A new change in the Thursday night class, due in part to the opening of the new Gracie Barra Bellevue next month. Starting tonight, we'll have a beginner's class, followed by a no gi open mat - instead of a no gi class.
I like the change. It was a little hard to get up for a whole second class after the Thursday night gi class. I'd started skipping the warm-up for the no gi class the past month or so and though the main reason was avoiding the impact of all that tumbling on my shoulder (and ankle and knee ...), I didn't mind a few more minutes "nothing" between the two rounds of instruction.
We focused almost exclusively on body motion in the gi class. Hipscapes, back2knees, and a move I'm calling the step slide that is another hip rotating/switching exercise/movement drill, sort of like a flat hip split.
I'm going to try and work some of that into my 3T routine, which I'll start this week as Week Three begins.
Again, no gi was open mat and I rolled with Benny for a good 20 minutes or so. Notes on my sparring in general in the weekly Straight Outta Tatame report.
