A smallish class tonight. And rather than additional instruction, Rodrigo devoted the entire class to specific work.
It is really one of my favorite types of classes to have every now and then. I worked with Travis as we did specifics for side control, rear mount, mount and closed guard. I think we did three minutes rounds, with each person getting to work from both positions twice.
We followed that up with some long sparring sessions, more than 7 minutes in most cases with two or three minutes rest in between. I can't remember all of my sparring, but I know I got in at least four separate rolls before calling it a night at quarter of seven.
I was checking my HR after each session, routinely clocking in between 120-140 bpm which is right in the aerobic zone I should be focused on in my LSD work. After each session I laid flat on my back which I read is the best way to lower your heart rate in between conditioning events. One of the things I've learned from Joel Jamieson over at 8 Weeks Out is how important a simple measure like your HR can both help you see exactly where your conditioning is and help you know adjust your training intensity to achieve conditioning improvements.
Technically speaking, I continued working the toe grab sweep from low half with good effect. The more I work out of the high half, the more opportunity and space I seem to have to shoot in for the underhook. My high half remains nothing to write home about. But already I'm starting to see it as enough of a distraction that it is giving me opportunities to transition to the low half and even the deep half.
The pass by crossover from low half is also something that is working well. I want to try it on some tougher guys. But it is a sweep I don't remember seeing anyone do at the academy over the years, so there's a chance I'll be introducing something newish to the GB Seattle jiu jitsu "construct," so to speak.
My mount and side control escapes are still on the rough side. I've got my techniques down, actually, I just need more mat time to get them nice and soaked into my muscle memory. Classes like tonight are great for that.
Not sure if I'll train tomorrow or Friday - or maybe both. April's target was 18, which would require training tomorrow night. But we'll see.
I am starting to feel the benefits of the increased training frequency. Including tournaments, I've trained at least four times a week since late March, which is a great pace considering I've managed to avoid even the fleeting injury (and yes, I did just knock on my wooden desk). I'm not doing anything incredible, and I still wish my conditioning were about 50% better (my goal is to get my in-between sparring HR down to 100-120 bpm by the first week of June and between 80-100 bpm by the first week of July).
But I'm starting to get used to being on the mat, a feeling I haven't had in earnest since the spring of 2007 (the great days of training with Bryan and Steve three times a week ...). And that's only likely to lead to good things.
157.6 on the scale. In the same way I always wish I had just one more hour every day, I'd love to be consistently about five pounds lighter than I am. My Monday night weigh-in goes from 163 to 158 ... Tonight's goes under 153 ... Considered that way, putting in the extra effort to "permanently" drop 5 pounds seems more than worth it.
