I was tired even before starting class last night. I arrived a bit early, and just took 5 minutes to sit alone in the changing room with my eyes closed.

Damian led the warmup. And I was puffing shortly afterwards and thinking that it ws going to be a long night. The final bit of our warmup was a 6 minute round of light rolling. Ron is back from his injury, so we paired up. Good to see him back.

Damian started off by talking about timing. How the difference between a purple belt and a black belt is knowing “when” to apply a technique. I asked him after class if he meant “when” as in how to time a technique, or “when” in a strategic or game plan sense. The answer, as I should have guessed, was both.

The lesson of the day was three variations on a DLR sweep. All started the same. From DLR guard, feed his lapel to your ankle grabbing hand, grab the same lapel with your other hand, take your free foot and put it on his near hip, and then push with both and roll to your side. The first variation we can grab his near foot, stand up, and then go to knee on belly. The second, if he posts, we can switch our gripping hands, standup in base, and sweep his leg at the same time. The last, if he lands flat, we can go inverted and then slide over him to side control. Ron and I drilled together, bumbling through the first couple of reps of each, but eventually being able to work out the kinks.

Class wrapped up with a 20 minute round. No breaks. No water. No stalling. Ron and I had a pretty good roll. Plenty of movement. Damian was sitting nearby, watching and commenting/coaching all of us. I hit a nice X-guard sweep that earned a “good one Josh” out of him. I figured I was going to poop out after about 5 minutes, but I paced myself and went the distance without issue.