My holidays are over. I'm back at uni and I'll be starting part time work as well. I still have some 28 horses at home and of course, I also train BJJ - about six times per week! That aside I'm trying to get a bit more painting done on the house, too. But I keep getting interrupted by bad weather anyway...
I feel a bit like a juggler at the moment, trying to keep everything up and not dropping anything :-)
After realising that I was going too hard and for the wrong reasons last Monday, I made an effort to ease off. I think that bore fruit. For me, it meant that I moved better, which showed up a lot during open mat, but really, any time I rolled. For my partners it was probably also better :-)
The week was a bit shorter than usual, as there was no class on Saturday.
One evening, I was partnered with a guy who was having one of those days when you think you are useless, and he really looked discouraged and upset. I didn't coddle him, but I ensured that I didn't smash him, either. Also, every time he made a good attempt, I told him so. Yes, I let him get sweeps, but only if he set them up right. I was hyper aware of not going hard to keep the upper hand. Instead, I let him work to good positions and then I defended and reversed. That way, we both benefitted. And when we finished up, I think his confidence had been restored a little.
During the week, the white belts worked on figure fours from side control, the rest of use started from half guard top and then we looked at a roll to finish the submission. One day, we went over a sequence from mount escape to half guard to lockdown and then how to sweep from there (three different ways).
I used some time during open mat to try out some of the back control transistions and subs from the Ryan Hall DVD set. Hey, that was fun, I finally got to try out the crutch lock and roll :-) That is so cool! The young guy I conscripted for the purpose thought so, too. Anyway, for his troubles I showed him two gi chokes which really lit his eyes up. Some of the other guys started hovering but I told them no, they have to wait (the young guy I did show is smaller and lighter than all of them, so I figure it's fair to give him a couple of extra "tools". Plus, us lighter people have to stick together ;-) ).
And it's not like I don't show everyone stuff anyway...
Another positive thing.. also during open mat: I started rolling with a fairly new guy and managed to get him to roll slowly, flowly and controlled. Had ro remind him a few times, but it did work. And he was amazed, because all of a sudden, he had time to notice opportunities, had time to try new moves and all that sort of stuff. A few times we stopped when he had questions. It was really good.
For me, that was way better than what I did to him ealier in the week....
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