More Snow

Well last week was the first solid week of training I've been able to get in for a while, due to snow, various illnesses and the person that I thought was my girlfriend informing that she was no longer my girlfriend. I love you but I'm not IN love with you. Sort of how I feel about Tai Chi.

Anyhoo, had a great train at Optimal on Saturday, worked attacks from cross-side, specifically how to mount, and a fairly evil choke that Urso used to do to all the time when he was last out here. I have a hard time with the mount on bigger guys, but I've had a little success with the choke, almost got it on a bigger purple belt, but couldn't quite lock it in. Getting more taps from side control and knee on belly would be a good thing, at least being more dangerous from there would open up the mount more.

Monday and Wednesday at Maxercise were also fun. Monday night is a little short for me, and the Judo class seemed a bit too intense so I skipped it. Wednesday was longer and lots of fun. We've been working a lot on some Judo, which I love big time and I wish we had been training these moves for a lot longer. I really like uchimata. I have no idea how hard it would be to hit in a competition but I love throwing it just because it feels so neat for some reason. Training was pretty good, although the only higher rank was Maggie. She's always a fun train.

So we're starting the team training for the Pan Ams this week and I'm looking forward to two more nights of training. I'm very excited actually. I make a lot more progress with four or five training sessions in the week than just three. Also my friend Brett invited me back to the Barn, and I may stop by there on Thursdays depending on if they're doing gi or no-gi. Brett's pretty close to my size, but I don't really want to wrestle spazz white belts there in uncontrolled conditions.

The other blog worthy thing is that apparently John recommended me for Saulo's Hell Test. I'm not sure exactly what it entails but I assume I fight a bunch of tough guys until I'm totally exhausted then demonstrate a bunch of techniques. Possibly not in that order. I have to brush up on my Judo terminology and get hip to some basic techniques that Saulo teaches that I don't use that much. Also I need to save up some dough. Frankly I'm just excited because I'm the only person that I personally know that's taken this Hell Test and it just has a really cool ring to it. If it's not in a room with iron braziers and deadly traps and ninjas jumping out at me I will be sorely dissapointed.