Update 10/30 - Getting owned all week, the one good day of training

So I've been training again for a little over two weeks, and I have to say my body is not fairing so well. During a hard training session on Tuesday I ended up with whiplash. The pain running down my neck to my back is a bitch to deal with. Right now I have two injured arms, my left knee is screwed, my right shoulder is dead to me, toss in the whiplash and shit just got real, so to speak. Ironically enough, even with everything going to hell I had the best day of grappling I could hope for. There were no warm ups today, we did a little technique and went right into sparring...and I pretty much owned. Generally after running half a mile and doing other shit I'm pretty worn out, and I'm unable to compete to the best of my abilities...but today I was fresh when I hit the mat, and it showed.

First off, today was a special day at the gym. This kid, who's name I can't remember, turned 15. What happens on such occasions is fairly interesting, we sit in a circle, with the person in the middle, and roll with him one at a time. Since this was his 15th birthday, he got to roll with 14 people in a row. Every time he tapped, or time ran out, we switched. Sadly, in what can only be described as bad luck, I was placed second to last in line. Essentially, this poor kid had to roll with 12 other people before facing me, and it was bad times for him. I took him down fairly quickly, established side control, and pressured him down. He tried a few times to escape, but it was in vein. Side control happens to be one the position that I excel at, so things went better then expected. I hit north south, where you essentially drag your gut across their stomach, and isolated one of his arms. After heading back to the side I took his only loose arm and snapped on a kimura, he tapped fairly quickly. After that I wished him a happy birthday, and when we got paired up to roll again I helped him work on his triangle choke. The only negative to the whole experience is that I fucked up his ribs, which has happened countless times before when I trained, but he seemed to be alright.

All week I got tooled, I was too exhausted to do anything, so Friday turned out to be a nice change of pace. That night only one person was remotely my size, and he was ranked higher then me, so when we sparred I was unsure what to expect. Suffice it to say I did alright. I was able to work some escapes and finally gain side control, but sadly he was able to slip to the side, during a scramble, and pull me back to guard. The dude was a beast, and rolled with his eyes closed...I felt underestimated to say the least. I was trying to determine if he was blind, and I had not noticed, or if he was attempting to sense the changes in pressure when I moved. Either way it was a cool experience.

Finally, as a weird occurrence, I had to roll (as in wrestle/grapple) with a 10 y/o girl (honestly she was the only person without a partner, and she choked out the adults she trained with). Now, this was an odd occurrence for myself but I had rolled with women in the past (when I trained MMA) so I was fairly confident in my abilities to NOT crush her. I have never trained with little kids, so I tried to be as careful as possible to ensure I didn't break her. Honestly the first roll she tried to beat the hell out of me, she threw on about nine chokes (all of which I escaped) and finished the round with an armbar I decided to tap too. I was taking it easy, playing around, which seemed to piss her off more then it should...seeing how she weighs 60 lbs and I weigh over 300. During the second round I put in a little more effort, which seemed to placate her, and I didn't get my ass kicked.

Overall I got owned all week, but I was able to see what I could do when I'm not completely exhausted, and that made up for all the injuries and such that I've suffered. I feel pretty good right now, at almost 2 am, so hopefully Monday will be awesome.