Sunday, April 01, 2012

From Personal Bests to Pan Am Mania

As of this Saturday's training, where Prof. Rodrigo had us drilling both the lateral counter to re-grip against the spider guard and a move I'm calling the sprawl toreano, I'm 16 sessions for the month , 3.75x as my 4-week training average, and in pretty good position for my best quarter of training ever. I'll need to hit the mat 18 times in April in order to reach a new quarterly best (current personal best is 49x in three months), but I'm thinking it's doable with a little discipline. April has historically been a good training month for me, with two of my three best months in the past three years being April and May (both with 17x).

Already this has been my best third quarter. I'll only need to train six times in April to reach a new personal best for the "coming into spring" months of February, March, and April. No need to make excuses, but I've felt like it has been a real battle this year breaking out of hibernation mode and getting into the academy. There have been some illnesses, and the car breakdown last week. But when I step back and look at the numbers, they show pretty good attendance, all things considered.

That said, the current goal is to put a great deal more focus into my training. Saturday's session, both the instructional from Prof Rodrigo and some after-class work with Prof Kevin really helped put a few things into place. It didn't hurt to have the Pan Jiu-Jitsu tournament this weekend to keep the jiu-jitsu spirits in a giddy mood, and there was quite a lot I learned about watching everyone from blue belts to black belts give it their all on the tatame (sneak preview of lessons learned? Omoplatas are back. Bow and arrow chokes are the finish of champions. Never let the other guy get his grips.)

More on the goals later. A good, exciting and contemplative weekend of BJJ.