Day 5- the day that wasn't

Yes, I am pussing out on my own challenge. My wife has kindly asked me to spend this evening at home with her, and our daughter. I didn't really discuss this challenge with my better half before I embarked upon it, sooo... t is time to be realistic and honor thy family. 4 Days in a row was a good run, and I DO plan to be back training on Saturday morning, so really I am just taking a rest day to be one with my peeps.

Also, I forgot my mouthguard.



 Also, I do what my wife says.

Jiu Jitsu Week Training Day 4 Intermediate Gi training with Professor Junior Fidelis (Denver)

I went to the 8:30pm class last night to roll Intermediate with Professor Junior. We did more cross guard work, and I was able to add an additional sweep to the line up of moves from cross guard. this sweep takes the opponent over my head, so it gives me some options in the event I can't use the 1st momentum sweepI learned with John on Wednesday. We also worked some single leg takedowns. I had a good partner- a newer student but he was really easy to work with.

I'm a big believer in how Easton encourages mat conduct. It seems like we have a ton of really great students throughout the network of schools. People are just patient and good natured on the mats., and I don't think that is really all that easy to come by in combat sports. I get the impression that most of the guys there are really there to learn something, and sometimes to teach something. Knowing these people from training you'd think we were all a bunch of softies, but then I see the same guys roll in comp, and DAMN- we have a pretty tough room out here in Denver!
I am going to try to keep the training streak alive tonight. Friday is pretty bleak at Easton, and there is only one Intermediate session- No Gi at 6:30pm. That one can be a bit rough to get to from work, but my No Gi gear is in the car, and if I can make it I will.

Jiu Jitsu Week Training Day 3 Wednesday NoGi w/ Coach John Boyle (Denver)

Laundry room is getting crowded...

I wore the Prana Monday, the Shoyoroll yesterday, and then my No Gi gear today. I pulled the SYR out of the washing machine and found some black stuff on it, looked at the Prana and fount the same, so I re-washed both along with my SYR Mamba pants, and my rash guard I wore to train today. The end result is a very busy hang-dry rack...

I managed to pry my sorry ass out of bed at 5:30 AM for training with Coach Boyle at the Denver school. It turned out only 3 of us were able to do so- which is awesome, and yet kind of a bummer. Awesome because we get a lot more focus on our technique, but a bummer because it is always good to have a solid class attendance. I have to admit I almost punked out. I ended up going out with a buddy for a few beers after training last night and didn't get home and into bed until midnight. At 5:30 the Alarm went off and I was mentally scrolling through excuses- but then I just went into the mechanics-
1. geet feet out of bed.
2. Sit up
3. Stand up
4. Get dressed
ect...
I had some great excuses- my eye got poked, I was sore, I was mildly hung over (or maybe a little drunk-over). It was cold, I was tired... The thing was, I had commited to this specific class and my wife has errands to run tonight so i am home with my daughter. I knew it was go in the AM, or don't go. Don't go= fail at 7 consecutive days of BJJ. Fail at my plan to rediscover my game.
Nope.
I got my ass to class- STFU and train...

Ben, my training partner from Monday was there, as was Joe- both of those guys are good guys, excellent training partners. We worked on X guard- placement, attacks, recoveries, submissions, drilling all for several minutes each. I have a real nasty triangle attack from there that just feels "right" when I go for it. We finished off class with some up/down/out work. I felt great that I went and already look forward to tomorrow night Intermediate at Denver.

Jiu Jitsu Week Training Day 2 Tuesday Night W/ Coach Rob Sanchez (south school)

I did an evening class Tuesday night. Decided to drive down to the South School for the 7:30pm Intermediate class. I did this because I like the guys down at the south school, and because one of their younger students (15) paid me one of the single nicest compliments I have been given when I ran into him at Coach Vellore's MMA fight on Saturday. This kid is introducing me to another student, an old guy like me and he says "This guy is one of the best training partners you will ever roll with". Now i know he wasn't saying I was the "best" because of skill level. He was complimenting my style of helping instead of "beating" the lower guys I roll with. It was a nice thing to say, so I figured I'd go roll with him for one of my 7 Crazy BJJ days.
Tuesday night Intermediate at south school is a sparring night. We started out with 3 series of flow rolls with different opponents and then moved on to actual sparring. I was the only Blue Belt in the class of 5 so I was prepared to wait out the first round and hopefully work in on the second. Instead one of the coaches offered to roll with me, so I did that.
Tuesdays focus for me was working the things I drilled Monday AM. I was focused on trying to implement De La Riva, and also implementing some inverted guard into the game. At some point I caught a finger to the eye resulting in the damage you see above. That was kind of a bummer, and it still stings a bit today, but I'm pretty sure I'll live.
All in all it was good training, with a healthy dose of live rolling. I was happy I went, and will likely go back again for more of the same (minus the eye poke)

Jiu Jitsu Week Training Day 1: Monday AM with Coach John Boyle

Worked a lot of drills this morning. Arm bars to the left and to the right, then Arm bar / triangle / arm bar left and right, then arm bar/ omoplatta / triangle, and then armbar / omoplatta/ triangle/ arm bar.

We practiced some positional moves from spider guard, including a hip drop that boost the opponent over your head. We also worked on attacking to gain De La Riva, and then sweeps from De La Riva.

Nothing "brand new" but we did a lot of review and repetition which is exactly what I need right now. I had a good training partner and we worked well together.

During the 50% flow roll my partner seemed to favor turtling so i worked on back-takes and trying to set my hooks with mixed results. after a while I figured I'd quit fighting it and let him take me over his head- I held on to an underhook I had and turned the forward roll into an armbar. He had a decent Gable, but if we were rolling 100% I think I could have broken it with my feet. I made a few attempts at mount, but didn't have good control of his knees so I ended up in halfguard, which he capitalized on and stretched me out to sweep. I did manage to work the De La Riva sweep into the roll.

All in all a good review. Looking forward to class tomorrow evening.