Day 118 On the Mat: Sparring

I went to sparring only again last night so caught the last hour and a half. This is definately working out for me so far. I know when I used to weight train it was good to mix things up. Like cutting a 60 min workout to 30 mins when interest begins to decrease. Only doing sparring lets me focus on all the moves in my head I have learnt in the past year. When I do the first half of the lesson where I am instructed with new moves, I tend to forget my goals for the night or get muddled as to what things I wanted to try during sparring.

It was probably the best night at jiu-jitsu I have had so far. Makoto, who is now a black belt, came from Taiwan with a blue belt student, Justin. I think they came for the Rickson cup and dropped by last night. I sparred with Makoto who constantly switched from deep half to inverted guard. I just couldn't pass his guard unless he let me. I talked to Justin after and he told me that he had trained for 6 years so that made him a very strong blue belt. I could see his base was strong and confirmed this when he said he had done judo for 2 years.

I took a few beatings and also held my own which was cool. Sometimes it feels like wearing a colour belt gives you a kryptonite effect. For instance, some of the guys who used to tool me around when I was white can't anymore. I had one judo guy who is also blue frustrated with full mount, side control and knee on belly. I was also trying for lapel chokes and tie-ups which I am starting to enjoy doing. One thing I have to work on is to stop people passing me on my right side. They tie my right leg down so I cannot move my hips. I need to work on this because the ease of passing my guard is seriously starting to annoy me.

We all took a picture at the end and spirits were really high. I wish all nights were like that, a balance of being the nail and the hammer.
















Sparring time: 7 x 6 mins = 42 mins.