Sunday 2 November 2008

XI

This week's training has been productive. Hard but productive. Either I've lost one pound since I've been training (which I find hard to believe) or I've lost a stone (which seems to be more believeable). My Instructor thinks that with continuous hard training and some other exercise that I can lose much more than one stone.

Whilst I was rolling with one of the Blue Belts, I was able to escape submission attempts using the technical escapes, remaining calm and breathing properly.

That might not be huge to other people, but it's significant for me because it means that I am getting back to how I used to roll, except with the added advantage of having more varied sparring partners who all have different games, different strengths and different skill levels at Jiu-jitsu.

At the end of Thursday's session we lined up, shaking each other's hands and thanking each other for their participation in the class. I'd grappled limitedly with the Brown Belt who I've mentioned previously. I thought I did okay, I still got submitted each time we grappled. He made a positive comment about my efforts during class. At the end of the class, there was a comment about how much better I was moving and grappling, but I can't remember who said it.

Saturday's class was the first class I've had with our Instructor. He has been visiting many different places in the world for the past three-four weeks, winning medals, teaching seminars and such. There were some positives out of the class. The class focused on takedowns and guard drills which was needed but confirmed a few things for me:- a) I am not good at taking the back when I'm in position to do so, b) I need to improve on keeping my guard and c) I need to work on submissions off my back. My Instructor said that I should try to be on top all the time. I can see the sense in it, it's just I feel out of ideas when I have mounted someone unless they try to sweep or roll me over then I know (sort of) what to do; I feel I have a lot more ideas and options in side mount. I think I'll explore other options next week or ask someone to show me some moves from the mount.

All in all- not bad.

1 comment:

Renzo Gracie Garwood said...

Hi, thanks for sharing this awesome post.