Thursday 19 November 2015

BJJ Day 686: People come, people go

Thursday is my day to lick my wounds and recover. I do Judo on Tuesday then train BJJ on Wednesday morning. It's about today that I start to feel my age after working hard for the past 2 days to stay strong against the young guys I train with. It's an enjoyable sort of humming inside my muscles and bones soreness though and I think I might just take a nap after writing this to help my body recover. I can do that since I work for myself and this month has been very slow work-wise.

I've heard from people at the club and confirmed by my instructor that there have been a few people leaving recently. Tanaka-san who was the older 66 year old guy (he gave me hope for the future) decided to finally hang up his belt and quit BJJ. He has been plagued with a knee injury for quite some time. It's a real shame because I really liked seeing him on the mat and give it all for the 3 minutes that he sparred with me. Another person who has left is Chris. A Brazilian guy I have known since he was a blue belt. He lives in Toyota which is quite a drive away and decided to move to a closer gym. I think the gym near him has more Brazilian folks too. I don't blame him really. If there was a gym full of Brits, I would probably go there too. This month has also seen the return of Takuo who always beat the crap out of me when I was a white belt. I still have a slightly chipped tooth from his collar choke and will never forget the unpleasant feeling of tooth dust dispersing in my mouth. I've yet to spar with him but his long time off has apparently slowed him down. There were also a few white belts started recently, young and gamey. It's just an added incentive to polish my jiu-jitsu to the bare basics and strengthen my techniques.

This week I have been a little bit annoyed with myself. Take yesterday for example, I wanted to work escapes with the smaller white belts but it always ends up with me quickly sweeping them and getting a dominant position. I feel like I need to flop down on my back and let them go again. It's like I have the best intentions of letting them play their game and have their way with me so I can practice from bad positions but my body/brain simply refuses to let them. I don't know whether it operates out of instinct or spite to not let me improve inferior positions. I suspect it's part of the ego.

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