You've gotta love the way classes have been sewn together this week.
We've been working takedowns and opening the closed guard in the gi all week. The main takedowns have been the classic judo/jiu jitsu throws: ouchi gari and uchi mata. We've done them in the gi. Marcio, Rodrigo and Stephan. We've done these throws both as attacks and as counters.
What was nice about tonight was not only doing these throws (well, at least, uchi mata) no gi, but was also doing them as counters.
In the same way that Rodrigo, for example, had us counter a collar grab with either ippon seionage or koshi guruma, tonight Rodrigo had us counter an underhook in the clinch with an uchi mata.
We worked pummeling after a solid but not soul-melting warm-up. The uchi mata counter came after some of the pummeling. It reminded me of the Karo Parisyan judo-to-MMA DVDs I've seen over at groundfighter. As is the case with jiu jitsu, not everything in judo translated perfectly into no-gi situations. But a surprisingly large number of techniques do, including most of the basics. Tonight's class was another good example of that.
No gi guard opening was interesting. If I have a hard time maintaining posture with the gi, then I have an impossible time maintaining posture no gi. I tried the BJ Penn no gi guard opener and pass, the one that resembles the C.C. Grinder triangle choke escape. But success there was pretty limited. I refuse to do the "elbows jammed into inner thighs" guard opener on principle. But I had a decent time controlling the upper body by palming the collar bone just below the throat. Something to work on, for sure.
In sparring, I did some things well. Got a mata leao, a guillotine and two americanas from the bottom in guard. Casey caught me in one of those triangle chokes from mount that increasingly seem to be a weak spot for me (that was a key Cindy submission when we rolled). More than anything else, triangle chokes remain my biggest vulnerability when it comes to sparring these days ...
One things I did notice during class was that my cardio really seemed to have improved. That's good news, because I haven't been dropping the weight this week like I usually do. I started off the week around 167 or so and ended the week at 166 and change. That's crazy for a week in which I've trained three times.
I'm going to have to get stricter on my diet if I'm going to get under 160 before September. I'd like to not have to rely on constant working out in order to stay under 160 because I don't know how sustainable that will be over the months and years ... Ideally, training three times a week plus working out twice on Saturday and Sunday would do it--though I'm willing to throw in a Wednesday morning workout if necessary. But diet is the soft spot, and where my focus needs to be for the next few weeks.
On a positive note, the flexibility routine is working out great. I managed to follow the routine to a T every night since Sunday the 12th. I'm already starting to notice some slight, slight results.
