I took a week off after the tournament. No training, no working out, no nothing. I figured I deserved it after competing twice in three weeks.
"Deserved it" is an interesting way to put it. I feel a little worked over tonight, a little over an hour and a half after training. My last ten-minute spar, with the young Brazilian guy who injured his arm at the last GB Seattle intramurals, was a real battle - one which featured me getting guillotined from the closed guard within the first few minutes. I think the last guy who got that on me was Andrew, now a brown belt, during one of the first times we ever rolled back at Tully's.
My shoulder is a little achy, and though it was far from the worst leg cramps I've gotten, my left leg just didn't seem to be getting the juice it needed. Then again, the cramps didn't hit until my final roll, so my hydration was really just a little short of the minimum required.
Did some good work against the closed guard. Lindsey did a great job of exposing my mistakes when trying to stand, particularly by breaking my posture every time I leaned forward. It was impressive - almost educational, like rolling with Casey or Rodrigo or Cindy. It will be good to roll with Lindsey more often over the next nine weeks.
The same can be said of Stephen, though I'm a little more accustomed to rolling with him than Lindsey. The results are similar and I'm spending most of the time fending off submissions and trying to escape from bad, bad positions. But they are good rolls, mostly because rather than just being overwhelmed, I'm being exposed error by error.
Then again, maybe that's the way it is with all of the rolls. Getting my guard passed by the Brazilian guy reminded me that I must, must, must improve my armdrag and cobrinha attack if I'm going to play a Marcelo-style, butt-scoot butterfly guard. In fact, I'm going to make that a priority for the next nine weeks: at least nine armdrag attempts per training. They can be standing, from the guard, from the half-guard, doesn't matter as long as I get nine good attacks in. As far as I'm concerned, it's Armdrag City from now until the first day of fall.
Today was a 2/3/4 day, meaning I did my 45 minute workout (3T and Man Makers) around noon on a jiu jitsu training day. We'll see how long this holds up. Tomorrow ia a 3/4 day; I've got to do Berardis and an LSD9 to the tunes of Mars Volta. Will they feed us the womb, indeed.
