"It's been a busy weekend," it said. "Take a break, don't train today. Take it easy."
I was tempted by this but to be honest could not think what I would do instead of training so I cast the mind chatter out of my head and got my kit ready to go. Another factor for me wanting to really train today was switching on my tablet computer and seeing all the guys that trained on Saturday night (see pic below). One of our newly promoted brown belts is leaving for work in another city so everyone went to train on Saturday night. I'm also friends with other jiu-jitsu guys from different clubs and see all these pictures on Facebook flooding in of them post-training with sweat drenching and big smiles. This was enough stimulus to get my arse to the gym and train. So thank you Facebook, you got my back.
As usual now, Sunday is quite busy but generally colored belts attend. F-sensei taught us collar chokes with both hands in from closed guard and mount. I have to say that I am not great at these chokes and Akira (my drilling partner for the day) has the technique much better than me. I really should focus on doing them more because they are an integral part of BJJ.
I did quite well at sparring. Against a purple belt who likes to play butterfly, I took his back, lost position, then swept him to take full mount. I lost the position again because I do not attack enough from mount. I basically tried to impose my own game on him and not play into his own. This worked for the first half but eventually he got me in his "move" which is an inverted arm lock from butterfly. A new white belt also attended, a young (20-something) tall guy, who I think is Brazilian. I threw him with Sumi-gaeshi and heard Miura-san from the side tell me to go easy on him because he was new. I didn't really think that I threw the kid hard. Sumi-gaeshi is an easy landing compared to Seio-nage, but I turned it down a notch. Sure enough, from nowhere the kid tackles me and my feet go flying in the air cartoon style and I land with the air knocked out of me and the kid in my guard. I recovered quickly and worked my magic. It was an excellent tackle but could have ended nasty for me if I had fallen badly with his weight on me. This is why I prefer to take top as much as possible with a white belt who I have never sparred with before. It's about trust. Guys who I have trained with for a while, sure, I let them work their stuff on me. I've also been working with far arm tie up from side control. I like to get a scissor cutting collar choke or if they pull out their arm I go for Ezekiel. If nothing works I switch hands to try for an Americana.
One final thing I noticed at class. One of the guys went to the toilet and didn't wash his hands. The first time I saw this a couple of classes ago and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he forgot. Then I saw it again. So basically when I roll with this person I am getting his piss on me. I love my teammates but damn if this one thing doesn't annoy the crap out of me. What's a guy to do?
Sparring time: 5 x 6 mins = 30 mins
Notable moment: Flower type sweep from guard as a re-counter, hip throw from failed sumi-gaeshi attempt
No comments:
Post a Comment