May 2nd - No-Gi (Intelligently Lazy)

I was a little bummed that I showed up late to class last night.  I got confused by Tuesday starting at 8, but Thursdays start at 7:30, so I won't make that mistake again.  My current plan is to attend Tuesdays and Thursday advanced no-gi although I would like to attend a few beginner classes before the blue belt testing this summer.

Last night was fantastic.  I still have a little swelling which makes it uncomfortable to be on my knees but otherwise I'm good to go.  I missed out on the entire warm-up but got right into the main portion of the class where Greg taught butterfly sweep.  While I feel like I'm already pretty good at this, it seems like I always learn something new.  I guess my head position is still not always proper because Greg reminded me to use my forehead instead of the top of my head.  I had a few pains when I was being swept but it felt good to perform the sweep myself.  We did the sweep using an overhook next and I was impressed to see how Greg taught this.  He was very honest in saying that he knows how he does it but hasn't taught it often enough to know how to relay all of the information.  I've had to deal with this problem when I have taught in the past and honesty is definitely the right way to work through it.

We drilled up/down/out from the butterfly guard.  I took it pretty easy to make sure I didn't injure myself.  I still have some questions of how ready I am.  Whenever I could I'd keep my left knee off the ground.  I did pretty well considering.  My cardio does feel lacking in this new environment. 


I free rolled with Will and Jordan.  It seems like Greg is making all of the match-ups for rolling.  I may ask him sometime what he takes into consideration when he decides who rolls with who.  I'm sure size and skill weigh heavily, but beyond that I can only speculate.  I stayed on my back and spent quite a bit of time in bottom side control defending with both of them.  I had a few sweeps and reversals eventually but I didn't feel like I wanted to be on top too much at that point.

We had some good discussions after class related to Facebook, politics, and Jiu-Jitsu stories.  A quote from Greg came up that we should strive to be "Intelligently lazy" in our Jiu-Jitsu.  I've heard something like this before about martial arts in general.  It basically means we are trying to make our technique and strategies so efficient that we don't waste energy when fighting.