I like round figures. That's why day 180 sounds good to me. It's only 20 away from 200 which is an even better number. I'm averaging 100 lessons per year. Which means 2 per week. In actual fact, in winter it can drops to once a week and summer I do 3 times a week. I'm much more prone to injury in winter. Summer I feel great, the body is more fluid and I recover better. When I first started I had the ambition of doing 4 or 3 times a week which would produce a figure of 200 lessons in a year. That was way too ambition for my lifestyle. I have seen young single guys do this amount and be paid with massive improvement because of it. I've heard doing jiu-jitsu is a marathon rather than a sprint. I like to think that too. There are times when you fall off the road but as long as you get back on it, it's all good. I've seen some guys at my gym fall aside as time goes on. Most of them are blue belts who I don't see now. Mostly it is the types who don't try new things, don't study outside of class, watch videos, youtube or read books. BJJ is a fascinating sport for me. It often times feels like a human 3D puzzle. Techniques I see fascinate the brain and engage my interest. I love how there is a counter to all moves. There is where the aspect of chess bleeds into BJJ.
Tonight, F-sensei taught me (only attendee), along with Kawai-san who came later, some basics. Tripod sweep, lumberjack sweep, dropping to butterfly sweep and x-guard. The first 2 are very familiar to me and I have become very proficient at them. The latter 2 were useful particularly x-guard which I know my body type would do well at.
During sparring, which was very relaxed because of the low number of members, I did well against Kawai. He always crushes me with his weight but I worked escapes and tried to keep his weight from suffocating me. I'm getting better at holding half-guard and then when notice surfaces, moving to closed guard. Tete-kun asked me if I wanted to do it no-gi. We went a round and it was a weird feeling. He of course as a brown belt is good at it. My first thought was how few grips there are. Plus a lot of gi techniques go out the window. On the plus side, it is far easier to escape in no gi and rear naked chokes are easier to sink. A really fun and interesting sparring session. Tete mentioned that my guard is getting better. I really concentrate hard and try to keep moving when on bottom plus my cardio is getting better so I probably am improving.
Sparring time: 5 x 6 = 30 mins
I asked F-sensei about the judo high school kids who came and whether they would join the club. He saw that people who do judo generally have no interest in BJJ over in Japan. That's a shame because I saw some good potential in them, especially the black belt girl. He also said that they don't worry about getting caught in submissions by BJJ during sparring but they dislike being thrown by us. I think what he meant was that they only care about the throw. They probably feel they should be able to throw a BJJer whereas if they get caught in a triangle or armbar it's can't be helped because well that's what BJJ guys do best.
Apparently, IBJJF have decided that competitors can only wear white or blue gis now. And they must bring both to a competition. and there is me just bought a black gi! Don't caure though. I love my pro light Vulkan gi. Next one I buy will definately be Vulkan.
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