"You Need to be More Assertive"

Had someone tell me that during the Mardi Gras hiatus... Really? Me? The comment had nothing to do with jiu jitsu, but it made me think. Is my game too passive? Too risk averse? Am I taking chances when I see opportunities? Or do I wait for another opportunity with a higher chance of success? Good questions to ponder during Carnival. Unfortunately I trained so much tonight (completely gassed) that I almost always reverted back to passive energy saving survival mode.

5:30-6:10p: Good, long stretch session. Watched three Professors, a Brown, Purple, couple of Blues, and a White roll.

6:10-7:05p: Open mat. 8-20 minutes each roll. Worked with Professors Matthias and Doc Eddie, a Purple, and a Blue. Exhausting. Utterlly. Attempted two straight ankle locks. Fail. First time trying to execute outside of technique portion of class. One training partner said I was close. I was closer with the other training partner, but could tell he was committed to not tap. No problem. Moved on. Had a couple great sweeps. Got swept a few times. Guard passing wasn't so hot. Pushed myself to the limit (which wasn't very far). Tried to be more assertive with the Blue. He has a great guard. After 15 minutes or so he finally got the hip bump sweep. Professor Matthias caught me in a triangle (but played a lot of catch and release the rest of the time). Professor Doc Eddie caught me in a bow and arrow variation. I might as well have tapped to the Purple. I was worthless. He recognized that and we stopped rolling. I tired. I should have died.

7:05-7:20p: Warm-ups / standard drills. Gassed. Sat out most of the warm up. Finished maybe 20% of the push-ups from knees.

7:20-7:40p: Sweep / pass the guard with submissions. We have a small team heading to OC for Pans. Professor encouraged us to press it. All I remember is doing my best to assert myself. Got a solid knee slide pass on a White. Almost had a nice knee slide with another White, but forgot a technical detail and ended up slipping on my arse. Had my guard passed by a White. No worries though. I was taking chances. Trying to be assertive.

7:40-8:05p: Take downs. I sat out. Wanted badly to participate. Still cautious about the neck.

8:05-8:30p: Rolls. 6 minute rounds with minimal break. Got two Purples, a Blue, and a White. Tapped to an arm bar (Purple) and the Blue probably would have caught a number of D'arce, gator rolls, or guillotine chokes but I suspect he was wary of my neck. Since I was way outmatched with most of the rolls (the Blue is substantially better than me), the only real chance I had to assert myself was with the White. Took lots of chances. Played aggressively. Got a couple sweeps. Took mount a couple times. Worked choke attempts but he reversed. He was very patient under a lot of top pressure and took advantage of my mistakes. Caught him in a somewhat unconventional arm lock dater he stacked a triangle attempt. Oh...just remembered that I did assert myself a little with the Blue. He forced me to play a little inverted guard. While inverted I attempted a sweep. It rolled him over and I ended up in a pseudo-reverse mount. Didn't have a clue what to do from there and I'm still not sure if I ended up in a better position because the reverse mount didn't last long at all and I think he ended up taking my back immediately after. I still liked to the attempt and may play around with it a bit more.

206.5 lbs post-train, no gi. That's probably 210 hydrated. Need to drop 10-15lbs to return to October/November 2010 weight (and high school weight). Not sure if that's possible given that I've reduced my mat time by 65% or so. . .