Great Seminar & Eating all the Things

I need to for real stay away from the scale b/c I've been indulging in everything in sight. It's partly due to stress coping and partly to not feeling like I have to be restrained for tournaments. It's been nice for awhile but I'm going to tone it down a bit. It's amazing how quickly the body will happily accept far more food than is needed.

Training has been going pretty well. Rachael has been trying to talk me into doing Master's in late August. I'm probably going to be busy, but she is persistent. I'll have to see how the summer progresses. Signed up for the Seattle Open and will more than likely need to drop down to adult. I'm not looking forward to competing again in the next couple of months, but it is what it is.

We went to the Staack/McDermont seminar last weekend. 10am-4pm of jiu jitsu Saturday and Sunday. There was a little bit of the campfire chit chat stuff but by and large we were moving most of that time. 

The first day was interesting. I felt like I couldn't really jiu jitsu. Paired with a white belt who was good but I just felt super dumb. Couldn't seem to execute anything very well. Might not have had enough nutrition or hydration on board, or maybe it was just stuff that is awkward for me. In any case, it got worse through day as we moved through instructors and techniques. Wasn't feeling too hot about things at the end of the day.

Next day was Hannette and that went much, much better. The difference in the type of energy from the instructors was noticeable which may have also had an impact. She's just such a positive, sweet person. 

Rolled with Hannette, Cindy, Hillary and some purple and blue belts. I kept making the same damned mistakes over and over with Cindy. That didn't feel too great. Hannette beat the crap out of me, but she did that with everyone so I felt a little less bad about that. I did well with Hillary and the purples and blues. The range of skill was really pretty amazing and good to feel every now and again.

Utterly fatigued by the time we left. Really happy that I went. I might have made a deal that if Hannette does Master's that I will too. :p

Worlds

What an experience.

Weight was a concern, as I was hovering right where I needed to be a week or two beforehand. It was close though, and I would have much rather had several pounds cushion but I didn't. Flew in Thursday night, compete Friday night. Checked my weight Friday afternoon and was one tenth of a pound over with my gi over my cargo shorts, which had a bunch of crap in the pockets. I figured that I was probably a half pound under, but that didn't leave me much leeway to eat or drink. 

The vibe in the building was intense, so I decided to spend the bulk of the afternoon sitting in a quiet grassy spot away from the venue. I tried to nap and not worry about the fact that I wasn't competing until 6pm on an empty stomach (no food the night before either). It was a loooooooong wait. Other than nutrition I felt pretty peaceful about the whole thing. Ended up with a bit of a sunburn, but didn't realize it until I got back to the hotel that night.

Finally it's time to at least go in the building. Walter and Chris were both there, which was cool for coaching but frustrating in that I felt like I had to spend time with them when I would have rather been prepping on my own. Stretched a bit on the mats under bleachers. Walter tried to warm me up but was not helpful to my confidence at all. I was already feeling like I was exerting too much and getting out of breath, and again tried to not stress about lack of nutrition. 

Decide to go weigh in so that I could at least have some water, and came in at 160.6. Good grief, that's a fair amount of food and water that I could have consumed. Again, poor planning on my part by not weighing myself with compression gear instead of shorts. Gi passes no problem and it's on to the mat. 

No real plan to start the match. I figured I would try to gi drag, but I didn't really try at all and ended up in guard. Pretty quickly got swept and thought 'oh shit, this is really, really bad'. Managed to recover to a decent half guard and then full guard. Knew I had plenty of time to work, so stayed patient and didn't panic. She inexplicably kept putting her hands high on my collar, so I tried trapping a side and flower sweep. Didn't really commit to it though and failed. Tried to trap her arm a second and a third and got it good enough to attempt an arm-bar. She stood up but I had a good grip and finished. Was so damned excited to get a win.

I knew that I had about an hour until my next match, so I hung out near the mat. Sat for most of the time, again worried about conserving energy. I was keeping an eye on the order of fights and it looked like there would be a blue belt match and then my next one. But no, they scrapped the blues so I got called up sooner than I thought. I had done a light warm-up, but wasn't really warm. Went out, she pulled guard immediately. Another quick sweep. Damn it. I couldn't really get to a good half guard though, as she was already in a knee cut position and making life difficult. I kept fending off the knee cut but not really improving the position. Almost came up for a sweep once, couldn't complete. Had a kimura at one point and should have really wrenched it, but didn't and she was able to escape and keep top position. Eventually she passed, got to side control and a great lapel grip that finished with a choke.

I was bummed that I lost and felt like I wasn't really doing jiu jitsu or implementing what I know at all, but overall happy that I went down and tried. Talking to Chris and Walter after the match though made me feel worse, as Walter said I made kid mistakes and Chris mentioned like eighteen different things I did wrong. They weren't trying to bring me down, but it made me feel like I was a crappy brown belt. Later on I felt better after time had passed and I talked to James on the phone the next day. 

Watching the black belt matches on Sat and Sun was freaking awesome. Definitely a top five if not number one jiu jitsu experience I've had. I was so, so happy that I decided to fly out Monday morning instead of Sunday night, otherwise I would have missed a bunch of the finals. 

Overall I'm really happy that I went. I dearly wish I could have brought home a medal, but in the end I'm proud that I tried and can say that I had a submission victory at brown belt Worlds. That's not nothing.

Taking Notes

I'm back to taking notes after (almost) every class. Transcribing it to html and mind mapping it. Don't know if it will help, but it can't possibly hurt.

Had a weird week last week when it came to rolling. Partly due to the "rule" that you could only win by back or mount. No submissions. Loser had to do jumping jacks between rounds. It's a good way to mix up rolls a bit, but I just wasn't in the spirit of it. On one memorable occasion, my partner kept forgetting the goal of the roll and was willingly giving up back or mount. -_-

It's very weird to have your teammate and coach mention in casual conversation that I'm almost a black belt. Like...wtf? It was especially fun when James mentioned my availability for private lessons, how great I am with details, fundamentals, etc and then I have a quick roll with Ben who took my back and sank in a choke pretty damned fast. A bunch of people were watching, which was the galling part. Seriously James, stop giving me any sort of praise in class. 

Aside from that, rolls have been ok. I feel like I need to up the intensity again, and was helped out by my bestie on Saturday who will hopefully be able to train with some regularity again. She might even do Worlds as well if her back allows it. 

I feel like I need to get in high reps of drilling, something, anything to build muscle memory. No one has been doing advanced class, which was the best avenue for that sort of thing. I could get some reps before or after classes. 

Teaching has been going ok. Classes are 25+, which seems like a lot of people when you look around the room. I think my instruction is going well, but I must get tired of talking b/c I never end class the way I'd like. It's very abrupt and I'd like to drop some non-technique knowledge. Need to come up with something ahead of time and stick with it instead of assuming that everyone would like for me to zip it.

Uh Oh

If I want to do adult Worlds it has to be this year. So........ off I go!

Shit.

Video Review

I was fortunate enough to be able to watch a high quality video of my match. How I remembered it happening isn't quite how it went down. I got to the back early, but then fought in top half guard for awhile before securing a pass and multiple back-controls at the end of the match. Some things I'd like to improve upon:

• Be more patient setting up submissions. I could have taken a bit more time to get good grips for the bow and arrow, get my legs in the right position, etc. I rushed it and it cost me a chance to finish.

• Figure out how in the hell to pull an advantageous guard so I can work open guard instead of having them immediately in top half guard. It worked out ok in this match, but I'd rather play open than half.

• When standing, don't hunch over so much. Lifting has helped with maintaining a more neutral spine in a variety of positions, but my shoulders were still too far forward of my hips.

• Stop being a ninny and do absolute. If I go into a tournament planning on doing it regardless, I think that would help.

I was shot from the trip so didn't do class yesterday. Back at it tomorrow, possibly with a double. Back to lifting and conditioning on Thursday. So very happy to be home.

Pans

One other competitor in my division. I was determined to walk out to the mat fully warmed up from a vigorous solo exercise in the warm-up room. That didn't happen. I was in the warm-up room, but found that trying to get myself warm in time with when I was likely going to compete was too much for my brain to handle. I did some stretching, shrimping, back rolls and such, but that was it. I was down there plenty early, but just trying to get the timing of it was too much to think about.

I walked out to the bullpen with about 4-5 matches in front of me. Gi check and weight no problem, I think I was at least 4lb under with my shoes on. I'm also pretty sure the scales were light. Walked out to the mat and had the remainder of the current match to jump around a bit and try to get warm. 

Match starts and I try to get a good grip on her hands so that I could do a gi drag takedown. Had a good grip on her collar once, but her countering grips were threatening enough that I didn't attempt the drag. We fussed around for a bit and I decided that instead of a standup grip fight that I had decent enough grips to pull. I ended up in half guard immediately but had the underhook, so I was able to quickly work up to a dog-fight position before things got too bad. Tried and tried to tackle and grapple but she stayed upright. For whatever reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to try to jump to her back. I got one hook in while she was on all fours, but I was higher on her back then I would have liked. She was doing a good job of listening to her coach and started to work my hook out, so I hucked us off to the side onto the mat. Got my second hook in and tried to work the back. Came close on a bow and arrow but did an absolutely awful job of trying to finish it. Got to mount and possibly the back again. She was able to get to half guard, and I think the remainder of the match was me trying to stay on top and work a pass which I don't think I ever completed.

Aside from the botched bow and arrow and not being able to pass her half guard, I'm happy with the match.

Jason did absolutely amazing in his matches, pulling guard and getting a triangle on three guys before seeing the other side of a triangle in the finals. Jamie had a couple of grinding matches and then finished the final with a north/south choke to take the gold. They were going at the same time that I was called for absolute, and I was too spent from the emotions of their matches that I had no desire to do absolute. Truth be told, I had no desire to do absolute anyway. Jason and Jamie got their brown belts on the podium, with James giving Jamie my belt. Seeing those guys compete and get promoted was the absolute highlight of the weekend.

The Work is Done

Leave tomorrow for sunny and warm California!

I feel much better about my preparation this year than last year. Probably my best prep ever. Whether that translates into wins remains to be seen, but I'm going to be peaceful about it regardless. I've lost close to 15lb in less than 3 months. Training with purpose has helped me focus and roll with more intensity, which has translated into more progress (I think). I started taking notes again and transcribing them into the visual mapping system that I used to use frequently. 

Most importantly, jiu jitsu has been mostly fun again.

Pans Prep II

Weight loss has been going pretty well. Depending on the day and the gi, I'm at weight now. Hoping to lose another 2lb so that I don't have to stress about weight. After several sessions with James, I'm feeling a little better about my take-down game plan, guard and passing. I've been able to use some of it during rolls. 

I had a great roll with Jason S. last week where I got a legitimate sweep on him, something I haven't been able to accomplish in I don't even know how long. Had a very demoralizing roll with a blue belt a day later that had me very bummed on jiu jitsu. But he gives James problems as well, so I need to chill.

In general I'm feeling decent with the rolls. They aren't fantastic, but I feel like the prep and mindset that I have this year is better than last year. I'm looking for hard rolls and trying to push myself at the end of each round to finish in a good position. Had a roll with Jason W. yesterday that was very frustrating. He sat in top side control and was trying to bait me to separate my elbows from my body. Of course I'm not going to do that, but I couldn't budge him to escape either. We were in a stalemate for awhile until I finally tried a big explosive movement out and he capitalized for a submission. 

I've been sticking with the weight lifting twice a week. It's working well, and I feel like I'm able to maintain whatever gains I've made in the past several months. I can't wait until my gym is in a garage or shop space instead of in the house.

Pans Prep

I've been fortunate to get some privates with my instructor leading up to Pans. Last week we went over passing, because I'm just having a hell of a time with good DLRs. Of course, it almost always comes back to grip breaks, but he explained two breaks down for me in a way that I didn't get before that has already helped. 

I'm being a dumdum and stepping right into DLR, getting entangled and then struggling. I shouldn't be surprised.

This week we went over leg locks because I'm so wildly deficient in that area. I wasn't sure when I should try to turn my knee away and when I should try to pull my leg out. Turns out that it's pretty simple...if you can't turn your knee, pull your leg out. :p We covered several positions, including 50/50, back step pass and some standing. He had some great tips for avoiding bad spots in the first place.

My hope is that I'll be able to incorporate this stuff into my game for the long haul. I hate when I get a lesson on something, it seems great and then a year and half later I'm all "gee I wish I knew how to do that thing". 

Rolls have been so-so. Some good ones, I'm making progress with pushing the pace a bit. Others I'm just getting totally stymied and lose a bit of confidence. Need to learn from that and remember just how fun this is. FUN.

Bestie is Back

Training has been going fairly well the past month. Consistent 3-4 days a week, ramping up to 6 days a week because my bestie is back on the mats. I'm loathe to give up the morning class, so doubling up on Mon & Wed. I felt a bit like a wreck on Thursday, but better on Friday.

I had great rolls on Monday and I felt competitive with Jason S. We had a real back and forth roll in which he submitted me but I was able to get and hold a dominant position after we reset. It's the first time in a really, really long time that I've been competitive with him. Wednesday morning was a different tale, as he pretty much wrecked me. I had Jason, Sol and Chaz back-to-back-to-back. Not much went my way for most of the day.

I finally decided to do Pans. It's a good motivator for losing the weight that I put on last year. I've been eating better (and less) since the beginning of January and have had a slow but steady progression of weight loss. I'd like to make it down to medium heavy, but I don't think that's going to happen. I don't want to compete against Nika (and only Nika) for the third year in a row, so I might go to adult. I'll probably get mauled, but at least I'll get mauled by someone new.

My mindset is pretty good so far. I'm not overly stressing about it, and really keeping the fact that jiu jitsu should be fun in the forefront of my mind. We'll see how that pans out. Get it? "Pans out"? I kill me.

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.