Saturday, April 09, 2011

Training Day: Saturday

Today was the seminar for Prof Christiano. It was great to see the entire academy packed - both mats - with students from white belt all the way up.

I got there a little late. But it seemed as if they had some of the brown belts helping the lower belts with some of the techniques the black belts were sharing. Rather than try and steal a partner from some pair, I figured I'd just go ahead and follow Jeff B.'s lead and help some of the guys - mostly the white belts - with the new moves.

That was a lot of fun. Having been off the mats for a week, just being back in the "ocean" again was incredibly refreshing. Seminars are as much opportunities for reunion as they are anything else, IMO, so any technical tips I pick up are often just a bonus. It's nice a great opportunity to feel the energy and to be reminded of being a part of something that is in many ways just in its infancy (at least here in the U.S.).

I got a chance to get a little rolling in, training for about 15-20 minutes or so with Daniel. He showed me a nice Andre Galvao move to combat the knee cross pass that is a bit less complex than some of the versions I've been working with lately that involve a lot of lapel control. I'll have to make sure to work on it some the next time the opportunity comes up.

165.0 on the scale in the gi, post-train. And while there is a part of me that would love to knock another five pounds off that number, there's nothing not to like about being 2.5 pounds under more than a month out.