More practice tonight.  Worked more open guard, drilled the leg loop sweep, learned a strange and beautiful shoulder lock r when someone is trying to get double unders and stack you, ad drilled with Andy and Eric a bit.

First, I worked on the guard passing stuff that Klint suggested Tuesday night.  It started feeling fairly natural by the end of the reps, but I'll do it again tomorrow night at the beginning of open mat, just to be sure.After that, the three of us rotated on a few 4 minute rounds, switch at either the time limit or the tap.  I actually spent a lot of time on top rather than playing my guard all night.  I went to guard against Andy once, but pulled that into a pendulum sweep to mount.  After that, he got me back to half-guard, but I passed to side control and didn't let him get back to anything near a secure position again.

Now, I'm starting to think about game-planning for the tournament.  I know it's over a week away, but I don't really know what I'll do if I face a great wrestler or a killer judo guy.  I know that I'm only going white belt and that I should be competitive with everyone I fight, but that doesn't stop me from either a) trying to think about a strategy that will help me take advantage of the spaces I create, or 2) wanting to perform well (which in my mind means beating a handful of people I fight).  I don't know how many will be in my division or what the spread of talent is like, but I want to perform well.  Vicious thing, being demanding of yourself.  I wish it on no one.

My body is performing remarkably well.  I'm not too sore, my back feels fine, I'm keeping my diet under tight watch (lots of fruits, lots of cottage cheese and clean sandwiches); I know I'm not sleeping enough, but with some luck I'll be able to catch up on a bit this weekend.  Between practices and homework various sundry responsibilities and that wedding on Saturday and finishing the one recreational book on my shelf right now (the next one is  Brothers Karamazov, so that might wait a bit).  Easy.

I'm pretty much out of things to say for the night.  I'll have more tomorrow, I hope.  In the meantime, enjoy a video of my instructor at the 2006 Chicago NAGAs: