Friday double-dose BJJ

137.0

I wasn't really in an eggy mood again this morning, but I lacked the foresight to thaw out any of my chicken or beef- so egg-wrap-with-cheese it was. I normally have 2 strips of bacon in these... which I will still allow myself to do, as long as it's turkey bacon. But I don't have any turkey bacon right now.

I'm trying to decide if I want to attempt Saturday's "competition training" class. I still haven't been to one. I've always been either working or too dog-tired. CN has cancelled this Saturday's Conditioning Boot Camp, so that removes one of my lame excuses to bail on the Comp class.


Later...........

Dave was at class with his shiny new brown belt on, so I went over to congratulate him. When we lined up, I was surprised to see that Marc had gotten promoted too- fresh new blue! So I shook his hand as well.

Some moderately grueling cardio for Friday- lots of running, which is hard for me with my funked-up respiratory system. Some new stuff- including some partner exercises. Pushups, facing your partner- between each pushup, you slap hands (alternating).

Then reps of this week's techniques. I'm glad I got to a number of classes, because Prof. Carlos didn't actually demo the techniques again. If I hadn't done them each twice, I would have been lost. I hope that is not going to be his pattern for Fridays. I think he gets a little too complacent with the assumption that everyone has been coming to class very regularly... he often says, "Remember XYZ?" and everyone of course barks back "YES SIR!!!" because they know that's what's expected of them, but some of those guys can only come in once or twice a week and so they DON'T. Then they don't get a thorough enough explanation/demo. And even though I *have* been in class, I can always use the more thorough demo.

Positional sparring from side control and scarf. John and I weren't fighting each other very hard, because we both felt like we needed some additional reps of the techniques of the week without a ton of resistance.

Positional sparring from north-south. I don't think either John or I have learned any specific escape for this position yet. John groaned, "I suck at this." And he did. I held him down, occasionally dancing from one side control to the other briefly when I got too bored just hanging out in north-south. Then we switched places, and I did little better. I kept trying to get over onto my side, but John had no intention of allowing that. I would get *almost* onto my side- straining and scissoring my legs hard to try to get the full-body twist going- and then he would smoosh me flat again. I tried to scoot me up and him down. Nada. So I tried to scoot me down and him up. Likewise. Then I tried to pry his grips off my waistband. Nope. Out of options. Back to the straining to turn on my side again. After some time, I abruptly switched to trying to get onto the OTHER side, and that sudden shift moved him more than anything else I'd done so far. So I did that some more, and actually managed to get to my knees a couple of times. Then I was turtled up under him, which was not great, but better than where I'd been before.

A few short free spars with John and then Bryan. John and I seemed to be doing about equal against each other, neither got any subs. He praised me for my guillotine that I'd slapped on and held for a long time- I couldn't quite tap him, but he had been worried. Bryan of course reamed through me like he always does. There was one notable spar, though, in which I managed to remove a grip that he had on my sleeve, by planting my foot on his arm and prying him off. I know it's not brain surgery- but I looked at that problem, figured out how to solve it all by myself, executed it, and it worked. In live-spar time, no less. Against Bryan, that is notable. (He did a bit of a double-take, too)

When I had first been paired up with Bryan, he held out his hand and was like, "let's go, let's go" So obediantly I slapped and we started. Then we got called out in front of the whole class as we froze in tableau right in the middle of a guard pass- Prof. Carlos was standing there with his hands on his hips and shaking his head at us and everyone else was grinning, because we had not been instructed to start yet!

(Although, Bryan and I were not the only ones reprimanded this morning... Prof. Carlos held out his hand and made Nic spit his gum into it like he was a first-grader!)

As I was creeping out before the open mat started (I had to take my cat to the vet), Prof. Carlos waylaid me- "No train, Keetsune? No train?", "No, I gotta go," A sour face, then with a significant stare, he said, "Saturday? Saturday." Crud. {gulp} "YES." Okay, now I'm committed.


Later.............


Tuna-and-hard-boiled-egg-white wrap + a few bites of cottage cheese before class. I wasn't even really hungry, but I am not going to try to do MA classes with no fuel on board. (Good thing I did, too, because by the time I got home from class, I was so ravenous I could have started gnawing the steering wheel.... It took will power to not let myself stop for fast food! I am still thinking about those milkshakes!)

No-gi Friday night at Cindy's. JM went with me. Cindy had a crowd there... Including Kaungren, Connor, Jay, and a woman about my size (Jessica). We worked on a string of techniques. It's starting to look like this is Cindy's teaching M.O. when she has her way- she teaches a couple of techniques in a sequence, lets us rep it a few times, then tacks a couple more things onto it, and so on till she runs out of time. I could actually use a few more reps and a few less techniques- it's kind of hard for my slow brain to keep up, especially in no-gi where I'm weak anyway.

JM was chortling at how cool and fun the techniques were. I said to her, "I toldja you were going to like this," She replied, "You were right!" She is going to be a monster. I told her that she should do the November Revolution with me. She laughed when I informed her that she would smoke the competition. But she would- unless it was some chick with eight years of previous wrestling experience or some other really crazy advantage. And it would be a cool thing to have a woman representing Cindy's new school gold-medal at the next Revolution.

Six-minute spars. JM (Very competitive, I don't think either of us got a tap), Jessica (same), some guy I have never seen before (he pretty much handled me- he appeared to be slightly above my level BJJ-wise, but I recognized the way he moved as the same way the guys with wrestling experience do), Cindy (Do I even NEED to tell you how THAT went???)

I nearly had to tap once just to JM's shoulder-in-my-neck pressure. I had a nice guillotine on her that I had to release when she sank that shoulder in. It feels like there is about 400lb behind it. She is really, *really*, REALLY good at that.

I signed Cindy's contract tonight. With the number of classes I'm planning to do there, I could probably save ten bucks or so per month by just doing drop-in instead, but I want to support Cindy.

Sore and tired tonight. Class tomorrow is gonna be a challenge. Sue wants to go to the CHEESECAKE FACTORY, though... So when I'm flagging, I'll remind myself that I need to burn beaucoup calories, in case I have cheesecake in my face later that day. I love cheesecake.