On the Mat Day 315: Back to It

I have to be honest. Last week when I was ill and feeling like crap, I thought I might never return to BJJ. Perhaps it was the low seratonin in my brain, the shitty feeling in my body that made me think about rolling over and giving up. After doing BJJ class last night after a week and a half absence I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I love training. I got my arse kicked - sure but I feel great today. Stress levels - 0%, desire to throttle my co-workers - 0%, comfort with my place in the world - 100%.

I travelled to Tsurumai dojo again last night since it has heating. There were already 3 guys there. Kondo and Tsuzuki turned up later so we had a fairly crowded place. F-sensei showed us how to gramby roll when the opponent is behind us with no grips and then when they do have grips around our waist, to post out, break the grips and turn into them to take the back. He showed us at the end how each pair can keep doing these moves in tandem continously to get in a good drill yet didn't make us do it. This surprised me since drilling is such a great tool.

Sparring was rough after my time off and still feeling the effects of fatigue after training P90X2 in the morning. Kondo who is a tough white belt and black belt judo player wanted me to spar a lot with him - turned out to be 3 times in total. He is improving very fast, never stops coming forward. I tried to stand with him as much as possible but once my stamina goes he sweeps me easily. For some reason I had lots of problems passing guard while standing. I need to work on this. I am good at low passing such as over under passing but most guys have worked out to push my head and shrimp or stop me from getting the cross-face. I need more options.

Sparring time: 9 x 6 mins = 54 mins

That was an extremely taxing sparring session plus the morning workout made me crawl into bed like a zombie at night. Today, though I feel great. My fingers don't ache as much as they used to and I wonder if this is due to vitamin D supplementation.

Listened to The Joe Rogan Podcast on the way to train. Really funny guy and sometimes kicks in with BJJ talk.