Saturday, February 04, 2012

Training Day: Saturday

A very hard training session today, conditioning-wise. I hadn't planned on getting the chance to train today, but when the opportunity popped up, I couldn't help but jump at the shot.

Led by Prof. Rodrigo, we started off with arm drags against a standing opponent, using the hip split to throw your legs to the outside and then "climbing" up the guy's arm and leg. I was finishing in a back drop/high crotch position most of the time, with my head on the outside. But I really liked using the hip split to both get the legs out of the way and to set up the "stand" that helps you come up to the top.

Getting back to your feet from the guard was the theme of today's training. We worked next on a butterfly sweep to what I used to call a Cobra guard stand up. I had some trouble getting enough space to adjust my leg back for the standup, so that's something I'll have to work on.

The last technique that we worked on was getting into X-guard from butterfly, using a deep underhook on the leg. This was a very nice one for me, and something I'll probably use when I get in the very inside.

We did several rounds of specific training, focusing on attacking with the butterfly guard for six minutes at a time while taking on fresh (or relatively fresh) passers. Good work here. And we finished up with some Live Training, me getting in 8-min rounds with Ron, Prof Rodrigo and Prof. Carlos.

With Saturday being my last training of the week, I got in my HICT (high intensity continuous training) with a five-minute session of technical lifts followed by a five-minute session of hipscape laps. Both were fairly brutal - my quarter-minute HRs were above 40 after both sets. But it's the kind of thing I can build up over time into something that will be very, very beneficial to my overall conditioning.

158.8 on the scale, post-train.