As Georges St. Pierre might say, I'm not impressed with my performance. I never really felt competitive. I lost in the grip fighting, control of the standup, the ability to escape bad positions ... I was just outclassed.
Ironically, I wasn't on top for a moment in either fight. It was the complete opposite of all ten of my previous matches as a white belt--wins and losses.
That means that I'm going to have to spend more time on the bottom, developing my guard. One thing training during the day has meant--and Rodrigo almost "warned" me about this--is that I don't spend very much time on my back and when I do, it is often in half-guard where I feel pretty comfortable defending myself in general (if not advancing my position ...)
Over the past six weeks leading up to the tournament, I trained 12 times. Three of those twelve times were evening sessions (when higher belts tend to train). That's a pretty low percentage (25%). I've got to increase that to at least 1/3 over the next few months. More rolling with tougher teammates is the goal between now and July.
More number crunching. In the six weeks leading up to the tournament, I averaged 2 training days a week. Ex-items (i.e., the week of the eye re-injury), that number goes up to 2.4. I think that's C average.
I need to change up my conditionng program to include more resistance circuit training and less LSD cardio. I don't think I was ever all that tired in my matches, both of which ran at least than four and a half minutes. I think my cardio was fine. I was just outworked, mostly by superior technique, but partially because I lacked a certain explosiveness to respond, to say nothing of attack.
I remember how dead my legs felt when I tried to put in some treadmill time on Friday. The soles of my running shoes kept scuffing the tread because I was barely picking my legs up high enough. This went on for a good two miles.
So I'm giving my legs a break from the cardio. At least a week, maybe two. After that, maybe once a week. If that.
That means a focus on the 3T and Berardi, the muscle endurance stuff I'd backed off from doing as regularly as the LSD. Walking out on the mats this morning, my legs still felt dead. I tried to do Marcelo's little jump thing to get me going before my first match. But it felt like it too more effort than it should have.
With regard to weight, my official weight was 159.4. If I'm going to keep competing at 155-169.9, then it just doesn't make sense for me to loiter around 160. I should either work to gain six or seven pounds of muscule--and maintain it--or do the work necessary to lose six or seven pounds so that I am weighing 153.4-154.4 come tournament time.
Although I love the idea of getting closer to 150, the truth of the matter is that I haven't weighed that little since 1999. I've managed to cut to as low as 158 or so for tournaments, which leads me to believe that I'm going to have to actually lose some meat as well as potatoes in order to get to the low 150s.
The similarities between my first blue belt tournament and my first white belt tournament are many. In both cases I lost by a finish, and was completely outclassed and overwhelmed in the process. In both cases, I was unable to get a stand-up game going, which is typically the best part of my jiu jitsu. In both cases, I competed at a higher weight than I would have preferred.
Competing under 155 will also help me establish a discipline about eating. If I know I've got room up into the low 160s, then there's a greater likelihood that I'll go off the rails and not feel the need to steer things back on track. I think that's especially a risk given the fact that I'm going to be cutting way back on the LSD cardio and amping up the resistance circuit training.
For all the crap that Crossfit takes, I think Crossfit workouts would be almost ideal for me at this point. I felt slow and heavy this morning when I should have felt light, fast and strong. More elf and less dwarf.
Whatever. Time to get back to work. There's plenty of time to train between today and the next event in July. I need to get my weekly average up above 3, preferably to 3.4, with 1/3 to 1/2 of each week's classes being at night where the big dogs roll.
