Strong Week

It's been a splendid week at Jiu-Jitsu, and it ain't over yet.

Started as normal on Tuesday; White Belt class followed by advanced.

Koko is getting ready for a fancy pants exam, and so worked on that every spare moment of the White Belt time. I like helping the beginners, but this was a chance to work on stuff my level with a highly motivated partner.

The advanced class was normal except for the sparring, that I'll talk about later.

Tuesday was the same deal. I worked with Koko, and then had a normal advanced session, again with interesting sparring.

Wednesday there was no Koko, so a more normal White Belt class. The advanced class wasn't normal at all.

Our curriculum is in three parts, called BBS1, BBS2, and BBS3. There are about 150-200 techniques and variations in each of BBS1 and BBS2. The last section consists of only about 25 as it is only partially released.

Instead of churning ahead on a couple of items for the evening, the instructor had us partner up, and then he called out chunks of BBS1 in rapid succession. Less experienced people were partnered with old timers.

We started with the knowledgeable folks performing the material, while their partner acted as the bad guy (or victim, depending on your viewpoint). We got through the Mount chapter, then reversed roles, did Mount again, reversed roles, worked through the Side Mount chapter, changed roles again, and did Side Mount again.

In hour we did about a third of BBS1, or about 60 to 70 techniques, for each partner. That's about 130 moves total, or about 30 seconds each. Quite remarkable, considering some students were doing things they'd never seen before (with a lot of partner assistance).

By the end we were all dripping with sweat.

We've never done this before. I loved it.

Time was up, so there was no sparring in-class, but Tobias wanted to roll with me afterwards, which we did. Like crazy people; we went for well over 20 minutes.

Which brings me to this week's interesting sparring.

I had about 10 rolls total, for a total of over an hour. This is more than we get in a normal week.

Also, abnormally, I only rolled once with a small person, and once with a less-experienced guy. All my other match-ups were with people of approximately my size and experience level. In every one of those even rolls, both partners went hard.

I learned a lot, and none of it was about technique.

Those guys move faster than me, and on-average are stronger, and they push harder.

Had two roles with Scott. The first was on Tuesday when we were both pretty tired, and the other was the next day, when we were both fresh. When tired, it was pretty even. I suspect I conserve energy better than Scott, but he's generally in better shape, and only in is 20s. I bet he started our roll more tired than I, and burned his remaining fuel faster.

During the roll when we were both fresh, he dominated me. I could feel his heart pounding away as he did so. He was still burning faster than me, but it didn't matter. He easily had enough gas for the length of time we were partnered. In a longer fight, my only chance would be to defend, and let him burn faster. The only problem is that he's gotten too good technically, so that survival for so long a time would be a tricky matter indeed.

My extra-long roll with Tobias yesterday further illustrated the endurance aspect. We started moderately tired, but equal. We've roll a lot together, even before Tobias got his Blue Belt. I am very comfortable with him, and hope he feels the same towards me.

We roll fast, and strong, but are not afraid to try out some goofy shit. Normally nothing good comes of it, but we often laugh without interrupting the roll at all.

Anyhow, I was really getting incredibly tired, but didn't want to stop. Tobias seemed to be slowing down even more than me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nathan. He's a White Belt who comes back late to do private lessons with Tobias. I stopped, and pointed the waiting Nathan out to Tobias. We bumped fists and I headed off the mat. Tobias looked near dead with exhaustion, and was a colour that is only healthy in a tomato.

Again, my manner allows me to conserve more energy than an opponent half my age while still pushing hard. Cool.

Against all the rest of the big and skilled Blue Belts I faced, my big awakening was that I have no technical advantage left. I used to be able to beat them pretty consistently, but no longer. They know everything that I know; the rat bastards.

If there had been a round-robin competition held at our club a year or two ago, between the guys that I'm talking about; me, Scott, Tobias, and Rob, I would probably have beaten all of them.

If we held the same event right now, I would likely end up rock bottom in the pool.

I am still competitive against them, but am definitely the underdog.

I also noticed a few things about my damaged hand. I hurt it a while back, and it turned out it was broken. Since then, I've injured another part of the same hand, and the first injury still isn't better yet. It's at a point now where the hand is fine for regular training, or for a light roll.

In a hard roll, where people resist tapping, it's useless for any form of choke; just can't crank on it hard enough to get a submission. That's a pity, as I like using every sort of collar choke. I still got them, but couldn't finish. Trying probably hurt it more. I learned that I really shouldn't try to finish hand chokes until things are back to 100%. I think I'll still go for them, but then release without applying pressure.

So a week of good training, and a great BBS1 review activity, and rolling that told me to protect my hand by not forcing chokes, and learning that I am solidly surpassed in the free-roll food chain.

All that, and the week is not over yet. It's not even quite the weekend yet.

Tonight there is an extra class devoted to the new BBS3 curriculum. There is a good chance that Koko will want to work out Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. There is also an open-mat session Saturday morning.

I picked the right hobby.