Thursday - Richmond BJJ noon

Solid afternoon turnout. Dave "Loco Pony" Charbonneau and I rolled a couple rounds at the end of class. Dave is getting ready to fight in June, so it's good to watch him up his strategy and intensity a little in training. He's going to do really well.

I worked from the closed guard once again, this time focusing on a wristlock to set up the overhook control position. We had a brand new dude, Cody's roommate. He picked up on things and by the end of class was turning Gary Nimmo's head purple with his triangle. Eddie McCummisky is in town and got to train. He's fun to roll with, even though he's a rusty new-ish purple belt.

Nighttime: U.S. Grappling strategy meeting (or something else that sounds equally important).

mAn day

Wednesday (mAn day) brought the usual day class: 2 hours of rolling non-stop (six minute rounds with 30 seconds between each round) followed by brief technique at the end based on what everyone needs the most help with. I spent 20 minutes at the beginning with Thomas from YJJ, then everyone showed up - Gordon from Charlottesville BJJ (head instructor there, purple belt) came and brought his new blue belt, Daniel. I got to roll with Gordon four times. Gordon has a lot of talent, and plays a very different game than I'm used to, so it was really good training with him. Daniel is really good on the feet as well, and we did a round at the end starting on the feet. Snake, Devin, Antoni, Lo, Bryan, and a few others rounded out the class.

Muay Thai came very soon, right after I picked up the Diamond State Games posters. They look sharp. Cornell's class: lead foot jab, then catching the lead foot jab and countering. Foot jab endurance round. I likes me some foot jab.

No-gi class: closed guard focus continued with the high bite armlock and defense against the stack. Chris Lombard and Brian Maltby are coming along, although the "new Merrett" has a long way to go towards calming down. Lendo was there again, and Vince and I had a really good, fun round to close things out.

No-gi downtown

Trained downtown at Richmond BJJ. We did no-gi. Burdo showed a reverse omoplata finish that I enjoy using but I'm not very good at yet. Rolled with Burdo, Cynthia, Jarrod, and a bunch of new guys for a good, light Tuesday workout.

Monday

Another Monday at my gym. Private @ 4:30 PM, then basics class. Lots of rolling this time, since the class was small, with an informal question and answer session along the way.

7 PM class: closed guard focus. Light, basic drills to warm up, technique, and lots of rolling (Vince, Cynthia, Tommy, Devin, Justin, Antoni, and Karl).

Sunday open mat (5/3/09)

Sunday's open mat at Revolution BJJ was, like always, a fun one.

I got to train with Russ (brown belt), Vince, Cynthia (my girlfriend, blurple belt), Chrissy, Brain, Lo, Dax, Bryan Moore, Parker, and a few others: Gi for about an hour and a half, then no-gi for about an hour.



I've been working on the above entry into 50/50 that Cobrinha uses to sweep Guilherme Mendez. Got it a few times on Sunday, but it still needs a little work. I really like what he does with the omoplata (cross sleeve entry) into the leg entanglement.

Saturday's tournament

The Pendergras Classic no-gi tournament went really well. USG handled the bracketing, and the first matches were underway a little after 11 AM. The last matches were at 5 PM.

Parker won his advanced division, tapping a brown belt and a tough dude along the way. He was beaten by a very game and experienced brown belt named Jake Whitfield in the absolute division. I've fought Jake before, and he's a really nice kid, very technical. We always had fun rolls, and I'm sure that Parker will beat him eventually.

Trey beat Bumpkin in his division, then his knee sort of wonked out while he was grappling with Brandon Garner, a very technical brown belt from N.C.

Brian (Brain) had a couple pretty tough matches against Lamonte Tyler (brown belt) and Brandon Tackett (blue?) from Team ROC, who both were eventually able to tap Brian. He went straight from bracketing to the matches, though, with no warm up, and fought far more experienced guys, so props to him for competing and getting the experience.

I only had one match with a tough wrestler kid from Greenville. I played around a lot in the match, getting the Kimura grip and actually kind of getting a verbal submission, but letting the grip go. To Jeremy's credit, he did get my back briefly (I made sure he had both hooks in, doing a Rick Migliarese-style straight armlock from the back). I escaped and finished him with a banana split, so I felt OK about the match.

All in all, U.S. Grappling (Brian, Chrissy, and I) did a great job keeping the tournament going. We'll need more mats for the next one for sure.

Friday: MMA/grappling, MT, BJJ

I decided on Thursday that I was going to compete in Saturday's Pendergrass Tournament run by us (U.S. Grappling), so I didn't do any MMA sparring, but rather rolled with the guys (Scott, Gene, Thomas, Devin). Scott had us do more knees from blocking a right hook (plumb) and then a light endurance round. Jiu jitsu was all about rolling with Tommy, Devin, and Lendo, with a top secret ninja death technique at the end.