Not a bad night of training, though the same problems remain.
There's no point in getting glum two days into an eight-week training camp. With any luck, I'll be on the mat at least two more times this week, so there is plenty of time even this week to start getting on a plan to fix what ails. But, for now, I'm a little annoyed, a little impatient and a little worn out.
We worked on the morote seionage, the one-arm shoulder throw as the takedown warmup/instructional. The set up was a counter to the lapel grab. You reach up and grab the attacking arm (the one that has the lapel) right at the triceps. Step back with your outside foot and lean your attacked shoulder forward to whizzer the situation a little bit and to keep him from getting access to your body or far leg (for a Jacare type takedown).
With that outside foot, you step in deep to a reverse pivot, swinging your free/outside arm under the guy's attacking arm (the lapel grab arm and squatting down as your turn your back to the guy and go for the throw.
I worked this at top speed with Shawn, who was hanging out but not training. Shawn was great to help me out - training me both left and right, which was very helpful.
After quite a while with that, we worked on the 180 drill just like Monday night. I was able to mix in with Connor and Juan, and got some good work in here.
Rodrigo finished things off with a guard pass. He used the basic opening on knees, one hand grabbing the lapels, one hand on the hip bone, one knee pinches in toward the middle and the other knee goes out perpendicular. Bow your back out and pop the guard open.
From here, Rodrigo had us crouch down low with your hands between the guy's legs but no deeper that the wrist or forearm to avoid being drawn into a triangle choke. From here you do a basic underhook pass, stepping up with your back foot to give your the mobility to move forward and put your other knee behind the guy's back.
What you want to be careful of is "reaching" for the collar. Instead, you want to move your body up so that you can do a very short T-Rex style grab for the far collar. Maintain your posture, using your hips and chest to press the up leg forward and away from you as you pass.
The variation on this was in case the guy was able to heavy leg you and prevent you from getting around the leg. Here, then, you want to swing around the other way, clamping the guy's other leg down on the mat with your kneed, hooking the head and backstepping around the other side.
Tatame was a mixed bag. I struggled mightily against Connor in both the side control specific (me on bottom) and in passing his guard. I still don't have a routine when it comes to passing the guard. Daniel Coyle would say that my guard passing circuitry is slow where it is not entirely non-existent. Again, there is plenty of time to fix these problems (I'm giving myself four weeks or the first half of my training camp.
As I said at the outset, I need to be wary of making premature evaluations of what I'm doing. I should probably consider myself lucky in that I am able to identify what is holding me back pretty accurately. The challenge now, of course, is to figure out a path beyond it - and the sooner the better.
No scale, but about 152 when I got home. That includes some rehydration, but I think the number is pretty legit. I'm not necessarily trying to drop any lower than 150 this far out. For the first time in a long time, I might actually have to start making sure I take in enough "quality" calories every couple of days.
A short practice on the schedule tomorrow. I'd toyed with the idea of taking Wednesday off and training Thursday, but in all likelihood it will be the other way around.
