On the Mat Day 543: It's Time for the Boots

It's that time of year where the mat is super cold on your feet and all you want to do is snuggle up in a futon and go to sleep. I got into my futon to warm up an watch some BJJ stuff to get my mindset ready for BJJ. I mostly watch takedowns lately. It's an area that has plagued me and a gaping hole for me. It's getting better, particularly my balance and resistance to throws, but slowly. Back to the feet, I took my wrestling boots to the club last night and was happy I did. It was so cold..brr.


With my body nicely warmed and rashguard under my clothes (I considered wearing spats) I got on my bicycle, put on my headphones and went the 30 minutes ride to the club. It's a nice warmup for my body cycling there and I'm really starting to enjoy doing it.

We worked on passing the guard since this is such a huge theme in Barbosa affiliated clubs. The passes were mostly against hooks under the knees from the person in guard and dealing with his legs by either using a knee slicer pass or threading the knee through the obstacle leg.

There were a lot of people at class last night. Most come late. It's quite staggered how they drivel into the club. One guy even came with 20 minutes left on the clock. I know for a fact that this pisses off our head instructor but the guy continues to do it.

During sparring I really tried to not rest between match ups. I'm looking to push myself when I can. I think it was reading a post in reddit/bjj that gave me inspiration to do so. Click HERE to read it. It's not easy to roll super tired when you got young hungry blue belts breathing down your neck but it is the key to improve for sure. Talking of blue belts, lots of our guys are getting better each time I spar with them. They are really keeping me on my toes and it's both frustrating and fun going against their guards. The better the opponent the better I will get. That's the mindset I want.