Promoted To Blue Belt

I took the test on Saturday, and ran the gauntlet on Monday evening class.  Frankly, a bit nervous, first I have to , or do my best to step up to the next level.  Rolling with Joey Collins, a blue belt, that is harder than some purple belts, and he always dominates me.  I have been trying to figure out what I been doing wrong, I think its just going to be more mat time for me to get an understanding how to roll with that kind of body type.  Then I rolled with Ian McPherson , and two others.

Zae said something to me a few days before,  when you are regular training against world champions, remind yourself you are rolling against world champions.  It puts things in prospective.  I am a hobbiest, do this for health, enjoyment, and its 100x better than drinking and going out all the time.  At least I do something productive.

On related news, apparently, if you bring a friend to alliance you get a free private.  Anyone want to get me a free private can help me take me up on this offer. allianceatlanta.blogspot.com or http://www.alliancebjj.com

I want to mention a "shout out" to Edward, he got his blue the other day, and he worked VERY VERY hard for it.  It makes me happy to see him get that.  Congrats Edward.

Time On Mat

Does a year go by fast or what?!  What a glorious experience it is.  From first class, to now, its been a little bit of pain, pleasure, fun, joy, relief, sadness, and a wide degree of emotion.  The officially the log says I reached 100+ classes, unofficially, I am close to 140-200 classes, I do privates and more than third of the time , I did not bother to swipe.

Where I was, Where I am, Where I want to be...

Where I was, I very little skill and also any type of speed, strength and agility.  I remember rolling with bart for the first time ever, He kicked my butt 500 different ways....  Only later did I learn that nearly everyone that happens to.

Where I am.... last month I been only averaging about 2 classes a week,  life, weather, and just the feeling of being burned out gets to me.  I am not a professional athlete of any sorts, I have a career.  Last week I went back to 3-4 classes,  I started weight training and that is helping a lot, I just want to be in better health so I can enjoy my life more.  

Where I want to be,  I want to lose the last 40 lbs.  This next year, is going all be about just improving my bjj overall.  I have a lot to learn, but now I have a better chance than I had when I first started.  I want to make my guard great.  Its what I pull people to, just to practice, it does get passed often, but I take the guard position just to learn more about it.   I often try new things from guard to force myself to learn.

In other news,  I will be testing for blue belt this week.  It will be 2 1/2 years total as a white belt ( 1 1/2 years under a different style of jiu jitsu) ... Its been a long time.   Very nervous about the test! Wish me luck!

 

Time flies...

Sweet!  10 months and another 2 months it will be a year.  Jessica has been training for 7 months.  She said to me the other day, there is a glimmer of hope for her, and actually saw improvement with her last roll. Good for her.

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 :(

Learning Control and starting to see more things

Lately, I am learning how to control and started seeing things I have not seen before.  I am thinking my way out of a position, like angles, leverage, and trapping sides to turn a fight around.    I am slowly seeing the language itself, and what each movement and reaction is starting to mean.

Yesterday, I applied some of the knowledge in setting a trap for a good friend and training partner.  I baited him to hold on to my arm, so i can trap one side and bump him off me when he had me mounted.  It worked flawlessly.   I figured this out on my own, and had a good "ah ha!" moment.

Jessica and I been training more last 2 weeks outside of class.   I think yesterday I did a big leap in understanding and performance, plus the fact I can get my body to do things, i.e. flexiblity, that when I started I could not.

Feels good, to gain some understanding in the meaning between each movement!

Guard Pass & Chokes

Last week or so, there has been focus on guard passes.  The open guard is an interesting position.  Cobhrina had us do just defend the pass with the legs the other day, and it made me wake up to the fact I could defend just by using my legs.  I was barely using 50% of my legs now, I keep them moving,  and constantly try things until I can lock the person in.    That was thursday when cobhrina made us do that drill.  It was simply elegant way of showing I can stop someone just by legs alone.

Sunday I worked on De La Riva lasso.   I need more practice to get used to.  I had forgot how to do it during live training.  but eventually got the hang of it.  I desperately need to practice it more in real situations.  I felt bad for the person that was training me... I ate mexican and farted about 10 times... :(  I never farted in training before...  It just happen to be on the one on one lesson I was doing.

I now have it worked out where I can train 7 days a week at least once.  this is good for me, however today my body is REALLY tired.