In The Grind

I couldn't train Thursday; wife's family was in town and I caught some pink eye from the bar, so grinding away on the mats was not a good idea.  I got the anti-biotics on the double and was non-contagious by Friday morning.  So Saturday, I was back.

I went to Gina's class first thing in the a.m.  She was just back from a week in NYC studying at Marcelo's academy, so we went over some x-guard entries and sweeps.  My knee is doing much, much better.  My training partner, though, was simply unable to maintain any semblance of balance when I went into x-guard.  I couldn't tell if that was because of unfamiliarity with the position or because I'm just that good at geting underneath my opponent and upsetting/manipulating his base.  I'm presuming the former, because really, I'm not that good.  Trained a bit at the end of class, worked on finding those positions and transitioning to and from them.  Mixed success and failure, so it was valuable experience.

I stuck around for a half hour of open mat afterwards, as well.  I could only stay a half hour because we had a wedding that afternoon, and juggling the car meant it had to be back earlier than I would have liked.  The Alliance guys are prepping for the Chicago Open next weekend, so rolls were timed at 6 minutes and going at a pretty good pace.  My first opponent is my build but about 20 pounds lighter.  Still lanky as all hell, and pretty good at using his legs to get between himself and his opponent.  I fared pretty well against him, but he's in the process of coming back from a while off.  He's not quite at where he was, apparently, so I can stay a step or two ahead of him.  My next roll was with a frequent training partner who's a bit smaller than I but more experienced.  He doesn't like my game because it poses problems that he does not normally confront, so his normal tricks run into unexpected obstacles.  We stalemated all six minutes, trading positions and attacks and defenses.  It was a good, hard, technical roll.  Lastly I rolled with a brown belt female.  We were taking it easier than my other rolls, trying to progress and defend, etc.

The coming week is full of moving and packing and unpacking.  Also, my wife things that jiu jitsu should come after relocation in terms of priorities.  I think this is crap, but have decided that fights with pregnant women should be chosen carefully, and this topic did not make the cut.  So I'll train (with luck) thrice next week.  We shall see.