On the Mat Day 200: Closed Guard Chokes

I woke up at 5.30am on Friday morning and not by choice. A mosquito was buzzing in my ear just desperate for my blood. This is probably the reason I hate mosquitoes more than cockroaches. I closed my eyes ignored him and got out of bed 30 minutes later to do a BJJ workout. This involved pull ups using the collar of an old dogi, neck bridges, tornado rolls against the wall, swinging my legs in a circle while bellying down, solo tackle drills while holding a medicine ball and repeating that sequence of moves. I just really winged it. I had a few specific things in mind I wanted to do like the pulls up but it was mostly something to get me warmed up in the morning. I worked a little balance ball at the end.

After work I went to training. There were only 2 white belts there, K-sensei and Fumika. K taught us lots and lots of collar chokes from the closed guard. I got a little annoyed, but didn't show it, because I was drilling the chokes with a guy called Yoshida (who happens to be a police officer with some interesting stories) while Fumika was drilling with a young kid who used to do rock climbing and has amazing grip strength. Anyway, I drilled and would do the move twice and changed to let Yoshida have a go. I was ready for more because I love drilling but each time I turned round I could see this young white belt kid had finished and was just sitting their waiting for the next move. Fumika and F-sensei are too polite to tell him to drill some more. It just rubbed me the wrong way that this young guy did not seem interested in drilling each move more than twice. This prompted F-sensei to teach the next move and prevented me and Yoshida from doing another set. It's like the young kid at class who listens to his walkman because he knows it all, or thinks he does. Well, that shit only happens in movies. If you don't drill and practice, you won't get better. I decided to test him out during sparring. That was the fun part and I could see the ego drain out of him after each submission. I know, I've been there.

Again, I went with the premise of breathing and at first did not do so well. Too much muscling but I got into a rhythm after the first sparring round and my breathing was great, my energy was great. I was the only one standing up ready to go after the timer chimed. They were looking at me wondering where I get the energy and to be honest I can only equate it to breathing better which equates to being more relaxed.

Sparring time: 6 x 6 mins = 36 mins

Notable moments: Shooting in on K-sensei for a single leg and him knowing exactly what I am going to do and promptly choking me out with a front guillotine.

I almost forgot. P90X 2 is out (well pre-orders but it's release is December) and Beachbody is taking orders for it. I have to say that I am really tempted to do it. It looks awesome.