Missed training on Monday due in part to some lagging aches (shoulder) that appeared last week after the tournament. Nothing too serious. But that odd, "hollow armpit" feeling is very reminiscent of when I had the labrium injury a couple of years ago, so I figured chilling out a bit this week wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.
Good training tonight as part of the fundamental - and it probably didn't hurt that we were working on a guard pass. I especially liked the way that Prof Rodrigo had us work the same pair of passes for the entire class, starting with a few rounds of the initial guard open. I've long been a fan of very focused training, and this is exactly the way I like to train: drilling the same move or two over and over and over again until you "feel" the move instead of just having it in your mind.
The guard pass here was the basic collars/knee wedge open, with the detail of planting the openside foot to both keep the guard open as well as block the potential DLR hook. Keep the other side of the guard open with your elbow from the collars slid a bit lower.
The big key to both of these passes was using the knee of the far leg to drive the guy's far leg back. This move is what gives you room to backstep out of the guard, whether you go for the underhook pass or the stack pass, without getting hung up in half guard. What's nice is that if you miss it, you usually have a second shot at getting your far leg wedged into the guy before making the backstep.
Good Live Training tonight, working with Steve, Ian and Oleg. Trying very hard to avoid holding positions, especially side control, and moving to knee on belly or attacking with the spin move to get to the back.
163.2 on the scale, post-train. My heaviest weigh-in in a while. I'm hoping to make it back on the mat amanha to make up for it.
