On Monday I was able to train all three classes. In the mid morning class, there was a lull in the attendance due to the tournament on Saturday. Traven made it open mat, and there were about 10 ppl who showed up to roll. Because I wanted to save some gusto for the evening training I rolled 5-10 minute rounds and called it a morning. In this 6:30 evening class there was a solid group of people to train with. After technique we had pairs on the mat and the remaining people on the wall; if you tap you go out and another person comes in. We did this for about 30 minutes. The 7:30 class was drill time. We warmed up and then Traven split us up into two groups. This was the schematic for the evening: 1 person on bottom closed guard drill for 6 minutes. During that 6 minutes every 2 minutes the person on top would change. This took about 25 minutes and then we changed the roles, i.e. there would not be a person on top for 6 minutes and every 2 minutes the person on bottom would change. This was not a cardio taxing exercise, rather it forced me to work on top, which is exactly what I have been trying to work on. Drilling has so many obvious advantages. The most important is that it forces you to work on positions/scenarios that may otherwise fall by the wayside during training. I will use myself as a classic example: every class I want to go in and work on top as much as possible. Depending on who I am paired up with this either will (25% of the time) or it will not (the other 75%). In some situations it is unavoidable as some big dudes will illegally grap your pants leg and throw you up in the air and onto your back. The majority of the time I find myself on my back working guard, either put there or for some reason I put myself there. I leave the class saying "why did I do that?!" Needless to say I enjoyed the training session!
Something else popped into my head last night as I was drilling with one of the guys. The kid is phenomenally strong. Granted almost every guy is stronger than me in there, they're dudes. It has been a while since he and I have rolled together. There is not any particular reason for this, it just so happened we did not have the same training schedule. I would say it has been about 6 months or so, probably even longer than that. He was on bottom first and I was inside his guard. Saying he was strong is an understatement. Grips, pulling, base, everything was so strong. It got me to thinking.....the changes that people go through while training BJJ. The last time I rolled with this person we were both new blue belts (I mean we still are but I'm talking baby blue belts). I don't remember this ridic strength. Whether he had just been doing BJJ, or strength and conditioning as well, whatever it was, I was being treated like an infant. It could be that you are finally able to pair that strength with technique together instead of just "muscling" your way through things like we all try to do as white belts. I believe I even said to this person "dude, you're strong as s***" Alas, the evolution of the BJJ athlete.
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