Managed to slip away for about an hour and a half or so of training on Friday. Fortunately, we were continuing to work on passes against advanced guard like the spider guard and the spider guard with DLR hook.
I got to class late, but was still able to at least work two of the Moves of the Day with bot Pat and Alex, who was suffering from scary-looking back aches for much of the session.
Both passes were against the spider guard with DLR hook. #1 was a turn and pivot attack where you look to fold the guy's leg over after turning into his DLR hook. With DLR hook on your right leg, for example, you step back and forth a bit to test his hook then, while swimming your spidered arm under and tucking your elbow, and checking the DLR hook with your other hand, you step wide and around with your free leg and turn in a 9 to 12 noon motion so that you are facing the guy at a perpendicular angle.
#2 was very similar, but was in case you had a hard time breaking the DLR hook. Here, the trick is to turn the knee of the DLR'd leg inside and kick to the inside to free the hook. From here, #2 is essentially the same as #1 in terms of folding the leg over.
Did a little specific work before calling it a day. Rolled with Brian, who I haven't been able to trade with, and he did a good job in passing my guard with the underhook pass that we've been working on, as well as sweeping me with a modified flower sweep off an armlock attack.
I did a little de-briefing on that underhook pass, reminding myself later on the specific counter (push off the shoulder and hip, elbow escape away and drop your knee down). My error with the sweep was in not controlling the hips after I went to the standing squat.
This was probably the worst week of training I've had in awhile. Looking back, it wasn't quite the disaster it seemed at mid-week - thanks largely to the training on Thursday and today. And its better to have a bad training week in week six of your eight-week training camp compared to deeper in.
All the same, with 5Weeks Out starting on Sunday and 20-25 training sessions to go, I need to start tightening up my guard pass strategy and guard strategy. Training next week should have a pre-competition intensity to it to help me gear up for the Invitational tournament on Saturday. I'll also start the cardiac power/threshold training segment of my conditioning next week, which should also help me dial in to training a little better.
