First Cindy class in almost a month. Since the tournament is about a week and a half away, Cindy had us work guard/pass guard and then sparring for both the gi and no gi classes. In both instances, we did extensive standup - another tournament prep bonus. I was struggling cardio-wise more than I would have liked, though I was effective enough with my picks off the collar tie with both gi and no gi. The trick is really to commit and get low - fatigue meant I was going for the knee a lot more than I should have relative to the ankle (as Rene pointed out later in the session). But the lower I go, the easier it will be to get that ankle.
I need to make sure that I get my rest with nine days to go until the event - that and keeping my diet up. I've been getting away with about a meal and a half a day for the past several weeks and what I'm gaining by way of weight loss I may be losing in terms of energy. Even if I haven't been able to do the off mat conditioning I would have liked to do, training has been vigorous enough for me to be doing better than I am doing. A little more eating, and a lot more rest are a must for the next week and a half.
Very much looking forward to the weekend. I should be able to get in one more training session this week, hopefully tomorrow. I've got some questions for Rodrigo about the Leozinho pass, the one he showed us the day before the summer Revolution tournament, that pass that might have won me that first match if I had the opportunity to drill it a few more times (and remembered to use it when the opportunity came). I've noticed that a lot of guys are hipscaping out when I clamp down tight in the guard. The Leozinho - and the bear hug pass - are great options when that happens.
One thing that Cindy's classes always expose is my horrifically weak hip flexors. Scissor kicks, flutter kicks, even the triangle conditioning drill ... all of them are among the hardest jiu jitsu calisthenics we do. I'm going to have to integrate those into my matwork routine - or as a separate routine, maybe combined with armoplatas and hook sweeps to really murder my hips and quads. It's clearly one of my weak spots.
153.0 on the scale after class. I was actually 160.2 in the gi before class, well under the IBJJF lightweight max of 167.5, but still way too heavy for the featherweights at 154. If I ever end up at the Pan Ams one of these years, it will definitely be as the former.
