long days at work make it hard to focus on bjj or work outs. i have one week of hard training left before the us open. tonight i hit the airdyne and kettlebells. 30 calories and 10 clean and presses with the 36 lb kb's for ten sets. tomorrow is two sets of sparring. i don't know what thursday holds for me but at least one session of sparring.

the american nationals are over and now i have my first foray into brown belt competition. i did good, but there is plenty of room for improvement. i went five fights over all, two in my division and three in the absolute. i got one submission, won the rest on points, and don't believe that anyone scored a single point on me. my improvements could come in being able to advance my position from side mount more often and more aggressively. next stop is the us open in santa cruz.

tonight will be my first night back in the academy since friday morning. i have lots of work and things around the house i need to take care of. this means i have to be really good with my time management with getting ready for the next stage of a three stage plan. following the us open is the no gi worlds.

i trained last week. not a lot since i had to work some pretty long hours. but enough. i ended the week with two sparring sessions on friday and then a long sparring session on saturday. could have put a little more into saturday.

today was good. hit the morning class and sparred with dave meyers the black belt for two rounds and the rest of the guys for four rounds. all told it was about 42 minutes of sparring. my energy levels were better than friday, but not totally where i want them. i'll hit the american nationals hard but i'm looking at it as a warm up for the us open this year. as soon as the american nationals are done i will turn around and begin the prep for the us open. it will be my 7th in 7 years.

i finished last wednesday with about 25-30 minutes of sweep, pass, or submit from the open guard. thursday and friday was spent working. that 6 am wake up to trudge off to work is kicking my ass still. today was a solid hour of sparring with four of the guys at the open mat. need to start working more on my open guard sweeps. they need lot's of work and i'd like to have a few go to open guard sweeps.

so far today, things are going smooth. my quads are a little tight and sore but workable. taught the morning class today. we hit a 6 station circuit with a time scheme of 45 seconds on/30 seconds off. used the power wheel in the middle of it to throw the pace off. followed it with some deep half guard refresher then drilling and sparring. i sparred with the guys for 3 10 minute rounds. i gave victor his birthday collar choke and kept up a good pace the whole time. next stop is some more sparring at the advanced class. first some junk removal and a nap.

yesterday was long. i went to work. then right after work i hit the airdyne/kettlebell work out. did 30 calories on the airdyne, then 8 clean and presses with the 53 lb kb's. did 5 quick sets of that.

followed that by heading over to the advanced class at the academy. missed the technique portion. did the sweep pass or submit from the bottom open guard. there was 6 of us in the circle and about 10 guys in line, maybe more. the goal for the guys in line is to beat the guys in the middle and knock them into the line. i stayed in the middle for 45 minutes straight last night. by the time i got knocked out, i was exhausted. there was some good guys there in line last night so i felt very good about my streak.

today started with me teaching the morning class. i showed how to take the back, then three ways to defend the turtle guard. we followed that up with 30 minutes of drilling and sparring.

i couldn't make it to bjj practice tonight so i hit the kettlebells and pull up bar to make up for it. put my 20 pound weight vest on. hit 5 kb squat thrusters with the 44 lb kb's and 5 pull ups. did 9 sets of that. the weight vest made it heavier and harder to breathe.

yesterday started great and then fizzled badly. i sparred with the morning crew for about 35 minutes. that was after showing some side mount escapes. then with the grand plans of swimming at least 500 meters i set out to run errands. by the time i had a chance to break away to the pool, i felt like crap. i just felt beat down, so nothing worthwhile except hanging out with gaytha came of the evening.

this morning was a great circuit. 20 kettlebell swing 2 get ups on each side, 10 hindu push ups, 20 mountain climbers, and 6 pull ups. repeated that 8 times with very little rest in between. worked some technique and then played sweep pass or submit for about 20 minutes. need to start pushing the pace and the length of my sparring sessions if i want to make a dent in the brown belt competitions coming up.