I arrived at the gym last night in the middle of a torrential downpour. Bad enough that there were several of us sitting our cars, waiting for a break in the storm to run in. It came and we all sprinted in, still getting pretty wet. The rain made for some serious humidity.

I barely got changed before Damian drafted me to assist with the fundamentals class. I had to demonstrate the drop seoi nage throw a few times with Ron, and then roll with Blue Belt Tim for a bit. Haven’t seen him at a night class in a while.

Our warm up was…let’s just call it “extended”. We ran and shuffled, our usual stuff, with some sprawls thrown in for good measure. Then we did a 10 minute stretching and mobility routine. Most of us left little sweat angels on the mat. Damian then broke us into groups of three for a little wrestling drilling. Middle guy had to slap hands then break fall and stand up, then rotate 180 to face the other guy who would swipe at his legs, simulating an attempted takedown, and he’d sprawl. Stand up, rotate 180, repeat. Next drill was shoot a single, rotate, shoot a double, repeat. Next was swipe, sprawl, then immediately get up and shoot a double on the other guy. It was exhausting.

Lesson of the day was a lasso sweep, for when they stand up. It was similar to the dump sweep, except you reverse shrimp in, insert your knee, and basically trip them over your torso. We started just going to side control, but then added a triple leg attack…all of which are illegal in most competitions until brown/black belt level. Too high of a chance for injuries. We did a reverse heel hook, a toe hold, and then a knee bar. We went slowly and carefully. No need to blow out someone’s ACL.

We switched partners and did it again. I was able to do everything with JR pretty easy. But then I got Little Seth. And couldn’t get the sweep to work at all. It’s not like he was resisting much, maybe he just had better balance? Damian helped me some, but I still had some issues.

We only did one round of sparring, as it was already time for class to be over. I had Little Seth. Went okay for a few minutes, but then he swept me over the top of him, using his knee on my sternum as a lever. I heard a few little clicks and couldn’t breathe for a bit. Hurt to move, breathe, rotate or pretty much do anything, so that was the end of my round. Better this morning, but still pretty tender.

Squeezed in two runs over the holiday weekend. Mudder is two weeks out. I feel mostly ready, as long as this sternum thing clears up.