This is a picture of my son and I.

It was taken a few months ago by my father. For those of you who can’t read Japanese, the kanji (calligraphy by Eri Takase) reads “balance”. A reminder to keep things in perspective.

With that in mind, and given the large amount of thinking I’ve done over the past month or so, it’s time to reevaluate and refocus. I have neither the time or ability to keep juggling jiu jitsu training, Crossfit, and supplemental strength training in addition to all of the non-athletic facets of my life. Perhaps if I were 25 and single!

So, the strength training is the first to go. I’ve been generally happy with the 531 system, but I don’t have the time to dedicate to it. In addition, I think that jiu jitsu and Crossfit are hampering my recovery. Perhaps I’ll come back to it, Starting Strength, or some other program in the future.

Jiu jitsu will obviously continue. Crossfit will continue. Maybe I’ll get to attend the beginners classes once in a while as well. It couldn’t hurt to review some of that material!

BJJ class tonight was pretty packed. We did a good long warm up, and then reviewed three cross choke variations from knee on belly. We did the traditional one, one where you feed his lapel to your bottom side hand, and one, the “Cowboy” choke, where you get a little sneaky and feed his lapel to your top side hand.

We then started sparring. 9 minute rounds tonight. I kicked things off with Bob the Montster. He got me right off the bat with a pass to knee on belly and then into one of the cross chokes. Our second go was better, with me on top. I really have been working on preventing grips after thinking about my roll with Damian on Saturday. So I broke and broke, and kept him busy and unable to sweep, but I was also unable to pass. He eventually did sweep me, but I had an overwrap and lapel grip that kept him busy enough to run out the clock.

Next up was JP. We had a pretty good roll too. I played open guard for a while before trying to take his back and ending up most of the way there, with back half guard. It took a bit, but I got all the way there and started working a choke. He spun out of it and we started again.

Dave was next. He got me with a sneaky straight armlock super fast. And as is his style lately, he’s focusing on playing on the bottom. He swept me a couple of times, but never took advantage of it for some reason. Last roll of the night was with Ron. We’re pretty evenly matched, so it was a great back and forth for the whole 9 minutes.

I took 5 to catch my breath, and then attempted my 531 squats. I realized during my warmup set that if I actually tried to do the prescribed weight, I’d probably crush myself. I compromised and did 3 sets of 5 at the highest warm up weight instead. Even that was a challenge with a tired core.