The main lift of the day was my favorite, the deadlift. One of the features of the 531 method is that you’re only doing 3 working sets of lifts, but the last set is always “as many reps as possible.” So last night after I warmed up, I did 5 deadlifts at 175#, 3 at 195#, and then as many at 215# as possible. Two weeks ago, I did 4. Last night I did 5. Incremental improvement. I had some time before class began so I did some clean and jerks as well.

Brady lead the class last night, and it was all about wrestling. It was fortunate that we had a very small class, only 8 of us, because it gave us plenty of room to be standing. We reviewed some arm drag techniques, and then spent a while drilling the arm drag into a double leg take down.

Then we switched it up and just sparred…starting standing and going until there was a take down. I was paired up with Mark, a lanky purple belt. He took me down everytime…but one. I got him with drop seoi nage. We switched partners, and I got Long…who apparently wrestled. No success with him, but he took some time to point out a few things that I was doing wrong. Renato was next, and I think we each got one, but most of the round was a draw.

Tiring stuff, I was pretty gassed by the end of class!