Competition Time...

Finally! At the fourth attempt, my first wins at purple belt.

My opponent in gi was a no-show, so I went into a three-man event in no-gi. This is not my preferred discipline of the two. Result: two fights and two hard-fought submissions against skilled and gracious opponents, and a gold medal. 

There were points in both fights I had to hang in a bit. But as soon as I got my closed guard shut, I felt like I was reasonably OK. There were also points in both fights I thought, 'I can win this.' That quickly became, 'I can win this. Don't fuck it up by being overly creative.'

I was decent at this event, but I've been around long enough to realise I also had a day where I got everything right. I also leveraged a couple of small position errors my opponents made to force myself into a better position.

There will be other days where stuff goes wrong and I get smashed again. But I'll take today.

Work Meeting Notes: Amsterdam...

An occasional series based on my Tuesday morning presentation updates at work:

Morning. It’s National Don’t Go into Work and Curl up Under a Duvet Day. (Yawn) Which is good news for me as I’m back from four days in Amsterdam. And, yes, I fully indulged in all the traditional Dutch recreational pleasures. In fact, I indulged in a heroic amount of traditional Dutch recreational pleasures. Probably explains the comedown. (Lips smack) I fancy a Muller Corner.

Amsterdam was great. I bumped into Amsterdam’s oldest man. I said, “I’m a newcomer to Holland. From another country. Can you give me the location of Anne Frank’s house?”
He said, “I’m not making that mistake again.”

This week. I’ll be mainly be writing and reading stuff. (Lips smack) I really fancy Peanut M&Ms.

I saw a lot of art at the weekend and here are my two favourite pieces.
“Oh. Stars. Oh, the Moon. It’s dark, isn’t it?”
That’s the Night Watch by Rembrandt.
“Stayed in. Stayed in. Stayed in. Stayed in. Stayed in…”
That’s The Diary of Ann Frank.

If anyone asks, it's nothing to do with drugs. I’m tired because I queued up for three hours at Schiphol Airport, then my flight was delayed for three hours and I didn’t get until the early hours of the morning. That’s all from me.

Grappling with Grappling...

I've just done a class about attacking for the kimura and the underhook back take from bottom half guard. From this, we moved into the hip switch pass from top half guard and into half butterfly sweeps.

The hip switch pass is something new for me. Alongside the knee block, plus the leg swing out and back into the chronic position from bottom half, this is going to be added in.

I also need to remind myself about all the half butterfly attacks, too, from the sweeps to the back takes to the submissions.

This BJJ lark can be quite complicated. Even though I only try to use simple stuff.