Elixir

A substance held capable of prolonging life indefinitely. --Webster

Ok... Not indefinitely, but I am really starting to feel like I'm getting a bit of mojo back. Neck feels good. Training is progressing well enough. Trajectory looking good for the LA State Championship on May 21.

6:25-6:30p: Stretched.

6:30-6:50p: Warm-ups / drills. Including 6 min abs. Had some lower back cramping, but not too bad.

6:50-7p: Sweep / pass the guard. Started on my back. Very experienced blue stepped in. Almost swept him from closed guard via Saulo special. His base is great so he recovered no prob. Opened to lasso and switched to a spider variation. Ended up with a sweep off a pass. That was the first time I'd managed to do anything against this guy. Another Blue stepped in. Got the sweep, but I don't recall exactly how. Big White stepped in next. He wanted to start open. Ok. Heavy base and clearly a wrestling background. Couldn't get him off base at all. He smashed a sweep attempt and came down on my side. I had full contact shield between my knee and elbow so he hadn't technically passed. He stopped and proclaimed the pass. No problem. I showed him my contact and said, "not really, but close enough.". Stepped into a huge Blue's guard next. He has a reputation for rolling really hard. Stood up and broke his guard. Worked a knee slide pass I've been working with Professor Matthias. Almost had it. Almost. He scrambled out and recovered full guard. Busted my posture in my process. Ended up sweeping me via kimura attempt. I gave up the sweep to defend the kimura.

7-7:05p: Half guard drills. Full speed sweep / passes. Top guy picked the starting grips. Tough. Tiring.

7:05-7:30p: Half guard sweep techniques. One from lock down. The other a classic sweep grabbing the foot. Both require using hips or bumps to move your opponent up. Pretty simple detail I tend to forget. Have trouble grabbing the foot. Tend to prefer one of Saulo's variations that does the same thing without grabbing the foot.

7:30-8p: Rolls. 6 minute rounds. Groups of 3. Got 2 Blues approximately my size. Fun rolls. Several sweeps. Inverted work, but not entirely successful. Suspect it was more nuisance than a threat, but did manage a couple open guard recoveries. Got swept. Several times. Almost got choked out from north south. Managed to squirm out. Literally one escape attempt away from tapping. Fortunately I guessed right. Escaped a kimura attempt from north/south. Caught an arm bar after transition from a sweep off an arm bar stack. Very pleased with it because I think it was my first successful combo. Visualized and executed.

8-8:05p: Stretched a bit. Reviewed the choke with the Blue who almost caught me. Still not sure how I escaped. Definitely got lucky. Talked a bit about inverted. I'm fortunately flexible. Put both legs behind my head. Apparently that's not easy to do...