Machado Black Belt Brandon Ruiz on Goal Setting and Specialization

A lot of what Brandon Ruiz has to say echoes things I've heard from guys like Lloyd Irvin, who have taken a professional, quantified approach toward understanding how ordinary people can develop extraordinary skill in jiu jitsu. It also echoes, in different ways, some of what I think Profs Rodrigo and Carlos have been trying to emphasize - or at least articulate - for those of us who are really striving to become better and better in our jiu jitsu practice.

Here, in this Fightworks Podcast interview, even where Brandon is not especially specific, the same general themes and challenges still come through pretty clearly.

BJJ Black Belt Brandon Ruiz on Goal Setting for Jiu-Jitsu

You need to take advantage of any free time you’re given in a workout to do things on your own. If you’ve already got your shortlist of techniques that you need to work on, work on those. Be very specific every time you’re at the gym.

A lot of guys won’t take advantage of that extra time. They’ll just start messing around or talk about the cute girl or the latest UFC. That doesn’t really get you anywhere. I mean – that’s great if you’re just going to be a social-recreational kind of guy. But if you’re motivated and want to get better you’ve got to take advantage of all the time you have.

European Championships: Looking Back at Guto Campos

With the 2011 BJJ competition season getting started with the European Championships at the end of this month, here's some footage of last year's black belt absolute winner: middleweight Gustavo "Guto" Campos from Atos Jiu Jitsu.

I see the black belt division as a dead-end street; there's nowhere to run. There are monsters around every corner, whether you are heavy or light. And when you see a way out, often it's just another wall: a newcomer from brown belt just as good as the old folks. And there's no end to tough people coming in.

--Gustavo Campos, from "The latest David" GracieMag #156

Threshold Training Update

Immediately after my fourth set of matwork (TM) this morning, I clocked my HR at 45 bpm for 15 seconds. Margins of error (+/1 5 bpm) notwithstanding, that's a HR of 180. And by just about any estimation, that's also supposed to be my maximum heart rate.

I know that the mathematical models (and I've looked at a few) are flawed. But I doubt that they are off by that much (10 bpm? 15? at the most?). What is all the more interesting is that the maximum heart rate should be adjusted lower for seated activities like bicycling or rowing. Joel Jamieson at 8WeeksOut suggests that for typical grappling/wrestling/jiu jitsu purposes, taking 5 bpm off the top is more accurate. This makes it all the more likely that I managed to hit a maximum level in today's training.

The point behind threshold training, according to Joel, is to "increase the aerobic system's maximum rate of ATP regeneration so more power can be produced aerobically." It does this by raising your "anaerobic threshold, and power at ANT, thus delaying the point at which anaerobic processes begin to dominate."

I think of it as being as explosive and agile as possible while remaining in the aerobic zone, which is crucial over the course of an 8-10 minute match (not including overtimes). You want to spend as little time in the anaerobic zone as possible, since it is harder to "live off the aerobic land" so to speak when you are in that zone. At the same time, you have to exert. So the trick is to be able to increase your the peak aerobic level you will be able to compete at. It's like being able to raise your speed limit: faster, but still legal.

Triangle Choke from Mount

A friendly debate over a technique that could really compliment the mount game. The shoulder isolation also sets up the potential Marceloplata shoulder lock.

Training Day: Tuesday

A good night of Fundamentals training with Jesse teaching. Every time I think about just going to the Live Training session at 7, I can't help but feel as if I'm just not going to get my time's worth unless I'm at the class at 6, as well. It doesn't really matter much to me if it is fundamental or advanced. If you're only going to get one bite of the apple on any given day, you might as well make it as big a bite as possible.

A lot of things to like about tonight's training. The headlock throw, the kind of judo that almost everybody can pick up after a few good reps. And then the armbar and the triangle from the guard. Nothing fancy or elaborate, but it was great to work two techniques that are both absolutely fundamental attacks from the full guard as well as being submissions I almost never use.

Very fun also to work with a white belt during the instructional part. There's no better way to be reacquainted with the fundamentals than to train and drill with someone who is really just learning them for the first time.

That said, I'm filing the finale of tonight's training under "could have been worse."

Some folks are always dealing with knees, others elbows, others backs. For me, apparently, it's all about the eyes.

There are a few things I'm going to have to do differently. I'm convinced that part of my subsequent left eye injuries years ago were at least in part due to my obsession with playing the half guard on my right hip, overexposing the left side of my face while I was still very much trying to learn the position. I've torn through three gi pant cuffs using a grip break that works perfectly well against legal grips, but not so well against illegal grips. So I've had to toss that otherwise very effective way of getting my legs back in exchange for something else.

And now, the posture break that sets up my Guy LaFleur sweep has started to become more dangerous than it is worth. Although I don't do a whole lot of flying around on my own dime, some of my set-ups and deceptions that encourage sudden and unexpected expenditures on the part of my training partners during sparring are starting to be plenty rich for my blood. Literally.

We'll see how much healing up takes place overnight. I'd love to get back on the mat tomorrow - even if I can't spar I can at least get some drilling in.

162.2 on the scale, post-train. It's amazing how much less energy I expend during training compared to three or four years ago. I used to routinely lose 2-3 pounds back at GB Seattle 2.0 ("The Treehouse") after a hard night's training. But despite doing my explosive-repeat conditioning earlier today, it seems as if I never shake the low 160s for the high 150s for long.

Training Day: Monday

The takedown today emphasized the difference between the traditional, wrestling-style double leg and the judo morote-gari takedown. Although there were a number of details that made the two takedowns different, two especially stood out.

For one, the morote-gari attack takes the guy's legs out from under him, he "sits" into the takedown. Unlike the double leg, you keep your elbows in tight to your body and reach around just wide enough to cup the top of both calves of the opponent. From here, forward pressure with your shoulder and essentially a blocking action with your hands (your palms should be facing/cupping the calves) to prevent the guy from stepping back gets the takedown.

The second difference was in leg positioning. Unlike the double leg, the moroto-gari doesn't have you put your knee on the mat. If I remember correctly, this is because that would be a "shido" in judo. You step up with your back leg then forward in the penetration step with the lead leg, changing levels just enough to that you can get the proper hand position. Drive the shoulder and chest forward into the takedown.

On the ground, we worked the closed guard pass. Here, the guard guy gets a collar grip as if working for a choke or a scissor sweep setup. From the top, you want to reach over with the same side arm and grip both the collars. By closing your elbow, you should be able to trap the choking arm.

With your other hand grap the trapped choking arm by the sleeve. Keep this grip forever.

Make sure your elbows are tucked and stand up, ending with posture straight and feet parallel. Once you're up, you can drop the collars grip. On that same side hand, you put pressure on the leg at the knee and STEP BACK to create the right angle for opening the guard.

Be sure to maintain both the sleeve grip and the inside control with your legs.

Prof Carlos showed us the knee cross pass from here, ending up in side control. There are a number of different ways to finish from the standing inside control with the sleeve grip. What is especially nice is that - like the cross guard - you can pick up the pieces of this guard pass if things get scrambly. I tried harder than usual to implement this pass in Open Mat insofar as I'm desperate to have a standing guard pass that is as go to as my half guard sweep. This one has a lot of elements that I like, valuing control over speed, for example. At a minimum, it will give me a launching pad for reconfiguring my standing guard pass game - and just in time for the Seattle Open on the 29th, two weeks away.

161.4 on the scale post-train, everything but the coat (and the belt). Making weight by the beginning of Week Three is probably perfectly fine - which also makes the timing of the Seattle Open very helpful. The next month should start off a period of very intense training: 4x/week minimum, tightening up on the diet bit by bit, and working to push through in training when the fatigue (or sense of futility) begins to creep in, knowing that I'm always no more than a quick 20-count away from safety, advantage or submission.

February Superfight: Kron Gracie v. J.T. Torres

Here's something worth looking out for:

Superfight: Kron v. J.T.

Picasso at the SAM

"To make pictures was less important than to discover things all the time."

Friday Night Fights: Roleta v. Ismail

Friday Night Fights is back. To start things off, here's an old school match between Roberto "Roleta" Magalhaes and Wallid Ismail.

Training Day: Friday

More good stuff on competition training day. Another round of lycanthropy had me arriving just short of 12:30 p.m., but I think I more than made up for the lost time with Prof Carlos' aggressive training style and what seemed like half an hour of Live Training with Lance (more on that in a later post).

Competition drills were based around guard passing - at least the first half of them. I missed the first pass, but the next two were a toreano push-pull-mount pass and a spider guard pass that I used to call the Jack Pass when Prof Rodrigo showed it to us years ago. One key detail in the Jack Pass was to bring the legs/knees together and get the cross knee grip first, then get the sleeve grip, then step back with the cross knee grip hand to give room for the guy's body to rotate.

It's been nice to train at this accelerated pace. I can't tell if that is the majority opinion or not. I'm convinced - and I think the science backs it up - that repetition and drilling is what is going to improve both technique and conditioning. And as far as jiu jitsu is concerned, those are really the two most important bases to cover.

My 4-week training average is still a pretty mediocre 2.25 as of this week. Ideally, I'd be at 3.0 at this point (end of Week Two), but the time lost in late December is truly coming home to roost. I'll be looking to train 5x next week (including Saturday) and 4x for the week leading up to the 2nd Seattle Open on the 29th. That would put me at 3.75 going into the tournament - not great, but not too bad heading into the second half of prep for the March Revolution.

With Week Three beginning (and the Seattle Open two weeks out), I'll need to work toward a 4.0-4.5 average, adding a Saturday training day to a MTWF schedule whenever I can. I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I think I see my biggest flaws relatively clearly (as do a growing number of GB Seattle black belts). So the task at hand to fix these problems is fairly straightforward. The issue, as always, will be a matter of having the discipline to continue to hammer out the errors until new, more productive habits take their place.

161.4 on the scale post train, everything but the coat. 164.4 post-train in the gi. The middle of the week has been very good for my weight, as I've managed to drift back toward more sane levels heading into the weekend. A little restraint during what are likely to be epic NFL playoffs on Saturday and Sunday could go a long way toward finding myself still on the lighter side of the 160s, if not less, when Week Three begins.

Deep. Butterfly. Halfguard.

Some great material from one of the best jiu jitsu bloggers on the Interwebs.

"Me and My Me and My Me and My Me and My Me and My Friends"

One thing I really like about the explosive-repeat workout is that by the time you are late in the program, you are doing 15s work/30s rest rounds, which is as intense as anything you're likely to experience in competition. In Live Training on Wednesday, I was especially aware of instances in which I was just a few seconds of work away from a likely guard pass, or potential mount-take. In almost every case, I overheard an interior dialogue that started with something along the lines of "You're fine, you're safe, you're tired. You can't get swept from here. Don't risk pushing the action right now."

Versions of this inner discourse (calling it a "dialogue" is probably too generous) have come up when I'm competing in tournaments, the "hey, what are you doing trying so hard?" ribbing from the alums of the Too Cool School of never accomplishing very much and not caring a lot about it, either. I don't ever think I'll completely shake that, psychologically - you have the ghosts and demons you have. But if there is a way to short-circuit that channel, to circumvent it with pure action, pure "do this now," then I'm all for it.

And in a conditioning sense, "it" very much resembles explosive-repeat.

In a training sense, it increasingly looks like the way we've been training over the past few days at GB Seattle, for example, using takedown/judo drills to warmup. While on the one hand it seems as if even the teaching of the Fundamentals curriculum has intensified, it also seems that Profs Rodrigo and Carlos are feeling comfortable enough and confident enough to expect more and more of what each of us is individually capable of. It's a delicate balance, to be sure. But there's something to be said for the kind of motivation that heightened expectations can produce.

R U Rdy 2 Rumbl?

Cindy Hales: Guillotine to Triangle to Mounted Triangle

Training Days: Monday and Wednesday

Good training this week. Warm-ups continue to be more active and more-skill based which is a great way to get into the training mode - and to cover some technical ground, as well. Both days, throws made up most of the warm-ups, though on Wednesday Prof. Carlos added a few other wrinkles like old school armbars from the mount.

Wednesday's skill session was focused on the scissor sweep and the front collar choke. Plenty of nice little details, especially with the choke, involving a more full rotation of your body to the side to get access to the neck with the second grip, and then back to the center to help tighten. Much like the triangle choke, there is a "lock and latch" aspect to the finish that is worth remembering as you look for opportunities to attack with the choke, as you are setting it up and as you are working toward the finish.

Prof Carlos also had another way of referring to it: the knife and the punch.

He also showed us a variation, the palms-up choke that Helio always preferred. Training with Brian again on Wednesday, Brian talked about how Lindsey was one of the few guys he knew who liked to attack with the palms-up front choke - anchoring the initial choking grip (the knife) and then working to create motion and movement enough to distract before sneaking in the second hand.

Good training today. I've got a thousand half guard sweeps rattling around in my head these days - to say nothing of the deep half guard options. Over the next few weeks, I'd love to finally hammer out just what sweeps I want/need to add to my half guard to make it more complete and more challenging for my opponents. I don't need many. But there are some holes I want to fill before the spring begins.

164.4 on the scale post-train, everything but the coat. The pounds just can't quit me.

LME training and Explosive Repeat

The first half of the training camp is geared toward improving aerobic conditioning and increasing local muscular endurance. One of the things I noticed about 48 hours after my explosive-repeat workout on Tuesday was how sore my "vastus lateralis" (outside of thigh) and hip flexors were.

This makes sense insofar as the whole lower body portion of the workout is dedicated to lunges (front, side and reverse). But it reminds me of how in my last tournament matches, I was very reluctant to change levels to set up takedowns because I just didn't feel as if my legs were ready to fire from that semi-crouch position. It was one of the first things I felt when I got on the mat and I think contributed to a sluggish, non-explosive performance on the feet.

Hopefully this work will take care of that issue from a biomechanical standpoint.

Training Day: Friday

A really excellent session to finish the week. In many ways, it was everything that competition training is about: drills, drills, drills, with a little open mat/live training at the end to wrap things up. I went for two rounds at the end, and probably would have done a third given a little more time. But all in all just the kind of session that makes you looking forward to coming back.

We did takedown drills, guard pass drills (slap pass to knee on belly), adding mount takes and finishes as we went along in a steady, technically progressive way. It was a very good way to train for a couple of reasons, but the biggest reason for me was the way that each technique led into the other. From the different angles we attacked the leg and then the upper body for the judo throws to the variations on passing the guard, improving position and finishing, it was great "flow" work, training your body through the entire range of activity from takedown to finish as a series of progressive drills.

For me, there are days when I don't feel my brain can take any more additional technical information. I'm just not in the mental state to "learn" effectively. But training this way completely circumvents that both by being simple (each move building on the previous move) and more drill/body oriented than learn/mind oriented.

One thing I would love to try as an experiment some time would be to train this way for a month at least three times a week and see if what differences I might notice in my game. I think more than anything it would speed my jiu jitsu up some, creating more of that "high speed circuitry" that Daniel Coyle writes about in his book, The Talent Code.

All that said, there are some good things coming out of sparring to help me refine my guard game. In terms of the pass, I still need to be working more of the step-over/Hioki game against the half guard and more sccop against the closed guard. But there's still plenty of time to work on all of that. The 2nd Seattle Open has been announced for Saturday, January 29th - the last Saturday of the month. That at-home event will be a nice testing/proving ground for the Revolution to follow.

164.4 on the scale, post-train, everything but the coat. The weight is just not coming off me after the average training session like it used to three or four years ago. Insert "alas" here.

Halfoplataville

Because I didn't quite spend enough money over the winter holiday season, I took advantage of Stephan Kesting's great holiday deal to pick up a pair of instructional DVDs to add to the collection: The Dynamic Half Guard and Omoplata and the Dynamic Guard.

This purchase was mostly a matter of patching holes and adding to inventory. I'm thinking that the half guard DVD will provide a good check on my half guard basics as I plan for the fatter end of the 2010-2011 training season (the seven months and two Revolution tournaments between now and the end of July 2011). Even after just a a few minutes, I can see a couple of fundamental issues that I've been neglecting that could make my life a lot easier from the bottom.

With the omoplata DVD, I'm trying to expand my King Crimson attack from the closed guard (kimura, guillotine, omoplata, crossover/hip bump sweep/take the back etc.) and add a a submission from the guard that will probably be more high percentage than the triangle or the armbar given my body type (note that fellow half-hobbit Marcelo Garcia is a big omoplata guy).

Training, Competing and Training to Compete

"To practice the Way singleheartedly is, in itself, enlightenment. There is no gap between practice and enlightenment ..."
-- Dogen Zenji

Rodrigo made a really great point at the end of training Tuesday night. He talked about competition team training as training both for those who are going to compete as well as those who "want to train as if they were going to compete."

I think that really gets at the point. Truth told, I'm pretty ambivalent about competing. Unlike a lot of folks, I really don't have much of a natural impulse to prove or test myself against others. But that said there's nothing more fun than "training" for competition. Everything is tighter, a little more serious and purposeful, with everyone obviously working hard and committed to the same tripartite goal: a win for the Academy, wins for your teammates and wins for yourself.

It's really a special time: the best time to be training, the best time to watch and see what a jiu jitsu school is really made of. Maybe they will win, maybe they won't. But who would dare deny any school a shot if you stopped by some afternoon or evening during competition training and saw how hard everyone is preparing - from the white belt with just a month of training before his first tournament to the veteran black belt who is both teacher and competitor?

Both Prof. Rodrigo and Carlos, in their different ways, have been working to tighten things up as GB Seattle 3.0 rolls into the new year. I'm grateful for it. For me, one of the great things about the academy is that it is not like the rest of the world, in which personality so often trumps purpose. Jiu jitsu is, among many things, a sort of moving meditation - maybe the ultimate one - and being able to enter that space with its rules and its disciplines and its apparently endless rewards is, as Huxley might put it, a truly gratuitous grace: not necessary for life, but oh so helpful for living.

Werdum v. Lindland

Conditioning Notes: Threshold Training

Here's my Thursday workout for the next three weeks. It is called the threshold method and also comes from Joel Jamieson's book, Ultimate MMA Conditioning.

10-20 reps / 3-5 rounds / 60-120 seconds between rounds

alt upas
hipscapes
sit-outs
hip splits
backrolls
crossovers/hip bumps
hook sweeps
arm drags
alt triangles
technical lifts

Glenn asked me the other day about a workout that he could do when away from the academy that was more than just lifting weights. This is my go-to workout for all purposes, but it is especially good because you can change the pace to make the workout more aerobic or more explosively-oriented.

Some of these moves have names that I invented because I couldn't figure out a better way to describe them. "Hip splits" for example, has you sitting as if doing a hurdler's stretch with your back leg, but instead of sticking your front leg out straight, you curl it back toward you in an L shape. Then you switch sides, going back and forth bringing the front leg to the back and the back leg to the front. Much easier to do than to describe.

If all else fails, you can always just do hipscapes, sitouts, backrolls and technical lifts. Those are the "core four" that work the most essential basic jiu jitsu/grappling movements.

Conditioning Notes: Explosive-Repeat

No jiu jitsu as planned today. Tuesday training combined with Tuesday's morning conditioning routine (below) have my quads on fire.

Here's my version of Joel Jamieson's Explosive-Repeat workout for advanced aerobic conditioning from his book Ultimate MMA Conditioning. This is for Tuesdays. Work/rest intervals go up to 12s/45s next week and 15s/30s the week after that.

10 seconds weighted lunge left/ 60 seconds rest
10s weighted lunge right/ 60s rest
10s weighted side lunge left / 60s rest
10s weighted side lunge right / 60s rest
10s reverse weighted lunge left / 60s rest
10s reverse weighted lunge right / 60s rest

6 minutes active rest

10s bench press / 60s rest
10s upright rows / 60s rest
10s box thruster / 60s rest
10s bench press / 60s rest
10s upright rows / 60s rest
10s box thruster / 60s rest

6 minutes active rest

10s weighted lunge left/ 60 seconds rest
10s weighted lunge right/ 60s rest
10s weighted side lunge left / 60s rest
10s weighted side lunge right / 60s rest
10s reverse weighted lunge left / 60s rest
10s reverse weighted lunge right / 60s rest

6 minutes active rest

10s bench press / 60s rest
10s upright rows / 60s rest
10s box thruster / 60s rest
10s bench press / 60s rest
10s upright rows / 60s rest
10s box thruster / 60s rest

Training Day: Tuesday

Skills training was a repeat of the first two lessons from Monday's afternoon class: the sacrifice/backroll counters to the double leg and single leg. I actually did them a little better on Monday, in part because the pace picked up some on Tuesday and I got a little distracted trying to stay on track.

Good live training. I'm still working on guard passing from standing - a lot of smash pass, to be sure, but trying to keep the focus on leg v.s. leg battles. I'm also continuing to work on the transition from side control through crossbody into the mount.

From the bottom, deep half - half transitions are still the major theme, with an emphasis on getting into a sweeping position as quickly as possible instead of "surviving" on the bottom. Too often "surviving" means surviving just long enough for the guy on top to eventually figure out a way to put you in a bad position.

Very good address by Rodrigo at the end of class. The Sunday competition training is at probably the most inaccessible time of the week for me. But his points about taking training seriously based on your training goals was very worth hearing. Although my days of earning points for GB Seattle on the competition mats are probably in the past, I like the fact that he is honest and upfront about wanting to get back into first place at the Revolution this year. Too often there is a tendency to apologize for wanting to win tournaments and do well at "sport jiu jitsu." Whatever. Tournaments are an integral part of jiu jitsu's growth and a great opportunity to expose others to the art. So even if my days at the top of the medal podium are done, I will always be a big supporter and proponent of both competition and TRAINING for competition.

164.2 on the scale, not very impressive. We'll see if I can hit 162 by week's end.

More on Hioki

My first "jiu jitsu crush" was on Fabricio Werdum. I couldn't stop watching his ADCC match with Matt Lindland. Maybe it was the drums. But you couldn't tell me there was a slicker jiu jitsu guy than Werdum at the time.

Hatsu Hioki is well on his way toward becoming my second. Here's a nice essay from someone who seems to share my sentiments.

Often Overlooked, Hatsu Hioki Deserves Praise Following Win Over Marlon Sandro

Call it jiu-jitsu mastery, wizardry, or brilliance. Call it whatever you like, but the final minutes of the Sengoku Soul of Fight featherweight title tilt between Shooto lightweight champion Hatsu Hioki and Sengoku featherweight champion Marlon Sandro was nothing short of spectacular. After a round after round beating at the hands of Hioki, Sandro lunged at his opponent with his only sight set on knocking out the Nagoya-born grappling whiz kid. Sandro's desperation attempt to put Hioki on his back while avoiding damage failed miserably, and Hioki turned his defense into a glorious opportunity to close out a fantastic clash of great featherweight fighters.

Prof. Feitosa Competition Seminar: Ground to Standing

Training Day: Monday

Skills training:

Backroll/Sacrifice to mount counters to the double and single leg takedowns. Smash counters to armbar and triangle from the guard.

Live training:

Some good work in converting back and forth from deep half to half guard passes (i.e., switching to watchdog v.s. deep half). Also good step-over to crossbody against the deep half.

This will be the main strategic goal: to use transition from half to deep half and back as strategy for controlling pace and creating opportunities. For example, using Gordo to set up a deep half entry and direct move into Homer Simpson, as well as the typical Gordo/Twist Back combo.

Not as many opportunities to work the pass game outside of the half. Still looking for opportunities to smash straight into mount a la Hioki - that will be a habit to establish early.

Also did some film study this morning on the crossbody to knee on belly transition via Saulo. The key is in keeping connected hip-to-hip, and remaining sideways as you make the transition rather than turning to "square up" and face the guy's side, thereby giving too much space for the elbow/knee block from the guy on bottom.

164.6 on the scale post-train, everything but the coat.

Christian Thibaudeau on Muscle Development for Back, Abs and Biceps

Interestingly, the focus areas for jiu jitsu (back, abs, biceps) are considered secondary from a "performance" or athletic standpoint. Bodybuilding trainer Christian Thibaudeau makes some interesting observations about the difference between training what I'll call "jiu jitsu muscles" and athletic, "performance" muscles in this video here

People Get Ready

8 Weeks Out for Revolution 03/05/11 begins today.

Among the final days of 2010 were some the first, few days of full-fledged, sleep 'til 7 vacation I've had since the same time four years ago. Not yet the two weeks of pure "nao-falo-ingles" that me and Mrs Burien Top Team so richly deserve, but still enough to recharge the batteries in advance of what I expect to be a very productive 2011 on all fronts.

Training schedule as is below for the next three weeks.

Monday:

11:45 - 12:30 pm
Advanced

12:30 - 1:30 pm
Live Training

Tuesday:

am conditioning: explosive-repeat (Berardi)
skills: double leg takedown / crossbody 2 knee on belly

6 - 7 pm
Advanced

7 - 8 pm
Live Training

Wednesday:

6 - 7 pm
Advanced

7 - 8 pm
Live Training

Thursday:

am conditioning: threshold training (matwork)
skills: 1/2 guard agility / 1-on-1 passes from standing

Friday:

11:45 - 1:00 pm
Competition Training

Saturday:

11:00 - 1:00 pm

OR

am conditioning: cardiac output (LSD)

Sunday:

am conditioning: neural charge workout

Many of my jiu jitsu goals for 2011 are relatively pedestrian and obvious - and don't think for a moment that I'm beyond obsessing about them. But if there is one thing I want to accomplish this year, one thing I want to prioritize above everything else, it is to make real what I've been told by some of the most talented folks at GB Seattle over the past month or so, in particular

Of the many things for which I am guilty, "paying attention" is near the top of the list. And even in what I am sure were just off-hand remarks from some of the folks at GB Seattle whose jiu jitsu continues to astound me, were some straightforward, "Do This/Don't Do This" lessons that can help me get that much closer to being one of those producers of wonderment, awe and inspiration when it comes to BJJ. In some ways, I feel like this is the most important year for me in terms of building a foundation for a "black belt version" of myself - not just from a skills or accomplishment point of view (though, definitely that). But also from the point of view of discipline, attitude and habit.

About those pedestrians ... one simple goal is going to be to make weight before every training session from now until the Revolution. The 162 should not be a chore, especially if I'm on with my diet and training. But consistency is the uber-theme of 2011 - and 162 the mark, for the next nine weeks.

Hioki: Soul of Fight, Indeed

Not sure how long it will be available, but at least for now, here's Hioki v. Sandro.

Werdum: Believe