Live Training and Open Mat today. After what has seemed like forever off the mat, it's hard to describe how good it felt to get in some good training today. I could have easily trained for another hour.
I had a really nice training range today, especially insofar as I've been off the mat for a week. Tough guys all in Glen, Ron, Daniel, Doug, Alex and a bunch of others. But no black belts (Carlos, Shawn, Joel and Rodrigo were all training) and no time with either Lance or Casey, guys who are going to get their faixa pretas any day now or so it seems.
That allowed me to really ease back into the training routine, focusing on my most recent bread and butter in the deep half. I'm all entries and Homer Simpson sweeps right now. But I figure if I can keep one step ahead of efforts to counter the deep half, then I'll perennially be the better for it.
162.6 post train, street clothes, which is pretty damn good for a Saturday morning (though I did train calorie-restricted). Rodrigo laid out the competition schedule for the next several weeks, which includes the December 12th event (which is expanding beyond the Marcelo Alonso/Foster/Five Rings invitational aspect, or so I hear) and the Winter Cup in Shoreline on January 9th.
Both of these events will be great preparation for the Revolution in early March. I'm not thrilled to be competing on Sundays, but that's more an issue of how I like to spend my Saturday evenings than anything else. At the end of the day, as long as I can keep my weight in the right range, everything will be everything.
Working on the 1 on 1 pass from standing. It's still more a matter of applying pressure and maintaining base than actually threatening the pass. But the guard pass principles are there and I'm sure that if I keep applying them I'll get more and more comfortable with taking the requisite risks for getting the pass.
