Some institutions have years that begin and end on months different from the calendar year. In my jiu jitsu world, the "year" begins in August.
And as with all new years, resolutions must be made. For the 2010-2011 jiu jitsu year, one of those resolutions will be to drill 1, 000 armbars a month, every month.
I'll be looking to split those armbars between armbars from the guard and armbars from other locations (mount and knee on belly, especially). But the meta-goal for this project is to develop an armlock from the guard that is as automatic as anything else in my game.
If I train 15-16 times a month, then my 1,000 armbars a month goal means drilling about 60 armbars a night - again, with half from the closed guard and the other half from dominant positions.
I look at it, in part, like this: if you do weight training after jiu jitsu (as "Zen Machine" Mario Sperry used to advise), then you might do 3 sets of 10 reps of about 3-5 different exercises max. That comes to between 90-150 work reps - far more than my goal of 60 armbars a day.
This will require more than a little help. John helped me get in 30 armbars last Friday (3 sets of 10). Today, we trained a little late and nobody even looked remotely like they had the juice to keep going. So I'll admit that I don't expect to be able to get in the other 970 before Septemer 1st ...
But with a little kindness from not-too-exhausted teammates and a prorated target near 300, my mark may be made after all.
