Purple!

Made it to class tonight for the first time since December 8th. After 8mos training almost non-stop, taking a month off was rough. Gained 15lbs and generally feel miserable. I need to train. This neck injury and numb fingers be damned! So when I heard a friend Aaron was up for his purple tonight, I had to make it to class. Congrats Aaron!



5:30-5:50p: Warm-up / drills. Mike (Purple) led. Good partner drills. Sit ups from guard. Leg lifts. Leap frog. Etc.

5:50-6:05p: Sweep / pass the guard. Stepped into Mike's guard. Ended up with him in turtle to elevator take down. Guess I was a bit over eager 'cause Professor Matthias told me to take it easy on account of my neck. Mike had been in a couple rounds so he let me stay in. Got a young athletic white belt next. He thrashed and smashed but I ended up with a sweep. New white belt stepped in. He also thrashed and smashed. Had easy triangle, front gi chokes, and other subs, but this drill was sub-free. Played a little catch and release while waiting for a sweep to come to mind. Supposed to work for sweeps. Mind drew a blank...rusty... eventually let him take my spot...

6:05-6:30p: Technique. Arm bar and triangle from guard. Review, although the triangle is a variation that I'd struggled with in the past. Got one good electric zing down my arm and hand from one of the arm bars. Fortunately that was the only incident of the night.

6:30-7p: Rolls. Jammed pack tonight. Took it easy. Worked with Mike (Purple) a bit and then Matt (White). Mike worked guard passing. Got one sweep when he was trying stuff, but he didn't have a lot of trouble passing the rest of the time. Roll with Matt was a bit awkward. Wasn't sure what I was doing. Showed him a sweep from closed guard that landed him in mount. Struggled to recover half guard or escape the mount. Struggled but never could really recover. Caught him with an arm lock from guard via whizzer. Matt...watch the whizzer!

It was really good to be back on the mats tonight. Having a bit of post-training numbness, but nothing serious. Going to schedule an MRI tomorrow. Hope to find out what's really wrong with me soon.