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.