5:45 to 8:30p

5:45-6:10p: Arrived to class late. Traffic was horrendous. An hour to move 3 miles tried my patience... Got there just as the group finished warm-ups and standard drills. Lots of new white belts I've never met before. Good to see Chet and David. Didn't have too much time to catch up though. Dove right into two self defense techniques. Brain not working right now...can only remember part of one and part of the other. Bleh...

6:10-6:30p: Technique. Two side control escapes. First was standard frame and bridge / hip escape to insert knee and recover guard. Second to turtle if opponent grips inside of gi pant to prevent bridge. Seen both before, but had trouble with the turtle because my partner retained the cross face. Professor Matthias corrected my partner for proper grip to allow the turtle. If partner retains cross face and grabs inside gi pant, then the running escape is appropriate answer. Duh...

6:30-7p: Rolls. Got two new folks. First guy was a visitor. Had a borrowed top and didn't have gi pants. Said he trains elsewhere, but he was pretty spazzy. Going for kimura from guard the entire time. No worries. Purposefully got him in my half guard and worked deep half escapes. Several different ways. Got stuck once for a while, but eventually extracted my head for the escape.

Second roll got matched with a gal who recently moved to New Orleans from San Francisco. ~110lbs. Small. Said she'd been training since February. She was very quick and strong for her size. Good movement. Can tell she has some solid experience.

Professor Matthias called an end to regular instruction, but said we had time for one more if we want. I approached Dimitri (4-stripe Purple Belt) for one last round. We were the only two who stayed on for the bonus round. Dimitri is about my size, but rock solid and has a Black Belt in judo. He's probably in his mid- to late-40s. Strong as an ox though. Probably 8-9% body fat. Excellent athlete. He likes to roll hard. The last time I rolled with him, I got submitted 6 or 7 times from various sudden (and sometimes very uncomfortable - no, painful!) chokes and arm bars. This time I think he only caught me one arm bar and a couple chokes. I managed almost as many technical escapes. Felt good, but I clearly have a lot to work on.

7-8:30p: Kickboxing class. Yeah... I signed up. Looking for more pain. Actually, just want some cardio and to work different muscle groups. Big fan of muscle confusion for maximum fitness results. Class went ok for a first-timer. Never really punched or kicked anyone before, so I literally started from scratch. Let's see if I got this right...Learned left jab (1), right jab (2), left hook (3), right upper cut (4), left upper cut (5), and right hook (6). Also learned basic front and back kicks. After I had those down, Coach Wayne put on the mits (and then muy thai pads) and we worked combos. Had problems rotating my hips. Blasted HIPS! All I hear from BJJ is that I need to move my hips more. Now Kickboxing? Ok...need to figure out how to move my hips more. Last 20 minutes of class I drilled combos on the heavy bag. Worked up a nice sweat.