely that I've reached a level of over-training. Or my body has something else going on completely unrelated (hormones). Whatever. 

Right as I got to class last night, the middle finger of my left hand started to go partially numb. It had a biggish bruise on the palm side and was yellowish on both sides. Out of nowhere, it appeared that blood was no longer flowing as it should. I couldn't recall how I could have impacted it to that extent while leaving work and driving to class, but apparently I did. It was really, really odd. James asked me to run warm-ups, so I did that while obsessing over the state of my finger. By the end of warm-ups it had returned to normal. Weird.

He covered the same thing in evening class as morning class, which was defending the double-under pass. Great stuff, something we haven't gone over in quite a while. Good details, a number of which I had forgotten.

Rolls consisted of KOTH, except that James said that Kasey could stay down the entire time with Nader and Rachael and I could stay down the entire time together. Huh? Kasey made sense b/c he's testing for brown on Saturday, but having Rachael and I stay down didn't make any sense. 

In any case, Rachael took the opportunity to whup my ass for a good half hour. She was completely dominant in every position. I couldn't sweep, couldn't pass, took forever to escape bad positions and only narrowly avoided submissions. She had top control the vast majority of time and was usually in a sub attacking position. My hand that had the issue of being able to do pushing motions was bothering me some, but likely only contributed a small part to that beating. 

Unfortunately, Walter is coming into town today, so I'm not going to get much of a break. Class tonight, seminar tomorrow night and group private Sunday. I'll probably be involved in shark tanking the newly promoted blues and purples on Saturday night. Hopefully the load will be light enough on Sat and Sun that my body can rest up a bit.

The Jinx

Had some absolutely garbage rolls at advanced class on Sunday afternoon and again Monday morning. Even if I'm having a rough go of it, normally if I roll with James it's still a good roll. Not this week. Felt like I was doing all sorts of everything wrong. I think it was partly due to a physical affliction, b/c I had an odd ocular migraine episode (or something very similar) early Monday. Somewhat related, either my push-up progression or recent heavy bench press jacked up my right hand. Exerting pressure from my hand in a pushing motion against firm objects doesn't feel very good.

I suspect that this is all due to online discussion between teammates on Saturday night in which I mentioned that I was planning on doing adult Worlds this year. It's pretty much a guarantee that as soon as you even so much as sneeze in the direction of a tournament, you're body is going to start falling apart.

The one positive from the past couple of days is that I felt like the spider guard defense I worked on Sunday will be of some benefit. Not too many folks play spider at my gym, but if/when they do I've felt fairly lost. Jason S plays collar/sleeve control, which can fit into some of the same principles.

Hoping for better rolls today. Will probably do a double if Rachael goes.

Advanced Basics

I decided to tackle the fundamentals of open guard in my Fundamentals class today. I'm not sure if it was successful. I did a lot of preparation and gnashing of teeth as to whether I should show a variety of open guards or try to illustrate the basic concepts of most open guards with a single one. I decided to go the latter route, and picked DLR. Started off with a guard pull to DLR, then maintaining DLR, tripod sweep, DLR to RDLR and back again. 

I was well prepared, but I had too much in my head and not sure that it came out the way I would have wished. I missed a lot of points that Rachael and Jason S chimed in with, luckily for me. I'm going to have to reassess my plan for open guard.

I got absolutely manhandled in the open mat afterwards by everybody. Two blue belts submitted me a number of times, Jason was fighting for chokes for most of our roll, Rachael tapped me with bow and arrow, Jerry crushed me twice and had me fearing for my legs at one point b/c I was so convoluted. It's crazy to go from teaching a class of 20 or so to getting creamed.

Back to Reality

Not a great day of rolling on Monday morn. I felt fine, but my rolling was not so hot. It started off on an odd foot b/c I rolled with someone who was very new and cautious about engaging. That might have put me a bit off with everyone else, or it may have had nothing to do with it at all. In any case, blue belt Chris whupped me pretty good then Jason S and Sol had their usual way with me. I probably fared the best against Jason, but for the most part I felt like I wasn't even on the same level with those guys.  

Disheartening, but it's past. 

The Fundamentals class went terrific last week. I felt like it was one of my better days of teaching. Another ~20 students, and I covered triangles, cross-chokes and guillotines. Russ, Jason S, Rachael and Sol were included in that number. A rack of purple belts my class. Just absurd.

STILL haven't picked any sort of focus for training. Maybe I'll do that someday.

Ref Experiences

Roughly eight hours straight through of reffing. Holy hell. 

There was, of course, a major snafu before the tournament even started involving the mats, but we improvised and it worked out fine.

First up was the little, little kids. They're more difficult to ref, but the upshot is that the parents and coaches aren't typically down your neck like they are for the older kids. The takedowns were just ridiculous to try to score. I had one kid in a bracket who was clearly a judo practitioner. He attempted the same throw on everyone he faced (gi and no gi) and then immediately moved to a scarfhold position where I guess he was trying to choke but never succeeded. He constantly walked his legs toward their head and the other kid would constantly walk his/her legs away in a stalemate. If you're Josh Barnett you can probably turn that into a choke. Not so much if you're an 8y/o kid. He did one of his throws on a girl that was a bit smaller than him and she hit the ground pretty hard. 

I called the arm-bars early for the little kids and not as early for the older kids. In some cases that was a good thing (the kid was able to escape) and in others it wasn't. No one seemed hurt, but I should have pulled the trigger on them earlier.

James came in to ref matches in gi and no gi (five total) on my mat that consisted of brown and black belts. I wanted no part of calling points for higher belts. In retrospect, I should have had the confidence to do it. The short breaks were nice though. 

One of my teammates had planned on competing in the brown belt division b/c there was no one in his weight class for purple and he was scheduled to test for brown later this month. James told us ahead of time that he was going to award him his brown at the tournament w/o having to test. I'm proud of Kelly for getting his brown, as it is well-deserved. I gave him a big hug before his match. 

The adults were easier to ref points-wise than the kids, but I also had coaches chirping loudly behind me. At one point I had a competitor in no gi that had competed on my mat in gi, and he made a snarky comment after finishing his match if I had given him his points that time. Yes homie, you got your points.

Overall, I know that I missed some calls. I felt like I did very good job of staying focused throughout, but in scrambles and transitions there were times when I would lose who was in guard. There were also a few flat-out misses. The subjective calls could have gone either way, but I might have missed badly on those. Those were near the end of the day and there's no question my concentration was waning.

I'm satisfied with how I did. No one was seriously hurt AFAIK, which is the most important metric IMO. I expected some unhappy coaches and parents, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. Rachael and Scott were working the table, which helped me immensely. Having people who know what's what makes a huuuuuuge difference, and I was able to confer with them several times about procedural things. I didn't quite feel like I was on so much of an island.

They Just Keep Getting Bigger

There were over 20 people in my Fundamentals class this morning. Over TWENTY. I still can't believe that I'm in a place where I'm no shit teaching jiu jitsu...and they keep coming back. It blows my mind, mainly b/c the first two schools I started at never had 20 people in ANY class that I could remember. Even my current school didn't start hitting 20 in classes until about a year ago. To not only see the growth but to be a small part of it is very, very gratifying. 

I had planned on covering the holy trinity of closed guard submissions (arm-bar, omoplata and triangle), but only got through the first two. I wanted to try out a slightly different process for drilling, wherein I show a technique, we drill it, then I clean up the details that people have missed and we drill again. The longer drill time was also due to me trying to get around to as many people as possible. I think I may be spending too much time with the drilling, but I have a difficult time not getting around to as many people as I can. If it continues to be a thing, I may pull Rachael from drilling and have her walk around as well if she's willing.

I was happy with how class went. Rachael reminded me that it would be a good idea to go over gym rules/etiquette after class so we did that for a bit. I was really, really happy with how calm and confident I was during instruction, and I felt like my technique demonstrations and explanations were correct and helpful.

I got a couple of rolls in the open mat afterwards, mainly consisting of Sol isolating my arms from my body and submitting me from pretty much everywhere. The rest of the time I was talking with people who had just started (there were at least three people who were brand new) or helping people prep their game-plan for tomorrow's tournament.

It's been a gradual evolution to being one of the leaders at the gym. I feel a sense of responsibility to represent the school and James well in all aspects. Talking to people who walk in the door about the gym comes oddly naturally to me. A large part of it is b/c I'm passionate about the subject and I believe in the school and its ethos. For someone who isn't very social, it's an interesting thing to observe and note.

Speaking of the tournament, I'm reffing tomorrow. Not looking forward to that. Really looking forward to having it be done.

Make it a Double

Did my first weekday double class in a month or so yesterday. James covered guard pulls in both classes b/c of the upcoming tournament and the large number of judo competitors that are registered. Sound plan.

Rolled with Sarah twice during the morning class, then several other folks. I don't recall anything about the rolls, other than I left feeling good about my game. Dennis has been out for a month and was a bit rusty, which may have resulted in me being able to apply much more pressure and control than usual. I felt like when I was rolling with white belts I was able to transition more smoothly than usual between techniques and give up positions more naturally, if that makes sense.

Evening class was KOTH. The big boys were separated onto another mat, so it was medium sized purples and James down with mostly blues and whites. I had several relatively easy rolls, then James came off the wall and he got me with something. I happened to get him again as I came off the line and he got me with something else. I felt like I did several not very wise things, like letting him get under me to become my base. I would start off with a knee cut pass and end up getting rolled over.

Rolled with Kelly once after class and Rachael twice (she was back after a several month hiatus). Both were great rolls. Rachael got the better of the first roll, passing and establishing a dominant side control that I couldn't escape. The second roll I got her back and harassed her arms and lapels from back and mount.

I felt surprisingly full of energy for both classes even though my sleep hasn't been great and hormones are doing stupid hormone things. The month plus of lifting with some conditioning might be contributing.

Nope, No Goals

I had several hours on Sunday to come up with a list of goals for the next little while or at the very least what I could/should drill. By the time class rolled around, I had a whole lot of nothing. I'm not sure why it's so difficult for me to set a plan with my training. I'd be well served by focusing on one area and getting proficient at it but I'm not. It's possibly due to having to drill something a whole lot before I'd ever be able to use it in rolling. It's also tough to get the matches to a specific position unless you are much more skilled than your opponent, at least that's been my experience.

So I didn't have a plan for class, and ended up drilling the long step from side-control, going to side-to-side. I've drilled this quite a bit and I think I've used it exactly zero times when rolling. I also did an omoplata and arm-bar drill that I'm thinking about using for the Fundamentals class but am not sure if it will be more confusing than not.

There were only four of us, Jason S., Jamie, Chaz and myself. We rotated through the drills once and rolls twice. I was feeling humbled by the end of class. I got absolutely worked by those guys. Chaz likes to move a lot, so not only does he does he dominate position, but he also dictates a fast pace. He doesn't hang out in especially advantageous positions, but moves on to another. That, in turn, means that I end up moving quite a bit more than if I was just getting crushed. It's good for me. I keep telling myself that.

Monday morning class was a decent size. We covered a variation of sweep from the 93 guard that I had seen before that uses a butterfly hook instead of my usual option of diving under their far leg and doing the not-quite-kneebah sweep. I was really struggling with elevating the butterfly hook until James pointed out that their weight has to be waaaaaaaaay on top of you. They have to commit their weight forward for it to work.

Rolled the entire time with Sarah. We had a really, really fun roll. At one point we had a rolling back attack battle, with both of our legs flailing in the air trying to get the shallow hook. Pure fun.

I'm maintaining the 3x week lifting schedule, and have added a year long push-up challenge. One push-up for each day of the year. Jan 1 = 1 push-up. Feb 1 = 32 push-ups. If I actually do it, I'll be spending most of next New Year's Eve doing push-ups, but that would still be pretty cool. We'll see how it goes. I picked a leap year too, of course. 

Goals or Not?

Back to regular classes yesterday. Taught Fundamentals to a class of ~10. Covered sweeps from closed guard. I'm pretty sure that I talk too much. I try to cover concepts as well as actual movement, but I think I need to structure it differently, b/c I do a lot of yapping. I think I'd be better off covering concepts as a whole in the beginning, then do the techniques and briefly touch on how they relate to the concepts as I'm doing them. 

Had a LOT of rolls during the open mat. I must have been feeling froggy after having close to a week off due to something other than being sick. Had a great mix of partners. I had an awesome roll with James, in which I felt at the time that I was getting the upper hand in attacks, but figured later he must have been letting me work at least a little bit. Regardless of how much he was giving me, I WAS doing pretty well. I controlled top position for a piece of time, and thwarted his attempt to pass by very nearly taking his back. 

I had planned on lifting after class but I tweaked my back and felt pretty wrecked the rest of the day. Had errands and chores to do anyway, so it was fine. Back feels fine the next day, so will lift a couple of hours before class.

Struggling a bit with where I should put my focus. I feel like it would benefit me to really focus on a couple of areas (i.e. single leg x and x guard and leg drags), but teaching a class in which I cover a wide variety of topics from week to week makes that a little difficult. The drill time at the Sunday advanced classes is so precious.