Lagging Behind

I have a bad right knee/shin.  I don't know exactly how bad, but it's occasionally questionable.  When I lock triangles, for instance, it hurts on the outside of my leg from my knee to my ankle.  This topic will return.  Completely unrelated, I have been late in posting.  I chalk this up to the rest of my life.  It should stop bothering me and taking up so much of my time.

We focused on the push-pull concept all night.  Well, almost all night.  We started with take-down entries from grips, and then went to the ground.  The push-pull is basically the entire concept behind judo (as I understand judo, of course, which is probably not that well because I have never practiced), and the easiest way to conserve energy on the ground.  All that means is that it's very, very hard to do.  We had a flow drill that went like this:  from half guard; recover guard, keep opponent from getting grips and pull him down with your hip flexors; roll their elbow towards you; when they sit up to resist, do a hip bump sweep; when they drive into you to resist the sweep, throw your hips back and slap on a guillotine.  Do it right, and you use only your opponent's energy and a little bit of leverage.

After that, it was more positional drills; mount, then side control.  I worked with Andy at the beginning from mount and Jon from side control.  Still trying to feel more comfortable on top.  To be fair, Jon has around 30-40 pounds on me, and not much of it is fat, so staying on top of him is an effort and an accomplishment.  Near the end, I got to my knees and started to stand, but he drove in with a double-leg.  So I realized that a guillotine was coming and grabbed his neck, but my right foot caught on his pant, and then snapped up.  For some reason, that decided to shoot pain from my ankle to my knee.  So that was awesome.  But it was also the last roll before Klint called time, so it wasn't world's end.

Started with Andy after class.  He got me with an armbar that he really shouldn't have because I was too lazy remembering to bring my arms with me when I stand up in guard.  Later, after finding a strange semi-x-guard-roll-up-type sweep (that's the technical name), I ended up in his half-guard.  His pressure on my leg made the same spot hurt like a bastard.  So I screamed a little bit, moved my leg, and on we went.  Later, I was playing guard and had both butterflies in; I elevated him and he twisted or I shot for a sweep and our shins collided--I don't remember exactly.  But again, the pain shot from my knee to my ankle.  I screamed like a baby.  A hungry, angry baby.  So if anyone has a leg they're wiling to trade, I'm somewhat in the market.

Eventually, I got back on the mat and worked with Zach a bit.  I let him pass my guard and worked out of half-guard for a while.  I didn't want to play guard for fear of the gangrene spreading, so I avoided it as much as possible.  I did end up hitting a tripod sweep twice (and then helping Zach remember how to identify and defend it) and eventually was taking his back from half-guard when he gassed.  I was a little upset at that, I wanted a bit more work.  It was his first night back after 2 weeks off, though, so his conditioning is below what it was.

Then I rolled with Klint again.  And got wrecked again.  I'm getting a little frustrated with myself and how I work when rolling with Klint.  I end up forgetting to use anything that I've been working on, like what little technique I have has flown out the window and I'm left as the guy who walked in the door in February.  I notice that I instinctively do some good things (believe me, it's not on purpose) and once I start thinking about how to improve from where I am--i.e., stop defending and start attacking--I'm caught in a new kind of pain.  Rereading this, I think it's probably overall good; my defense is at least improving, and once I think about attacking and start the process, that's when I get caught.  I'm not sure that's completely correct, but I need something to boost morale every now and then.