Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Status Quo

More and more systems.  This is week two of open guard, and we're learning how to use the outside hook to our advantage, transitioning from one open guard attack to another, knowing which indicators tells us to go where.  "This isn't anything that someone taught me, this system of indicators and progressive attacks," he told us last night.  "This is stuff that I put together after failing a lot and reviewing what went wrong and where I _should_ have gone."  So literally, these systems are his own creation.  They aren't anything new--the techniques are the same ones that he was taught--they are just wrapped in a new presentation style.

And they're great.

So, Christopher, how's your training?  To be fair, I don't know.  I think it's going well.  I'm spending a fair amount of time on the mats (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday nights, Saturday afternoons and sometimes mornings, and probably every other Friday night open mat), so I don't leave enough time for any cobwebs to set in.  From time to time, though, I have a few of those training sessions where I feel like nothing goes right.  I don't quite embarrass myself, but I definitely don't perform as well as my training indicates that I should.  Last Monday, for instance, I made it to morning class across town, and I got to train with a few guys there.  One I should be even with, going back and forth, and I felt sluggish and a few steps behind.  Another, a three stripe blue, went back and forth with me, and I felt like I should be ahead of him the entire time.  It was probably good that I was there and working all the same.  I didn't fail entirely.  So there's that.

I'll be back in this space more regularly in the coming weeks and months.  Andy has a local competition in about a week and a half, and I have a take-home final and law review editing to finish.  Because I graduate law school in five days.  And with luck, I'll be sober by Saturday to help him from the sidelines.

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