On the Mat Day 911: Couple of Brown Belts in the Mix

Wednesday morning class is getting good. We have a few regulars now. Mostly people who work nights and then drop in before going home or work for the government or in the service industry so have the day off.

I had a couple of brown belts to spar with which is always great because it pushes me to do better and examine my skill set. Here I am sparring with both of them.

As you would expect, they both have good pressure. A solid passing game and quick to react with sweeps. I simply try to use butterfly guard or single-X now as any savvy BJJ player can see from the photos. This takes a lot of pressure off my bad knee and allows me to continue sparring. I find it hard to use lasso guard and Z-guard because of the danger to my knee. These 2 guards were instrumental in my development from blue belt so I have basically had to re-design my game from the ground up since getting back on the mats last October.

My motivation is fairly high considering the cold snap we have now. My brain constantly turns over thinking about weaknesses I have when in certain situations. It can be really hard to turn off my thoughts.

With Tsuzuki

With Hasegawa