Let me tell you about a training session I had last week.

I arrived mentally exhausted. It had been a tough day of work and family life. One of those days where you always seemed to be behind. I had a sick kid at home, so I had to cancel some meetings that I knew were going to get pushed on into the rest of the week. I was leaning on coffee to keep my energy up, and I hadn’t slept well the night before. I hadn’t drank enough water, I was a bit hungry, I felt like crap.

I had to teach first, and I try to never let my students down, so I lifted myself for the 45 minutes of coaching before we put the timer on for some live Jiu Jitsu rounds.

To say that I wasn’t feeling it was an understatement.

My first round was sluggish. My body wouldn’t respond. I was clunky and awkward. Then my partner did something cool to try to pass my guard, so I smiled and tried something I don’t usually do. I switched to reverse De la Riva and went for a classic Kiss of the Dragon sweep. My body wasn’t warmed up enough for the movement to be smooth, so I muscled my way through the spin needed. It wasn’t very elegant. In fact it was jerky and spazzy.

My partner laughed, so did I, but I got to the grip I wanted and tried to get on his back. He responded by hip rolling into a triangle attempt that missed by only a quarter second, so I grinned at him and poured on some pressure. A few grunts later he got moving again and closed his half guard for a few seconds respite. I wasn’t up for letting him have a rest though. I tilted my posture a little so that I could free my own knee from his knee shield position and keep the momentum.

He spotted that quick and brought up his lasso guard, which meant I was stuck. Go forward, and he could use the strong position of his leg to off-balance me. Sit here and he’d work his way back to an even better position. I had to back away a little and try to free my hand from his grip using my own knee as a pressure creator. I broke the grip and went on the offensive. He scrambled hard, and I switched the point of my attack away from his hips to his upper body. A mistake! I lost some balance and he got a nice butterfly sweep.

The buzzer went with me on the defensive, out of breath, and sweating from the effort. I also had a large grin on my face as we chatted quickly about the round. I found another partner quickly and didn’t think once about being tired, cranky, stressed, or dehydrated for the next 45 minutes as I trained on. I finished the session, had a laugh and a chat with a few lads, showered and went home.

I sometimes still need to remind myself that work will still be there in the morning. Get on the mat and enjoy the session. The incredible game of physical chess that we play is so engaging that you can’t think of anything else while you’re doing it.

See you on the mat,

Barry