The Chicago Open tournament is a month away. Tonight started our specific preparations for it. Even though I’m not competing, it’s good training. Working on techniques, takedowns, more sparring, and a bit more serious atmosphere.

I squeezed in my 531 deadlifts, but had to cut them a little short because of the size of the Crossfit class.

We started with a Brazilian style warm up that ran nearly half an hour. I saw atleast two guys that had to drop out of the cycle to take a breather. Three years ago, that would have been me. Not tonight though….tonight I was razzing a couple of guys about their lazy ass pushups. Chest to deck everytime, cheating on your form only cheats yourself.

We spent a few minutes reviewing and drilling the Fabio guard break. It’s shockingly difficult to force a guy’s legs open when he doesn’t want to. Leverage is our only option in this case. Extra practice never hurt.

The rest of class was a series of 3 minute rounds. We were in groups of 3 or 4, in a rotation. I ended up with Long, Dumi, and Tim in mine. So 6 minutes on, 6 off for the better part of 40 minutes. Everyone was exhausted by the end.

Chatted up Ryan a bit afterwards about changing up my strength work.