June 14th - Gi (More Doing)

Shihan asked to talk to me before class.  He requested that I make sure that visitors to Wednesday morning open mat sign a waiver and pay a mat fee.  Which was something I was wondering about, so I'm glad he brought it up.

With how hot it was and the fact that Ray was running class, I knew it was going to be a rough practice.  He made the comment that Shihan and he were talking about sometimes we do too much talking and not enough doing.  We broke from the usual instructor demonstrates a technique then we all work on it and instead split up into partners and worked on position sparring.  After each round the junior student would rotate.  We worked from mount, side mount, butterfly, half butterfly, turtle and some other things. 

Ray had us lined up by weight and then put us into groups.  I was of course in the heavy group.  We treated them like tournament matches.  I went with Fuji twice and had a hell of a time trying to figure out a way to get him down and end up on top.  It didn't happen and in fact he through me perfectly the first time and landed on me in side control.  He didn't submit me either time and I believe I was able to at least get half guard but he pretty much held me down and went for arm triangle repeatedly which was what he got me with last time.

I went with James next and he completely dominated me.  He scored all of the points that he could by getting a takedown to passing guard to mount, to back mount, then back to mount and then into armbar.  The time stopped before he could complete it.  It sucked being dominated like that but it was also amazing to see how smoothly he transitioned and hit all of the points.

I also went with Tate.  I was pretty tired by this time and was pretty much just trying to survive.  I remember that he tried a throw but I was able to shrug it off.  I believe he beat me on points for passing my guard but I defended well beyond that.  I ended the match in deep half which was cool to see.

I rolled with Jerad too but I don't really remember much from that match.  I know I spent some time trying to pass and I was possibly overextending myself from being exhausted.  I remember getting into a baseball bat choke early on but he had his arm in defending and I gave it up.  I have no recollection of the rest of the match.  He might have bow and arrowed me for all I know.

After bowing out I worked with Claire.  She was getting a little miffed at Ray trying to coach her.  We talked about a post that I had made a while back that she related to on a certain person coaching me.  I tried to do some x and spider guard with Claire to work on some things that I'm not as confident with.

As an added note this morning my coworker and I freestyle swam a mile (33 laps) straight without a break.  It was both physically and mentally tough but I feel great about finishing it.