Not really, but I did help Bryan teach the Monday class today.
Ironically enough, Bryan had led the class of about five or six white belts in the crossover sweep, my favorite sweep. Because there was a new guy, Bryan switched to work specifically with him, and asked me to show them the scissors sweep, my least favorite sweep.
It was nice to teach it, in large part because it gave me a great opportunity to practice it. It's really a great, versatile sweep that works well out of the open guard. And I think the minutes spent today teaching it have convinced me to make it a bigger part of my open guard game.
I remember Shaka sweeping me with open guard scissor sweeps all the time. Lately, Stephan has been catching me with them more often than anybody else.
Pretty good training (Rodrigo was out sick). Definitely implementing the standing guard pass, including two PTMUs (one against a significantly larger sparring partner) that resulted in total guard passes. I need to be serious about this whenever I'm confronted with someone who just won't open his or her guard: stand. Stand. STAND.
John Howell got his purple belt the other day--apparently in the same "surprise!" way that I got my two stripes. John is a long, Jesse-like grappler with some incredible ink. I thought he felt like a purple belt when we sparred for the first time months ago: solid fundamentals, not a lot of wasted movement ... You can really see and feel the signature of guys (& gals) who are destined for higher levels.
I'm looking to train at least four times this week, if not another five of a kind. Today's weigh-in was sub-perfect at 162.2, but I did manage to get to sleep at 10 p.m. Sunday night, which was a record early number. I think more than anything else right now--more than additional cardio, additional resistance work, additional supplements, additional circuit training--getting at least seven hours a sleep a night will make a tremendous difference in everything.
Ultimately, that means hitting the sack at 9:30 in order to guarantee seven hours. And I'm working on it. But getting into bed last night at 10 was something I've been thanking myself for ever since.
