On the Mat Day 560: Friday Training in the Snow

OK so that was melodramatic. I didn't actually train in the snow but there was enough of it on the road on Thursday and most of it had melted by Friday but it was still ball freezing temperatures.

Ball freezing dojo

F-sensei had to turn on the Boeign engine heater to get the room to at least liveable levels. When he flipped the switch, black smoke came out and fill the room. I started to cough along with the other people and started to worry about the number of brain cells that had probably been destroyed by me inhaling the noxious fumes.

We worked on guard passing but using footwork. One person lies down, knees sticking up and feet on the floor, the other person stands and uses fancy footwork to step over the legs and end in knee on belly. These make good warm up drills and I wish we would do them more often as drills alone at the start.

It being Christmas in a few days, I decided to get myself something. Stephan Kesting has been taunting me lately with his spider guard masterclass titbits. I must say that I wanted the Ryan Hall passing or guard DVD but the yen is so weak and buying it from Amazon will cost too much to ship. Stephan offers free international shipping and the fact that the new DVD course he has release includes lasso spider made me buy it since this is my strong position. Also, the fact that after watching just one of his videos with double bicep control to omoplata has got me hitting this move a lot lately I just had to get that friggin DVD in my hands. So I have.....and can't wait to watch it and digest it.