Returning

I am in the middle of a terrible week.  And I should be spending tonight remembering administrative law.  But that's all day tomorrow.  Instead, I will reflect on my night of rolling.

Klint has been on a streak of giving us systems to use---a side control system, a guard-opening system, a back-defending system, ways to structure our attacks and defenses so that one flows into the other.  This week, we're doing an attacks-from-guard system.  Every set of grips, we're drilling a system of attacks that we can use.  Armbar-to-triangle-to-armbar, sweep-attempt-to-armbar-to-triangle-to-omoplata, that kind of thing.  This week, of course, I'm buried.  And a little upset about that fact, because I love love love attacking from guard.

After class, I'd told Andy that JD and I were going to start prepping him for the tournament in late May.  It's about 4 weeks out, so I told him that we were going to start working him.  So we took turns starting mounted on him, starting with him in side control, getting him into bad spots and making him work out of them even though he's tired.  Probably six or seven two-minute-gos in a row.  I also worked for a bit with John, and after Andy cashed out, JD and I worked for a bit.

I've been feeling pretty OK about my training lately.  I got to open mat on Friday, and I was working with a few of Damian's higher belts--a smaller blue and a large, older purple.  I could do what I wanted with the blue, but that was mainly the size disadvantage.  I've got probably 40 or 50 pounds on him, and our technique is pretty close.  The purple let me play guard for a bit, and after he told me he would have let me just work a little more if I wasn't doing so well.  So I took that as a compliment, and drove across town for more open mat.

I've been trying to go to my knees more and work from a wrestling position, and sometimes I'm actually doing it.  I have to admit, wrestling is one of my least favorite aspects of grappling.  The submissions and sweeps, those are just beautiful and entertaining and intricate.  The throws (even though I have no idea how to do them) are amazing.  Wrestling, in my mind, is the journeyman's tool, the thing that gets the job done.  I know it's the most useful and beneficial base to have--I get that.  I just wish it wasn't so tiring.  And really, I wish learning Judo was as easy as learning wrestling.  Because the throws?  Come on.  Just exquisite.