A really great class on Friday. I had planned to come early and stay late and I did, getting to SoDo around 11 am and staying until almost 2 pm.
Admittedly, the weather was great, one of the hottest days of the year, and given that Friday was the first day of a three-day weekend, it would have taken a pretty hefty measure of tragedy to dampen my mood much. All that said it was a great day of training and rolling. I got to train with Bryan (who I never get to roll with unless I train on Fridays) as well as Stephen, Connor, Jared and Maggie, who was in town from San Francisco and stopped by the academy. It's been a regular reunion week with Tommy returning to the mat midweek and then Maggie appearing on Friday ...
The instructional was mostly clinch work, with a conditioning edge. Rodrigo has developed a style of showing us three techniques that we work on one by one. Then, to finish up, he has us work back through the three to help improve the body memory and recall. Today, we worked mostly on clinch work. We pummeled for awhile, then trained a step back and re-under hook as a counter to the double unders, then a third move where you stepped back but then brought up the forearm against the neck to help drive the guy away.
Also, in what might have been a nod to Royler's self-defense work in his recent seminar, Rodrigo has us do a "plum" escape, an escape from the muay Thai plum that Anderson Silva has used with such devastating effect (especially against Rich Franklin).
First off, block any incoming knees by reaching up and hooking on top of the opposite plum arm. For me, it was easiest to reach up with my right hand and hook on top of his right arm, with my elbow pointed down to block any knee strikes. From here, step back with that same side leg so that you are in an open stance. As you do this, drive your other arm between him and his plum grip. It is a combination punch/stiff-arm type of move.
Bring that arm through and down, and wrap it back around his back as you either clinch or go in for a shoot on the legs.
As far as tatame notes go, SRO gets an "A" for effort. It's really just a matter of making it a regular part of what I do - along with the Flat Pass. Bryan swept me out of the Flat Pass when I leaned too far back instead of doing the "hand on a clock" rotation that Justin Garcia talks about in his video clip. But I did manage to have some success with it later. I also tried to switch too quickly to the Twist out of a Tackle half guard sweep with Jared and missed the move. I've got to remember that what makes the Twist such a devastating sweep when it works is the fact that I've felt the momentum correctly and waited for the moment before switching. Going too early just ends up in trying to muscle the move over (not a good idea with someone like Jared).
Like I said, a really great day on the mat - no doubt boosted by the fact that it was the first day of a summertime holiday weekend. The mat was packed, Rodrigo had to let us spar in Group A / Group B style because there were so many people there to train. Maybe I would feel differently if I were regularly in one of those notorious NYC jiu jitsu classes with 150 people or something, but there's nothing more fun than training when there is a huge turnout with a big range of sizes, experience and style. That's part of what makes seminars so much fun. I remember Cristiano's seminar from a few months back, where you could line all four walls with people from white belt to black belt. It was like some house party from the 90s.
I doubt that I'll train on Saturday (which is too bad; I need to make the Saturday before a tournament a must-train afternoon). But Friday was just the kind of session I need before competition week gets going on Monday. My plan is to train Monday through Thursday, take Friday off and weigh-in later that evening. I'm not entirely convinced that the 153.2 I got on the scale post-training is to be trusted. Then again, I hadn't eaten anything all morning but a Clif Bar (crunchy peanut butter, if you're curious) and have been increasingly disciplined about my diet in recent days. So maybe I'm already dipping into the Revolution's lightweight zone of 154.9-140. Pretty crazy to start the week at 166 and end it at 153 (a 7% drop).
Conditioning-wise, I'm doing LSD every other day into Thursday. Friday will be all about sweating out any few remaining pounds (Martell: "Do Not Burn Glycogen"). Watching some track and field on cable this afternoon, I was reminded at the sharp physique difference in top athletes as you move from the sprint competitions (100m and 200m) to the so-called "distance" competition (800m and 1500m), and how that reflects on the relative importance of aerobic conditioning over anerobic for all but the most short term of activities. I feel great when I'm doing regular LSD, which has not been often enough. I think that genetically I'm tuned more toward the power, fast twitch (think Olympian sprinter Michael Johnson or judoka Rhadi Ferguson) way of generating energy. Anything I do that takes me in the other direction (toward the Ethiopian) will only help balance and extend my ability to perform.
