Tuesday, January 04, 2011

Training Day: Tuesday

Skills training was a repeat of the first two lessons from Monday's afternoon class: the sacrifice/backroll counters to the double leg and single leg. I actually did them a little better on Monday, in part because the pace picked up some on Tuesday and I got a little distracted trying to stay on track.

Good live training. I'm still working on guard passing from standing - a lot of smash pass, to be sure, but trying to keep the focus on leg v.s. leg battles. I'm also continuing to work on the transition from side control through crossbody into the mount.

From the bottom, deep half - half transitions are still the major theme, with an emphasis on getting into a sweeping position as quickly as possible instead of "surviving" on the bottom. Too often "surviving" means surviving just long enough for the guy on top to eventually figure out a way to put you in a bad position.

Very good address by Rodrigo at the end of class. The Sunday competition training is at probably the most inaccessible time of the week for me. But his points about taking training seriously based on your training goals was very worth hearing. Although my days of earning points for GB Seattle on the competition mats are probably in the past, I like the fact that he is honest and upfront about wanting to get back into first place at the Revolution this year. Too often there is a tendency to apologize for wanting to win tournaments and do well at "sport jiu jitsu." Whatever. Tournaments are an integral part of jiu jitsu's growth and a great opportunity to expose others to the art. So even if my days at the top of the medal podium are done, I will always be a big supporter and proponent of both competition and TRAINING for competition.

164.2 on the scale, not very impressive. We'll see if I can hit 162 by week's end.