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.

Stripe II - The Stripening

So the holidays messed with my BJJ schedule a bit. I had planned on doing two classes, plus a seminar over the past week. However, I found myself battling a two day migraine and only (barely) made it to the seminar.

It was a great course. We went over half-guard passes, a couple of which are very awesome. I'm interested to put them into action, since I find myself in half-guard quite often. We continued into positional sparring, where we covered all the major positions. We probably did that for an hour or so, then went into live rolling for the remainder of the day, which culminated with stripe promotions for everybody. So, I don't mean to scare you guys or anything, but I'm a 2-stripe white belt now.

New Gi!

I tried my new gi out last night. It was amazing.

For one thing, its just gorgeous. Everybody was envious of it awesome color and lightweight material. The light fabric breathes so much better than the fuji. I felt so badass wearing it, and I actually performed better in class last night. So far, I highly recommend the 93 Brand Goose.

Proud moment of the night: Catching the Irish Strangler in a legit bow and arrow. I've never really subbed him before, and I transitioned so smoothly. He tapped and just looked at me. He told me aftewards how smooth and fast it was, and that he didn't even have a chance to fight.

We're doing belt/stripe testing next weekend. I expect Rodney to get his blue belt, because he's just a badass. The Irish Strangler MIGHT get purple, but he's only got 3 stripes on his blue. Brian sometimes skips stripes, because we test so infrequently. I'd like to see him get his purple, because he's very good. I expect everybody else to just be striped.

Back at it tonight, since next week is going to be harder for me to get in there. I'll probably only be able to do Thursday and Saturday next weekend, but the weekend is a 3 hour seminar/test.

Quick Notes

Just wanted to make a quick note that I plan on training at least four days this week. I feel that if I write it down and put it out there, I am more likely to do it.

Today at class we're giving Darin his club Christmas present, a new Carlson Gracie gi. I ordered a new gi too. I got the 93 Brand Grey Goose from BJJHQ for $100. It should be here tomorrow, so I'm very excited. I love my Fuji gi, but if I pick up my training pace, I probably need to have more than one.

Slow Down

So, after we finished rolling last night, Darrin (our black belt) and a few of us were sitting around the mat. He tends to get philosophical at points like this, and it is always good to hear his outlook on this sort of stuff. After a few minutes, he looked at me and said "Hey, you need to slow down when you roll." I looked and him and said "what do you mean?" He told me that I didn't need to slow down in the sense that I was spazzing or being unsafe, but that I needed more deliberation in my movement. He told me I'm excellent at transitioning, but I don't create anything. According to him, I'm an excellent white belt, but to transition to blue belt I have to look past behaving in a soley reactionary manner. I have to be able move logically. He told me I'm close, but I don't have that yet. And it is absolutely true. I react. I don't really think about what I'm doing. I don't know how to get around that. I kind of get tunnel vision when I roll. Darren wasn't telling me to slow my body down. He was telling me to slow my mind down, and think before I act. He also talked to all of us about resilience. He used one of our blue belts, who comes maybe once ever two weeks, as an example. The dude is strong, but he's also tough as a bootheel. Darrin has talked about absolutely not behing able to get him to submit, because of his resilient mindset. Jiu Jitsu is about survival, and part of that is not giving up position in you're getting crossfaced for knee of belly'd. I like these talks with Darrin, because of how evaluative he is on everybody. Its just a good overall experience.

Still Rolling

I know, I haven't been posting much. I have been incredibly busy, and I don't want to be the type of blogger that spends more time blogging than rolling. I also have a full time job and I have finals at school. I just took one final that I bombed enough to screw my GPA for this semester (which means I'm getting a 3.5 instead of a 4.0). I'm still attending BJJ Classes on average of 2.5 session a week. Basically, I'm aiming for two, and I'm really happy if I get 3 in. I've been very steady in my progression of skill, but I'm also a bit of a flake. One night, I'll be subbing blue belts, and absolute on fire...the next I'll tap to scarf hold. One of my larger sparring partners absolutely man handled me the other night. Usually we're about even, with sometimes me edging him out. Not last week. I beat me like a rented gong. We have a new guy that came in, weighing quite a bit. He's not just a muscular dude (he is), but he's also very...erm...corpulent. He got me in side control and I literally felt ribs creaking and popping. The good thing about rolling with guys that large is that they force you into playing open guard, which normally I don't do. I like to get out of my comfort zone and learn stuff...but damn. What else? Two guys from my school did a tournament in WV this weekend, which was apparently an ADCC event. They did well, with our purple belt getting 1st in Gi and 2nd in No-Gi, and our blue belt getting 2nd in Gi and 3rd in No-gi. Our purple belt was worried, because he's a small dude. His walking weight is like 140, and the weight classes were 150 and below. His main concern was people cutting from like 170 to fight him. He did well though, and made a couple of the purple belts look like they were new to jiu jitsu. I haven't seen any of the blue belt matches. I've also been using Defense Soap, since they generously sent me a free sample. The free sample was very generous, containing a full sized bar of soap, a full bottle of shower gel, and a container of 40 wipes. I wouldn't call this a review, but I will give you my impressions on the product. I like the smell, and it seems to get me cleaned up. I haven't had any skin infections, but that isn't necessarily due to their product. I didn't have any skin infections prior to using it either. You can't prove a negative. I will say that it is perfectly good as a free product, and I would use it if it were cheap and easier to obtain. A 4oz. bar of soap is $5 from MMAwarehouse. That is a bit pricey for me. If it were $2 a bar, I'd probably use it quite frequently.

11/14/13

I only got to train one day this week, because of an extended reserve drill period. We have to make up the days we were off for the government shutdown, so I'm here for four days instead of my normal two.

I've also been overwhelmed by homework. Luckily, I only have one more project due this week. Its large, but I think I can get it done before Sunday if I put a lot of work into it tomorrow. School is really starting to grind me down, and next semester is only going to be worse. Right now, I have B's in all my classes, which is actually kind of horrible for me. I just can't really bring myself to give a shit about it. I know that degrees are important, but I honestly can't rate my college experience very highly. I'm going to school through the VA's GI Bill. If I had to pay for this stupid shit out of pocket, I'd probably have quit a long time ago. The only reason I keep going is that I'm getting a free* education. (*=I spent most of my late teens and early twenties in places that qualify as "hazardous duty")

I really have started getting into the groove of BJJ. I'm getting really excited about how my performance plateaus for a bit, and then increases dramatically overnight. I'm getting in better shape, and best of all, I can think clearly while rolling. I'm starting to become somebody that blue belts don't easily submit. All of my instructors have been telling me I'm starting to get good, and that I'm light years above where I was just a few months ago. I have a feeling that I'll be getting striped in December when our affiliate black belt comes to visit, but I don't even really care about how many stripes I have. If I was promoted to blue belt tomorrow, the same people are still going to be kicking my ass. Though, I have heard some people are getting somewhat frustrated with the lack of rank progression in our school. We affiliate from a gym an hour away. We do have our own 2nd degree black belt, but he came in after we had already affiliated with the other black belt. He feels like if he promotes people, he's stepping on toes. Our affiliate doesn't like brown belts and purple belts giving stripes, so we are reliant upon him holding seminars or us going to his school for evaluation. Like I said, I don't really care. I'm just at a very happy place in my training right now. I've been going three days a week, so I'm going to try to dial it up to four days a week.

I've also decided that I'm going to do the tournament in February.