The Revolution event is three weeks from today.
In the six weeks leading up to the competition, I've trained seven times in the first three weeks. Nine would have been ideal. Eight forgivable.
Using Lloyd Irvin's notion that it takes 21 times to fix a bad habit, I thought that 21 classes that were tournament prep was a nice metric. Nine classes in the first six weeks and twelve in the second six would have gotten me there.
So I'm liable to fall short. I'd still like to get in the twelve trainings in the second six weeks, which means four classes a week for three weeks. That would be a perfectly fine 19. Even eighteen, which would work out to an average of three classes a week for six weeks, would be forgivable.
Mondays seem very doable, as do Wednesday when I do my work prep thoroughly the night before. Tuesday is the better night to train compared to Thursday. And it remains to be seen if I can get in there on Friday. Saturdays will be nice when I can get them. Maybe once a month, if I'm lucky.
A big issue: the weight. I was 170.4 with the gi before class. And 161.4 without the gi afterwards. I figure that nine pounds was about half gi and half water weight. It is a night-before weigh-in (thank God!), so I can push it in the final week if I have to. But I do need to get down below 154.5 to be sure of making the lightweight division.
I wouldn't be surprised if I end up getting grouped in with the 164.5 and under. But I want to get nicely under 155 in any event. My last tournament weight was at about 156 or something, and I felt great on the mat.
I think when I'm keeping my water intake up, not getting out of control on the weekends and training at least three times a week, I'm okay. I need to start taking more dietary advantage of working from home--instead of just the conditioning advantage (which is not bad, at all. Though more on that later ...). Rebecca made an unbelievable salad of garbanzos, red beans, and cooked carrrots in an olive oil, red wine vinegar and dill viniagrette this week. THAT'S the kind of food I need to eat more of. And bringing the regular green salads back into the lunch mix wouldn't hurt, either.
Given how disasterous the weekends tend to be, let's see if I can get on the official scale on Monday before class and weigh what I weighed after class today: 161.4. That would be a huge accomplishment, and nicely kick off the three-week cutting period. I'm basically looking to lose about 2.5 pounds a week--doable, with some discipline. If I can get to 161.4 before Monday's class, there's a good chance I'll drop 2.5 pounds by the time I'm done training that day ...
I mentioned getting back to the conditioning issue. The LSD workouts are fine. But I need to be doing regular T and Berardi workouts. I should probably do 3T as my morning routine on training days, and extend it to the 39 workout on days I'm not training. But the short, intense interval work has got to be more in the mix. My recovery overall is not bad during training. But I'm lacking the GO in sparring, and I get initially--especially by a lot of the young 'n' hungry three-stripe white belt types. Three weeks of more appropriate conditioning and regular training should help fix that.
Technically, I'm moving back to the half-guard on the bottom, and abandoning Rap Star for a focus on butterfly/Cobra guard sweep work. I think this is the way to optimize my attributes, to simplify and specialize a litle bit this year. From the top, I'm still prefering the Saulo double-attack and the armlocks from crossbody (keylock, kimura, far side).
