The BJJ training and research sessions this week were eventful yet a bit relaxed as I planned on a partaking in a restful week leading up to the Sunday competition. During the weekly wrestling session, Joel introduced a magnificent way of countering the single leg via positioning myself horizontally with his legs and allowing myself to essentially dive forward while extending my hand downwards to the floor. Through conduction of this diving motion, my opponent will follow and I will land into a very beautiful darce position. The following day was a gi session and the uchi-mata judo concept and technique was reviewed followed by a light rolling session whereupon I was able to figure out my gameplan for Sunday. The Thursday session was also fruitful as the trainer Nick elaborated on hitting the ankle pick nicely from standing up.  Nick also explicated upon the bottom position with methods of successfully hitting armbars and kimuras. Furthermore, a problem that has befallen me for many years occurs when I land a solid straight armbar but then my opponent bridges into me destroying my nicely set up arm bar.Nick introduced a solution towards stopping this destruction via allowing the opponent to bridge in but then using my leg set upon his head to push him back into the arm bar. Lastly, a problem that I have encountered for many years is locking the kimura from half-guard and again in Nick's patience he explained that he does not even really attack the kimura from the bottom rather he locks the kimura in and uses his bottom leg to kick the opponent upwards while still holding the kimura. From this point he locks the kimura in when sidemount is reached. If the kimura cannot be administered from the sidemount position I can then pull him over to his side grasping the kimura to my chest very deeply and cranking it on without use of arm strength  but with active utilization of the spine. It can be concluded that it was an enlightening week.

  The worlds are a week old now so I cannot comment on it too much but this match really stuck out in my eyes in terms of competition.

    To conclude the week, I participated in the Dream sub-only Jiu-Jitsu tournament and was defeated. The lesson I can take from the experience, and it is quite cliched, but focus and adherence must be given to basic BJJ skills as I neglected basic kimura defenses and the opponent grasped the locked the fearsome kimura in efficiently and swiftly. Furthermore, I discovered that I lack a fulfilled competitive mindset as I did not aggressively pursue and strive to dominant my opponent as thoroughly as I could.  Lastly, my stand-up wrestling skills are a bit out of tune, thus I somehow have to work those areas into my training in order to become the most formidable BJJ competitor I can be. This is what learning is all about.