All Straight Outta Tatame on Saturdays ... nothing but open mat rolling and both familiar and unfamiliar faces.
I got to roll with Jeff, one of the original guys from back around the time I started training in the fall of 2005. He's back from double knee surgery that had kept him sidelined for almost a year. I also got to train with Clint, who's got an increasingly dangerous kneebar attack that I've had to be on the lookout for.
That accounted for about 15-20 minutes of training and I was thinking that maybe I should call it a day when Rodrigo encouraged me to ask for another roll. It was the perfect solution insofar as I got to roll with Stephen for about 10-15 minutes. As I've said before, Stephen is one of my favorite "new" people to roll with, plenty of give and take, and I feel like I get chance to work all parts of my game.
A very nice Saturday. I would have liked to hang out a bit afterward and listen to some of the goings-on. But I was a little on the clock and had to scurry our around 1 p.m.
That said, I'd love to be able to train every other Saturday. That could help boost my weekly training average to 3.5 times a week and really help me accelerate toward what I'm hoping might be a purple belt at the end of 2009. I'm going to have to really work - and have a whole year that is as good as this past week as been. But that's my "goal" for the coming year: if not to actually earn the faixa roxa then to at least start feeling like it wouldn't be the craziest thing in the world for me to earn one come December 09.
