Morning training

I really like our little morning crew.  We get together 2-3 mornings a week and drill whatever we want.  It's an organic flow-- something like a jits lab.  If you don't have anything specific in mind, you can tag along with someone else as uke.  If you just learned something new and need to practice it a bit, you can let it gel here.  Or if you're just in the mood to roll, that works too.

This morning it was me, a newer guy, and two purple belts.  I paired up with a purple named Bentley that I love to work with-- he's very encouraging and complimentary, analytical, patient, and persistent.  We started jacking around with Scott Reed's punishment pass (he gets double unders when he has top halfguard and the rest is.... well, pure punishment.)  That would have morphed into me practicing the halfguard sweeps Mike G taught yesterday, but I got distracted.  We flowed into armbars from side, kimuras from side, Monson chokes, a SICK way to take the back from turtle a la Braulio Estima, catching the arm with the leg from the back, and then lastly an evil guillotine variation kind of like the 10-finger guillotine.  It was so painful you couldn't really drill it more than a couple times.

Oh-- so some people asked about my haircut and how it works for rolling.  Um, FABULOUS.  It's short enough that it doesn't interfere with chokes or arms beneath my head.  It is long enough to be knelt on but that's okay, I really don't want a pixie cut.  

This weekend we had houseguests-- Lawrence and his wife Olivia.  Lawrence was a whitebelt at my academy while he was in grad school at UT... they're both captains in the US Army, and while he was getting his second master's degree, Olivia was stationed in Iraq.  Now, he's teaching at their alma mater, West Point.  The West Point triathlon team was in Austin for a half Ironman and Lawrence and Olivia are sponsors for the team, meaning they ride herd on 20 kids in their late teens and early 20s before and after the races.  Too bad we didn't get to spend more time with them, but dinner on Friday night was nice (and their team won first place!)

Also this weekend, had to skip the Cobrinha seminar.. just too pricey.  Boo hoo.  I took out my frustrations on my bathroom cabinets and my closet, producing three bags to go to Goodwill and purging a lot of junk too.

It's a pretty day outside and I'm hoping I can get my car back from the mechanic's this evening.  The brakes need new pads (and hopefully not rotor turning too) and the power steering was starting to make a "squitch" sound on occasion.  Not happy about spending the money but what can you do?

Hope you're well and that this economy hasn't pinched you too tightly. To close, a little funny..

And some more yumminess thanks to Coach Josh, who will be here Nov 6th for the sambo tournament...