Beast Mode

The past few days have been very busy for me, but I've managed to train on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Yesterday was easily one of my best training days since I've began at Shaolin's. Thursdays I can get about 3 hours of training in, as I can take two advanced classes and jump in on the beginner class. We had seven women on the mats yesterday, which is pretty incredible! There's no women's class at Shaolin's, but he tries to pair all the girls together when he can.

In the first advanced class, I finally found myself being aggressive but not spazzy while rolling. As I've written previously, I used to be very frantic while rolling and then became too calm, so i was glad to finally have balanced the two. Additionally, I was able to block certain techniques I hadn't had much success with in the past. For example, I had been getting choked while trying to pass the guard, but was able to remember to simply push my opponents elbow down to break free. I've also been getting better about thinking one step ahead to avoid being stuck. It's days like this that give me an extra boost of confidence regarding competition. It (almost) made me regret not signing up for NoGi Pan Ams, but I also have a tough time making it to NoGi training consistently because of my work schedule. I will however, be watching my new and old teammates tomorrow at the event. There is a Grapplers Quest on December 10th in New Jersey and I'm thinking about competing. Of course this depends on how work goes and if I can put enough time in on the mat. Plus that's holiday time and I'll need to make weight!

Regardless, the past few days of just pushing myself through work and 2-3 hours of BJJ have really allowed me to challenge myself and progress. Now that I train fewer times per week (I miss college!), I put in that much more effort in while I am on the mat.