Today in class

We worked on half guard, but thats not what the class was really about.   Jacare gave a lecture on how you should train.   That there is a difference between training in class and competition.  He told us a story about Rickson Gracie ( I think ) how he never showed how he was really feeling during a roll.  He mentioned that some of us ( Yes I am guilty) say "f*ck", "sh*t" (my personal favorite), and many other colorful adverbs.    That we need to focus on what mistakes we made to get to that position and work to correct them.   I wish Bart recorded the talk, because he talked a lot about relaxing and using the time to learn and make mistakes.

I will say this, I am more and more relaxed than I was when I started.  I hope I am more calm and calculating than I was before.   I do not panic.  Today I had a clear head and watched joey dismount me.  Feeling what he did, I wanted to see what he was trying to do.   He had my full attention.   As a side note, I realized he was taking advantage of my hips being off balanced and too high to maintain control :)

I wish I could train 24/7.  at las, I have work I need to get done and , I personally do not think my body can take 24/7 regular training.     One last thing, I think its personally awesome that Jacare roll with the students all the time.  Its nice to see the pseudo rule "everyone trains no matter what skill level".

The Day After Pan Ams

You never know what Jacare and Cobrinha is going to teach.   We went over a guard pass, and a rather common situation that I do get into.   We did some drills with it, I did have an aha moment and all was good.

Jessica, my girlfriend that trains there, has crossed the bridge in development that she leaving her ego at the door and realizing regular training is for learning not a competition.   On the way home, she verbally said what clicked a few months ago for me.  That went something like this "I was in a bad position, so i tried to learn how to get out of it.  While it didn't work, I did learn what parts helped the situation, and what didn't.  I tapped and wanted to get back into the same position to work on it some more." When she said that, I mentally said bingo.  Ego and fear is being left behind. and learning shall accelerate.

Other than that, its fracking awesome to train at the #1 school in the world :)

P.S. I got a new gi, my white and blue gi are both tearing up :(