Another good week of training in the books: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and twice on Friday. A part of me realizes that this training pace won't last forever. But given the circumstances, it's been a great way to spend the summer.
A lot of training in back control, which I think reflects an academy-wide effort to keep our training as modern as possible. And right now, nothing is more important in jiu-jitsu than developing good back control. It seems as if we've spent a month on different entries and set-ups - which is fine with me. I'm a big fan of focus when it comes to training and spending this much time working on such a specific - and critical - area has been a godsend. It doesn't hurt that back mount is one of the weakest parts of my game, either.
The interschool event is tomorrow. I'm going to try and get there early and get a good spot since all of the adult matches are going to be on the main mat. I'm not scheduled to help ref (thankfully), but if I can help out I'll do what I can to keep score or even just help them keep the brackets organized. We'll see.
As I tweeted the other day, I've changed up a few things in my sparring that has made life a whole lot easier. I've been trying to play a Marcelo Garcia-style sitting guard for about a year and a half and I'm pretty much ready to abandon the project. Although Marcelo and I have (relatively) similar body types, I don't think our bodies want to move in the same ways - or at least not as much as I've assumed in the past. I've been very reluctant to add core Marcelo Garcia moves to my game - the X-guard, the armdrag - and while I still want to look for ways to incorporate these moves, I'm thinking more and more there's a reason why my body just doesn't seem interested in playing along.
The good news is that I've been refocusing my game in many ways to resemble my Professor's game. Ironically, it was a minor injury to Professor Rodrigo that got me thinking about the way I have been going about things and what it would mean to make a major change at this point. Making key adjustments at critical junctures in your development is what allows for that development to take place and there was an interesting moment when it hit me as to what I need to do to get more out of my training. And what's funny is the way that "the answer" has been right in front of me all along.
It's only been a few days. But so far, so good.
