Before starting a training session, opt for training-specific warm-up exercises, mimicking moves you would use in Jiu-Jitsu. Jumping jacks and those short-motiohn abdominal crunches, leg-raises or lateral crunches have been played out for ages.--The white page, Gracie Magazine, January 2011, #165
First day back on the mat in a week (no dispatch last Wednesday).
Prof Carlos had us doing a different type of warm-ups to get things started. Old school running, some Arte Sauve moves down the mat (i.e. Granby rolls, which I can actually do years after Stephan first showed them to me), and then a series of partnered alternating triangles, omoplatas and armbars against standing for about 2 minutes each. The armbars were especially brutal insofar as they required the most vertical hip extension. But I'm hoping those drills become a more common part of our warmup - they are similar to (though infinitely better) my "chair jiu jitsu" drills where I drape a gi jacket over the back of a weighted chair and go to work attacking with armbars and omoplatas from the guard.
Over the next few days, I'm trying to get a running start on some goals and habits for 2011. Without making too much of it, I'd like to do better in some critical areas and think I've got plenty of time to make that happen. To the degree that the time spent from white through brown belt is all about building what I like to call a "black belt version" of yourself, there are still a few major aspects of that self to be constructed and there's never as much time as there used to be.
159.6 on the scale, post-train, everything but the coat. Consistently sub-162 post train weight-ins are another goal for 2011.
