Fighting Tired

I covered teh BJJ class for Ray on Thr. Not a big turnout, but the people I had were the core group and I was happy with the effort they put in. My focus for Thr class was conditioning conditioning conditioning.

I started the class off with a fairly intense warm up. Running, sprints, sit-ups, leg extensions, more running plus jump squats (which I think are a nice addition). We also did arm bar / omaplata drills. I followed the warm ups with some rooting exercises. I like the rooting exercises, they are low intensity but good for balance and good for all the stabilizer muscles in the feet knees and hips.

We followed those exercises with some sprawling/double leg drills. My emphases is on defending the double leg not using it as a takedown. I dont have anything against the double leg, but unless you drill it over and over and over (just like anything else) you are not going to be very successful at it. For our club, we are better off using our Judo for BJJ standup.

After all the drills were over I let everyone practice whatever technique they were working on lately. No new techniques tonight, just perfecting what we already know.

Last but not least, fighting tired. I have never done this drill before so I was interested to see how well it would work. We paired up with the higher rank on all fours and the lower rank standing behind the higher rank. Higher rank does 30 seconds of high intensity mountain climbers, at the end of 30 seconds the lower rank attacks with everything they have and goes for the kill. The idea is, you are tired, you are hurting, you're out of breath and you're coming to the end of the match. You're up on points but in a bad position. You need to figure out how to survive, catch your breath and get back in the game. For the attacker, you are down on points, but you have your opponent on the run. He/she is more tired then you (which I always tell myself, no matter how tired I am) and you need to go for the kill.

The drill worked really well, I was really happy with the energy level in class. The other thing these types of drills do is build the fighting spirit, which I think is particularly strong in our club.

My biggest challenge right now is striking the right balance between pushing the conditioning line and over doing it. Not only do I need to pay attention to my level of exertion, but I need to monitor everyone else too. This is harder than it sounds. The challenge is my fitness level is different from everyone else’s in class. Our club has everyone from the big powerhouse to the skinny cardio machine so different drills will affect everyone's energy level in a different ways.