How I spent my weekend

So, Friday there was jiujitsu involved. At this point I vaguely remember that one of our guys brought one of their wrestling buddies who is ranked 12th in the state at like 189lbs or something crazy like that. I rolled with him and another new guy that's got about 8 months of MMA training, but not a lot of pure jiujitsu. They were both very active and dynamic and sense I was in tournament training mode I didn't really let them work very much. I subbed them both a few times and kept sweeping them. It was fun, I think there's a good chance both of them will be back.

Saturday I rented a post hole auger. Now, one might think that using a post hole auger would make digging post holes exponentially easier than using manual post hole diggers. That would make one WRONG. Using the auger was generally faster, and did let me dig holes where there is NO WAY I would have been able to dig them with post hole diggers, but it was HARD. The thing would dig about 6 inches, bind up in the clay and I would have to deadlift it out against the weight of the augur, and the mud, and the fact that the mud was generally still connected to the rest of the dirt. I put in 74 posts over 2 days.

On the third to last post I was lifting the auger out and felt my right knee pop, it didn't seem to hurt at the time so I just kept going, finished out the holes, put the posts in the holes and then showered up and headed to jiujitsu. On the way I was doing the stretches my Chiro gave me at the redlights and near the last light my back suddenly gave a series of small pops, then a medium pop, then a BIG pop. I went light headed and euphoric for a moment, then realized that my back pain was GONE. Three years of lower back stiffness and pain just vanished. When I got to class I confirmed that I now have regained 100% of my lower back flexibility. Now my hips instead of compensating for my lower back allow me to be all crazy gumby flexible.

No one showed up for the fundamentals class, presumably because it's the beginning of UGA spring break, so I just sat around and chatted and stretched. People started to filter in around 7:20 and then we started class. We opened up with some drilling then went on to techniques. We did sprawl -> guillotine, then sprawl-> guillotine -> 100% Shoulder lock sub, then Sprawl -> guillotine -> 100% sweep.

Drilling was from closed guard and I was rolling with Casey and Coe. I managed to catch Casey in a heel hook and as he spun out of it I hopped up on top for the sweep. And Coe tried to bear crawl over my guard, which he does ALL THE FREAKIN TIME, but this time I was ready for him and spun under, locked his leg up with the saddle and caught him with a kneebar. After that Casey murdered me for a while and Coe upped the pressure, but I never felt totally overwhelmed.

Rolling was with Coe, Casey, and Brian I managed to take Coe's back and work an RNC, but he is insanely hard to finish, so as time ran out and he started to escape I switched to mount and held that until the end of the round. I tried to catch Casey with the butterfly guard lift to heel hook combo, but he shut me down. I felt great though, super energetic, super flexible, and I still feel pretty damn good. However, about an hour and a half after class my right knee started to feel stiff and a little sore. But the time I got in bed around midnight I could barely move it. And now this morning I can't put any weight on it or extend it fully. So, that sucks, but my back feels great, so I figure it's a wash. My knee will heal over the next couple of weeks and I'll just take it easy. I'll be fine for Lutador as long as I don't do anything stupid leading up to it. That means no weight lifting and probably no rolling for at least a week, probably two.

Still, feeling good about having my back fixed and despite getting about 4 hours of proper sleep last night I feel extremely good.