All day it felt as if I hadn't trained for months. But the closer I got to heading out: folding and packing my gi, filling up my Gatorate thermos, double-checking that I didn't forget my eye patch ... the more I felt among the familiar.
Home is home because it feels like home. That's how you know you're in the right place. Everything about the drive felt great. I put on Sugar's Beaster for old time's sake - though I'm sticking with the new route straight up 4th Avenue. My favorite Temple of the Dog cuts on the ride back ...
The coursework was the butterfly guard. We started with the basic butterfly sweep/lift rolling directly backwards. Rodrigo then added a hook sweep: first, by planting the sweep side arm and escaping to a knee as you maintain the hook for the sweep. Shoot the escaped knee underneath you as lean back, pull on the arm and lift with the hook.
The variation had us move to the sweep after the back roll without planting the arm first. The thing to remember is that you've got a lot of time when you get the guy up in the air on the back roll lift. You want to make sure that your hips are out of the way, that you are turning your body as he comes back down - in fact, you should probably start the hook just as he is about to come back into contact with the mat in a short of shearing action (Rickson style).
Rolled with Rodrigo, once for about ten minutes and then again for maybe 5 or 6. I waa pleasantly surprised that my cardio was in decent shape. I also made a pretty concerted effort to mix in a lot of standing guard pass attempts instead of just trying to stuff the hook and then stuff the knee.
Best of all, I finally managed to get out of Rodrigo's mount for a change. I had been thinking on the drive over about how important it was for me to get better at the basic escapes. I watched a little Saulo on escapes from rear mount before driving over and, while I was in the car, made a mental note to really fight to get out of mount with a consistent bump-bump-twist action the next time I got caught. Tonight was a pretty good example of how well it can work when I get it to work.
Going to see Some Like it Hot at the Metro tomorrow night, so my plan is to be back on the mat Thursday night. I think (read: hope) I've missed enough time being sick on the sidelines to last me for awhile.
