Saturday 25 May 2013

On the Mat Day 375: A Chill Out Night of Training

I asked K-sensei the name of the brown belt who I drilled with last week after class. I am so forgetful when it comes to people's names. I looked at the guy's picture on our member's board and for his name he had written 871. K-sensei told me that was his name. Is he a cyborg, or something? you might think. Actually, the Japanese have a great way of remembering phrases or numbers since their syllables are interchangeable with numbers. The guy's name is Yanai. This can be broken down into Ya = 8, nana or na = 7 and i or ichi = 1. That's why he wrote 871. It kind of reminds me of the Mnemonic Major System but is much easier than ours. Japanese commercials often use this system when displaying their telephone numbers on the TV and they also use it to remember which days of the month don't have 31 days nishi muku samurai 246911 so February, April, June, September and November.

I took it really easy last night because I was low on energy and there weren't many of us at class in contrast to last Friday. Wednesday's class, where I pushed hard, really knocked me off sync. Three other guys besides me turned up to take K-sensei's lesson. The theme continued with knee on the belly choke attacks.

During sparring, maybe it was just one of those days, but everyone seemed to either grab or attempt to trap my injured foot so by the end of the night it was painful to sleep even after icing. The legs play such an important part in BJJ that it's so hard to avoid hitting them on something. I talked to Yoshida about his trip to Brazil a little. He mentioned that the guys there were all really strong and believed it has something to do with their diet. They eat a lot of meat whereas in Japan people eat small portions and mostly fish. It made me think about Mark Sisson's Paleo diet and strength training that is recommended with it.

At the end of class I worked out with the 16 and 20 kg kettlebells just to get a feel for them. I'd like to get hold of an adjustable set.

Sparring time: 4 x 6 mins = 24 mins

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