Day 10: Side Escapes

I weighed myself yesterday. Came in at exactly 71 kg. This was a shock because I've not been paying attention to what I eat so much as when I was doing the Beachbody stuff. I think it's down to two things. 1. That my stomach has shrunk from restricting calories during P90X and Chalene. and 2. The jiu-jitsu practice is a new stimuli to my body and burning calories like crazy. I need to eat more protein and vegetables. Lots of vegetables. It might be worth my white gaining a few kilos of lean muscle by upping my calories to around 3000. I need around 2400 right now for maintenance so an extra 500 or so should do the trick.

There was me and Akira, who is 20 years old and has been a white belt for 6 months. He has no stripes but he's pretty good. It brought home the fact how hard it is to progress in belt colours over here. They don't give them out as freebies that's for sure. So when I meet a blue or purple belt, I know they've worked their arse off. Later the Brazilian guy came (need to ask his name again). He has 4 stripes and been doing jiu-jitsu for 2 years and 9 months. He has some good sweeps but I think he can't come often so he may be a little rusty on the mats. Either that or he was taking it easy on me.

My ears appear a little puffy. This is after only 10 sessions training. I also have pains in my throat area from practising chokes. Simply putting a little pressure there hurts. They say this is normal. I'm a strong believer in the body's ability to become accustomed to pain and tolerate discomfort with increased exposure to it. Pain is only weakness leaving the body, is it not?

All in all, a good session. Side mount escapes was a necessity for me. Koyama told me to relax during sparring while I was trying to escape side mount. I suppose I did feel a bit like a fish flopping around desperate to escape his osaekomi.

Things I need to work on:
1. Relax body and wait for opening for side escape
2. Work on defending against chokes using hand to head to cut away choking arm
3. Cross choke correct position of hands inside collar

3 days rest then I'm back at it.