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.