On the Mat Day 228: Omoplata

In my opinion there is a mathematical formulae for BJJ and it goes like this.

P = n²

Where P is the amount of pleasure a person can get out of training and n is the number of people training with you at that time. So the more people that train along with you, the amount of pleasure rises exponentially. I felt like this last night after training. K-sensei is in Portugal right now for the European Open so F-sensei decided to close one dojo for the night and just open Tsurumai dojo, the one with heating. A ton of people came. This meant more partners, different techniques to use on different body types and BJJ levels. I got a lot out of the sparring sessions.

I asked Tete a lot of questions about sitting guard and the Darce choke I tried to apply on him. He told me how to defend the choke as well or at least how to stall it. I also sparred with Omiyagi-san and caught him with a few techniques. He is very prone to push on the knee when I get KoB on him and he leaves himself wide open for a far side armbar attack. I showed him the huge gap in his escape and how I get the armbar on him every time. He thanked me and said "Why are you telling me this because now you won't get that submission on me again." This attitude really showed me how far I have come along since my white belt days. At his level of BJJ right now, I believe that he sees everyone else in the dojo as an opponent. I know how it is, I was the same. But now I see them all as team mates, guys who I want to see improve and hopefully me along with them. I believe that if they improve, I improve. We feed off each other's energy like a collective or a tribe. We nurture each other. I'm sure there are people even with coloured belts who don't want to show others club members how they do a technique but that shows a huge weakness of character in my opinion.

I was quite happy with my performance as well during sparring. Moving well and really thinking about my techniques. There were quite a few times that I saw things before they happened. I could sometimes predict my opponent's movement and pre-empt a defence rather like chess. At the end I was incredibly tired with sweat pouring from me but had a great final sparring round with Yoshida-san.

Sparring time: 8 x 6 mins = 48 mins

Notable moments: Keeping Tsuzuki from passing my guard ... for longer than usual.