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Me Sitting In thought After The Night Class

Me After The Day Class

Me and The Visiting Purple Belt From Japan Haluki (Luke!)

New Tattoo (Psalms 144:1)

Almost forgot to update this with the two practices I did Wednesday and my doctor visit from today...Sorry... Here goes though...

First...as I write this I am 209.0...Gonna eat a couple big PB&J sammiches b4 bed to maintain it over night...Damn right i said sammiches!

Second..Dallas' weather sucks..the mixture of rain/now/sleet and cold weather, so close on the heels of a couple of 70-80 degree days is insane...


First class wed...I got there a little late, and we were working on some half guard sweeps...felt really awkward to me at first, then had one of our good black belt instructors (Carl) along with coach Allen clear up some things for me...
Since I was so late into class coming from work, by the time I'd gotten through two techniques it was time to roll...
First roll was against a 4stripe blue that always gave me lots of problems...was one of those guys that just had my number as far as passing and having me not be able to play any offensive game against him...Hadn't rolled against him in months so it was a good test of tournament mentality in rolling b/c he'd had lots of private work and his game was somewhat unknown to me...First he started on top in side control...I work my old side-mount escape which coach said i'd gone away from...worked beautifully (funny how u can find something simple and stop doing it even if it works in jiu-jitsu and give yourself problems unnecessarily)..well i get to half guard and use one of the side triangle set ups Marcus taught me...one of the tweaks to it I've been working on presented itself and bam..triangle...next I start in his guard..i work to break and his grips start giving me a bit or trouble but i work for the dive and get the under over pass...he fought his ass off scooting but i surprised myself in keeping with him until the pass was done (I say this because it was all done without thinking...so that means it has become a natural part of my game...was mroe happy with this than anything on this day almost)...I get to side mount then knee on stomach and back to side mount then to 50/50...my top game still require me to think my moves out, though i am thinking them in chains now and able to do so because of how i've worked on my control...well i work to set up the favorite GI choke (the opposite lapel ezekiel) Marcus always does on me when he wants to punish me...worked like a charm...love that choke b/c it's one, where if u have good control, you are basically showing what u will do and doing it no matter what the person on bottom says...Next we start in my guard...Instead of working submission chains quickly I work sweeps (trying to get ready for the next level of competition)...I sweep to mount with an inside out spider sweep and work for a variation of the katagatami (arm triangle) where the arm is across the body...
Next round I go with one of our blues who has a huge power game and has been wanting to roll with me to test his guard passing...longer story than that but I decided to test my open guard defense...my arms were starting to numb as well, and I thought with his power game he likes to play it'd be a good sign if i could keep from having to move out of guard to defend...Long story short, For the entire session i stuffed the pass attempts, even openly giving my back a few times in order to practice my sweep-around...from what i understand it was said to be talked of by him that i "didn't submit him"...next time i will work on my attacks...don't wanna give the wrong message right...;0)


Had to leave, but left feeling good b/c I only lost a pound of body weight which means my hydration is working, as is my caloric intake...and this is after my usual competition calisthenics between matches and afterwards...

Came back that night and had one of the beginners tell me, through reading one of my posts they were inspired to keep training and that one of the drills i showed enabled them to make headway on their testing...man that was a great feeling!

Well we get to class and we are doing x-guard reversals and the twist from guard to knees to single leg takedown...the x-guard always has given me trouble...from side or half guard i can pull it off but from guard with one standing up it is hard as hell beacuse of my length..so i was a bit awkward at times...but the twist reversal is one of my favorites and coach Allen and Jacob (brown belt) showed me some variations on it as well as counters...i also got something that's about 99% against people who want to do the standing knee-in guard break....oooooh trouble...troubllleeeeee....anyways..we get to roll, and i get the guys who are going to Pan Ams to compete to roll in tournament style conditioning rounds...willkeep the methods here to myself for competition purposes...I honestly hope I can help them do well when we go...My first roll is with Jacob and i was so damned excited b/c my hands weren't going dead for the first time...Marcus, a local Machado black belt who is my chiropractor, coach, Jacob, etc etc all told me things to do to change it and the main one was stop gripping so hard...(more on this in a minute as it seems there's something else wrong)...this is working and i start to work on breaking his posture and balance when in open and half guard...been working on some attack chains from spider half guard and open guard...i also actively worked on making sure he didn't control both legs...i did well and didnt get passed and even got the oma plata attack from spider half guard and worked it almost to triangle but he postured...thing is i went right back to omo plata and worked to secure the reverse arm bar from there...he defended and countered beautifully though..but thing is the attacks worked...and i ended up with one more reversal than he did and two good attacks that may have earned advantage points...the next roll we stale mated for the roll, but i did get a REAL good shot at triangle...closed it up but for some reason instead of the way i usually twist to finish a triangle i decide to do the traditional reach and pull the shin...he's too good for that...pulls out and almost passes me ...he kept me on the run pressuring form then but i worked defenses well...between each round i went for sets of ten of 6 different exercises instead of rest and i've been doing 8 to 8 1/2 minute rounds (at Pan Ams I fight 7min rounds),, so my cardio is good..but at the end of the round my arm problems came back...


Well..it's been a blessing for me to have found jiu-jitsu b/c of the losses i had in life as far as what i wanted to do...but also because it helped my overall mental, physical, and emotional health...well i go to the Orthopedic doc today...to find out what this problem i was having in my mid back and mention to him i was having shoulder problems and the problems in my arms...he said with the severity he wanted to do xrays of my neck...turns out...in between two different vertebrae...ive got a narrowing plus for some reason my neck is straight (a normal neck would be curved on the xray...at least i know some if not all the muscle pain in my neck comes from this most likely he said))...so i have a full mri from the top of my neck down to my hips...if he finds what he thought it is...no more jiu-jitsu would be the recommendation...when he said that and mentioned options of surgery etc etc i thought of the things i hadn't accomplished...things like i just got comfortable with knowing i wouldn't get my brown belt b4 Pan Ams to be able to face Kron and resolved I'd work hard to get to black belt in time enough that i could be competitive with him and others like Otavio Souza, Bill Cooper etc when i did get it...i know no matter what the prognosis that comes back, i AM going to compete in the Pan Ams..especially if it could be my last...but that will be one of the things I would regret not working hard enough to achieve...i am happy i did go to the Euro. Championships though...but ...if i lose this too...i dunno what i'd do...i'm letting go and letting God.
nothing else i can do.