Gems

Last night was a pretty good open-mat session. Those are times when anybody can show up and roll around.

Two White Belts, Juan and Tobias, showed up and practised together for most of the time. I rolled a bit with Juan. He's fun. Although new to Jiu-Jitsu he's messed about with MMA quite a bit. He is full of surprises and does everything just a little bit different.

Colin and Sterling were there and worked on Hapkido technique for their upcoming exams.

Most of the time Shawn and I just rolled around a lot. He's the instructor. Understandably, he is much more skilled than I am. I think I do a pretty good job of making things difficult for him. It is my natural tendency to fight defensively. He lets me get stuff sometimes, as the goal isn't to "win".

Today it is Saturday, and there is another open-mat session. I hope just as many show up. It is always worthwhile, but strangely only certain folks ever come.

Even when attendance is crappy, the time is worthwhile. A week ago only Shawn, Tobias and I showed up. Tobias casually asked a question about takedowns other than the very few the White Belts learn. We ended up getting specialized private lesson just about that. Shawn taught from his non-Jiu-Jitsu repertoire and we did tons of Judo-esque drills. I think I got twice as much out of Tobias's question than he did.

There have been 11 open-mat sessions since they were first introduced at the club. I've been to all and consider them the gems of the training week.