Eyes Up

Klint is back in town, and after a few weeks of Brazilian warm-ups right into training, we're back to five-to-ten minute warm-ups right into forty minutes of technique.  It's a preference thing, I suppose--I'm not huge on working cardio for the sake of working cardio (as anyone who has trained with me can attest).  I like learning the techs, working on hip movement in context instead of in a vaccuum.  Still, the practices that Gina and Chris and Brady ran were super tight.  Having different instructors come in and run class for a while is something that I think everyone should do, especially if you have only one instructor.

So how is may training going?  I really don't know.  I had a few weeks where I was feeling good, executing the very things that I was attempting, performing above my own expectations, that sort of thing.  I didn't have much time to train after class Monday and Tuesday, but I trained the double-open-mat Friday and open mat again on Saturday.  So that was three hours training Friday, another hour Saturday, and technique work (mainly) Monday and Tuesday.

I need to pay more attention to my goals when I roll.  That might bring me back to that place where I feel like I'm accomplishing something when I train.  Friday and Saturday were good in terms of getting some training in, but I lacked direction.  I wasn't working specific positions, trying predetermined setups or anything like that.  The benefit of Friday and Saturday, though, is that I was working with Josh (a smaller, mobile blue belt), old Mike (the purple who reminds me that I don't have nearly the technique that I want to have), Dan (a serious blue belt who gives me problems), and Ron (a blue belt as new as I am on whom I can try new techniques and still feel comfortable).  Going across town for open mat is great; the pool of talent from whom I can learn and get mauled is three or four times the pool at our academy, and everyone is super cool.  It took a bit of time to become a familiar face around there--the same as it is in any social clique, I suppose (you know, like a pool hall or bar or frisbee game)--but once you're in you're in.

I'm also becoming a little more apprehensive about what it means to be a blue belt, especially the first blue belt at our academy.  I don't know what the balance should be between a) taking time to tailor my training to my partners' benefit and 2) being somewhat selfish with the training time I have and working to finish every time.  I also am starting to look long-term and trying to figure out exactly what how much competition experience Klint will want me to have.  I know that competition experience isn't a necessity for progression, and plenty of hard grapplers progress without it.  But I also know it's something that would harden my game and build up my endurance and confidence.  My next training will be Saturday, so I'll have until then to ponder.