Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Derailment

I don't know if derailment is the right word. I'm still training, and still trying...but I'm definitely feeling a bit down. Its mainly school. I have a very hard semester, and am struggling to juggle everything I have going on. I'm making it happen, but I just feel so run down.

Of course this affects me on the mats. I can't train as much as I'd like, and often times when I can I just don't. I'm still at doing at least two days a week, but my goal was 3-4 times. Even when I do get to train, I'm just exhausted. I'm still improving though, which is honestly why I keep going. Its just hard for me to suddenly get surpassed by people who I've been able to handle in the past. Part of it was that when I was away for work, they were all training for a competition. Their games improved by leaps and bounds.

In the end though, I have to check myself when I compare myself to others. That isn't the point. I didn't start BJJ to get better than other people. I started jiu jitsu to be a better me. I've largely accomplished that, so I'm happy. The main thing that gauls me is that I see their improvement and realize that my own could be so much better. I will note that most of my training partners are not married with children, juggling work, school, military reserves, and trying to become an artist. I think, after I graduate, I'm going to be much better positioned to start making steps towards the improvement that I seek.

Last night was a good class. We didn't have very many people show up. A new white belt showed up halfway through the class, but until then I was there with a senior blue belt, a purple belt, and a black belt. This is about as good a learning environment as you can ask for. After doing some take down drils, we drills some mount positions. Because the class was so small, we started rolling earlier than normal.

I was pleased with my rolls, because the blue belt couldn't tap. Obviously, the purple and black belts toyed with me...but I learned a lot. I was amazed when the new whitebelt showed up. I'd been rolling for four rounds, and I was his first match up. I controled him so easily that I was actually thinking "holy shit, this is awesome."

Its very rare that I can actually control the pace of the actions so completely. The kid has trained before at our sister academy, but moved into our area for college. He's a national guardsman that just got back from basic training, and is absolutely tiny. He was probably only 125 lbs or so. He actually reminds me quite a bit of myself at that age, I was a similar weight and had a similar background. Anyways, He's inexperienced, but not unexperienced.

I just want more white belts to come in like that. It gives me a chance to try things out. I try not to go to hard with them, and I let him work...because that benefits me too. I'm just so used to getting smashed that when I don't, it makes me giddy.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Back from Business Trip

So, I'm back from my trip. I was away for two weeks for my company, undergoing training at a US Army base. My intentions were to go to the gym every day, keep my cardio, and eat right. As we all know about the best laid plans, that all went to hell. The gym was closed for remodel and I was surrounded by fast food joints. I did do some calistenics in my room every day though. I won't really go into the horrendous details of the trip. All my flights got canceled and I was forced to drive 7 hours to the training, which turned into 11 hours because of the horrible weather. The class was boring and largely just a formal certification on shit I've been doing for 10 years.

When I got back to training on monday, It was definitely aparent how much I'd lost in those two week. Of course, the whole gym was training for a large competition, so they had been amping it up the whole time I was gone. All of our personnel medaled, but largely they were disappointed in their performance. Personally, I'm proud that we can send a team of six people to a large tournament and everybody walk out with at least a third place finish in something. I doubt I could have done as well.

I might be competing at a very small local tournament next month. It depends on how I feel. Right now, it just seems like I'm so far behind everybody else. I really wish that we had somebody of roughly the same size and experience level as me. I'm in the 170 weight category. The smaller guys are very senior blues or higher, and the younger white belts are so much bigger than me that they just smash me. I know that I'm not horrible, its just kind of frustrating at times.