The Hammer...Needs To Keep Working

Weight: 212.8

Sometimes you're the hammer, and sometimes you are the nail. Tonight was my first night back from resting a week without practicing, and I was definitely the hammer. Transitions were crisp, I actually felt like the pressure I put on when in top side as well as passing was heavy, and I even felt confident enough in my guard to attempt to play spider guard ala Cobrinha at this year's Pan Ams(i.e. using my feet on the lapels not grabbing the sleeves but the bottom of the GI top)...Even set up a triangle from there...Worked in paper cutter very easily from top side several times where I realized the broken bone in my hand has not healed yet. :( When you have an night where the only thing you can look to get upset about is a reversal given on a scramble to a top level wrestler after trying for an ill advised submission attempt you haven't ever really drilled, you had a good night. On top of all that, I felt that my cardio was really still there....In fact, it was even better as Marcus said it would be when he advised me to take sometime off...
All that said, I got asked a few times about being belted as the word of it floats around and looked at what I did tonight and over the course of this level...In a phrase: I am simply nowhere near ready. My reversals are still too rudimentary for the next level. My passing, though much better, is not even close to what's needed to be effective at Preta. There are still tiny things that I simply do not know, and don't know that I don't know until presented with them. I am not fluid, not smooth and effective like Black belts should be and are in my opinion. I simply do not have the time in to deserve promotion IMO. I am nowhere near the guys who have made it to that level in a comparable amount of time. Merely being able to compete with people at a higher rank doesn't give me the same credentials as them I don't think. The frustrating thing is that I do not even know how long it will take for me to get there. And with my school opening, the time I have had to train a lot will dwindle to the point where I am not sureI can keep progressing as I have been. On top of that, what else do I do competition-wise? I have won pretty much all the tournaments I have been to at my level and in the last two specifically (Euro and Pan) I won all by submission. I think I am ahead of the curve for my own level, but do not thing I am close to the next. I honestly don't know what to do. I just know that I need more work, so...I pick up my hammer and I fight on...


Thought For The Day: "If you can't come when I need you, then I don't need you."

Though For The Day2: "When on the brink of complete discouragement, success is discerning that... the line between failure and success is so fine that often a single extra effort is all that is needed to bring victory out of defeat."