Great to get on the mat today. Prof Rodrigo has us working on a pair of transitions: pulling guard from standing and cross choke from guard, and pulling guard from standing and the crossover or kimura sweep.
There were a number of issues that he was looking to address: increasingly our technical aggressiveness by chaining attacks (guard pull + submission, guard pull + sweep), picking up the training pace to provide additional cardio conditioning, and encouraging us to focus on details to create the proper "muscle memory" that will allow us to execute techniques effectively regardless of whether we are tired, confused, competing against a larger opponent or a more skilled opponent, or whatever.
As you might imagine, I couldn't be more thrilled with these developments - and some of the things Prof had to say about the new competition classes on Monday and Thursday evenings. A lot of repetition, a lot of focus, a lot of standup and movement ... it's going to be a great spring of jiu-jitsu, IMO.
Got to train with a couple of the regular folks: Mark, Brian, Coach Angela - for a couple of extended sessions. I don't know if that's what Prof had planned, but it was nice to work into that plus-10 minute range where you really have to dig deep to keep your technique on par. A very nice workout, and one in which I felt I was able to really focus on some of my technical priorities like the Rap Star guard, for example - which is my number one closed guard priority over the next few months.
Looking forward to getting back after it tomorrow.
159.8 on the scale, post-train. Not a bad, not a great number for midweek.
