Training stopped mid-july at my academy and during the last weeks we were free to do whatever we wanted. There are times when I have a huge list of things I want to try — unfortunately this was not one of them. I ended up just rolling for fun. I tried to focus a bit on thinking ahead and anticipating what my partners would do but I still find that very hard. I may be abble to predict things but it takes me so much focus I can’t do anything else. Basically I can predict how I get submitted.

I rolled a bit here and there later this month, especially at my friend Maxence’s place who has a cool homemat. I made some nice breaktrough that I can’t wait to evolve further.

The first is guard retention. The BJJ Scout video about the bicep ride was eye opening since I often get double-under-passed. Being aware of that option prevented me from getting passed a couple of times already and I’m not even very comfortable with it yet. I also registered for Keenan’s website. I’ll probably review it later but the few videos I’ve watched were great.

The second thing I got is deep half guard. I didn’t even know what it was until recently and after ussing it a couple of times, it turns out to be a very interesting position. I managed to land a few sweeps by doing mostly nothing. I need to watch the Ryan Hall DVDs.

Farewells

I never wrote a journal consistently for a long time until this one. Maybe it’s the lack of readership, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s going to become a bit more personnal.

We like to say that jiu-jitsu has more value than just a martial art or a sport and that its somewhat a reflection of life itself. It sounds grandiloquent and it’s easy to sound like a lunatic, so I try to be carefull with them. Earlier this month however there was a striking parallel… It was the week of farewells.

My last grandmother passed away and I realized how little I knew about her. Living far away certainly did not help, but I didn’t put much effort into keeping in touch, and now she’s gone. And the next day it was the final training before going home for Jukka & Daniel who had been training with us since september. BJJ is extended family and espcially Jukka has been a good friend I spent a lot of time with. But now they are gone as well and I probably won’t see them again. I don’t really know what to make of all this but the paralel is there.