Touching Base, Before Heading To San Diego

(Weight: 198.5 SUCCULENT pounds)!!!

Alright, we can strike the “succulent” from the record, but a man can always dream!!!! I head to San Diego tomorrow for the entire week, and have a pretty jam packed schedule out there. But I think I’ll get to train a couple of times while I’m out there. I have to train! I feel too good not to train! I’m only a few pounds heavier than I need to be for “tourney shape”, as I like to call it. I’ve been feeling really healthy and focused the past four weeks, and I was commenting to a training partner of mine how Ricardo is really teaching me how to train hard, but smart. The end result is that I have days where I train extremely hard and other days where I keep up the intensity, but maybe focus more on technique verses hard rolling. I’ve been training with guys 40 to 100 lbs heavier than me, and have been rolling matches with them at a pretty stepped up pace, so my cardio feels really good.

I’m working a bit more on the feet to push my cardio even further, and, I’m stretching quite a bit to improve my flexibility. I’ve always been somewhat flexible, but I’m trying to up this a bit to round out my bottom game a bit more. I actually hit a half-guard sweep earlier today on a really solid “top guy”, and it was my commitment to flexibility that pulled it off.

We’ve been working a great deal on both maintain and escaping side control. Ricardo has a position termed “100 kilos” that when done properly is truly the closest thing to hell on earth that I’ve ever experienced!!! When he does it to me, I want to TAP just from the pressure of it! The position involves driving your hip into your opponent’s sternum and completely isolating their arms from being able to make a frame to escape. All kinds of Americana, Kimura, and arm bar submissions are available to the top guy from this position which plays well into my top game.
He’s also instilling in me the need to fight to get out from side control and either reverse the position or establish guard—this line of thinking is way different than how I was originally trained which was quite a bit more defensive from this position. No need to just “lay there” like a bitch wile the top guy runs out the clock!!! Now, I don’t stop and don’t quit until I’m out of there, and I am really focused on bringing pressure with solid technique from both side control and the mount.

So I head out to San Diego, and still don’t know where I will train. I’m looking for somewhere close to the Manchester Grand Hyatt which is near the old part of the City. Most of the Gracie Barra schools appear to be out of the City, so I’ll probably go with my GUT AND go visit Saulo & Xande Ribeiro's University of Jiu Jitsu. San Diego California. I’m also thinking of hitting Fabio Santos’ Academy as well. I’ll let you know how it goes, and who knows, maybe I’ll get a pic of Diego Sanchez teaching me how to do the ”YES!!!” cartwheel!!!” Have a safe week of training, my friends!

With Much Respect,

Larry, the LTrain