August 20th 2013 - Gi

It's been a full week since my last post and the lack of BJJ has been getting me down.  Last Thursday, when I woke up and got out of bed, I wasn't able to put weight on my right leg.  I had massive pain in the back of my knee.  I was able to hobble along and make it to work but any extension or weight baring was excruciating.  The next day it was a little better but the pain kept me up the night before.  I called in sick on Friday and spent most the day in bed with my legs up. 

With some online searching it's possible I may have a bakers cyst.  I've self diagnosed myself improperly in the past before so I made an appointment with my orthopedist this Thursday.  I may request an MRI to make sure that I don't have a torn meniscus in my right knee as well.  Although I don't have any reoccurring pain in my right knee, it was the original one to get hurt and it hasn't been completely the same since then.

Regardless I felt pretty good this evening and I had conducted my Sunday class as well with no issues.  Before class I drilled the standing guard break with white belt Jerad; he gave me a little resistance which made for good training.  Greg ran us through the regular warm-up with a few butt-scooting additions.  We followed that up with some throw fit-ins using the three white belt throws for 5 minutes.  I worked with Adam on this and for the rest of the techniques.

The technique of the day was the hook sweep from butterfly guard.  We started with our knees wide and hands close in between with the intent to hand-fight our way into a good position with an underhook.  From there it was the basic sweep.  Adam and I did a lot of reps and that combined with the humidity wore me out pretty good.  The second technique was a knee check if they postured way back to prevent the sweep.  I had a little trouble getting up on this one.  It was a little difficult for me to get up, but with changing my body angle and going with Adam's pull back I was able to complete it a couple of times.

King of the mat from butterfly was next.  It didn't feel like my night, however blue Jerad was on fire.  He swept me with the hook sweep probably 3 or 4 times.  It was pretty disappointing but also informative.  Maybe I need to rep this technique more and figure out what he figured out.  Most of the battle is won with the underhook, the rest is snatching their arm so they can't prevent the sweep.  I had a few good moments but mostly I felt off.

We finished up the class with some free rolling.  I went up against Jerad and Adam.  They both dominated me from the top.  Jerad submitted me with a baseball bat choke and then we rolled a little bit more until the time ran out.  Adam didn't submit me but he did grind into me with crossfaces quite a bit.  My goal was to take everything in stride and not try to use strength.  It actually paid off a bit as I was able to regain half guard quite easily from a mistake that Adam made by windshield wipering to his other leg.

Even though I didn't feel like a performed well, I was still happy to be able to train.  My knees feel a little worn out but a little ice and relaxation and a good nights rest should do the trick.  I've got a lot of classes ahead of me to improve.