Saturday 17 April 2010

On the Mat Day 68: Collar Chokes from Close Guard

Despite it raining heavily and still being cold at 11 degrees, there were quite a few people tonight. We did closed guard attacks again which was great. Most of it was collar chokes with an armbar from a choke. I'm still not 100% so didn't spar. Probably won't until after the competition. It sounds counter-intuitive but the best chance I can have of getting a decent perfomance at the competition is to rest my injury. Instead tonight, I cycled, did pull ups, neck strengthening and lots and lots of guard turns against the wall. I'm getting pretty good at switching to inverted guard against a wall and back again. All I need to do is work at it with an opponent.

At the end I talked to Kondo-san who recently got his purple belt. He told me at his first dojo he was a white belt for 3 years. My jaw almost hit the floor with surprise. He told me that he was weak and that's why they didn't promote him. I applaud his tenacity in that he kept at it. Even though he went 3 times a week for 3 years they didn't promote him. Wankers. I know it's not the goal but give the guy a bone at least for the effort. He's pretty good considering he is small around 65 kg I'd guess. Trained for 6 years and has no problem escaping bad positions. He said that I would probably be blue soon. I almost shit one. I hope he was just saying that to be nice to me, I don't want to be blue ... not yet. This is only my 7th month. Still it was nice to hear that he thinks I am improving.

Got a new ipod now and it's a great tool to watch BJJ moves while commuting to work.

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