Friday, August 19, 2016

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.




Tuesday, August 16, 2016

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.




Thursday, August 4, 2016

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.