Blog 2 17 Jan 2010 10:38PM My week started at the griphouse gym, team sparring with the Dinky Ninja guys who are fighting soon. Busy Busy session with a whole lot of talent under one roof, the combined record of the guys involved was over 100 fights. I'm not going to go into specifics with how we team spar as its secret ninja shit, all I'll say is it's similar to what a lot of gyms call ''shark drills'' although we also include periodisation for progression into the programme so its not just guys sparring for the sake of sparring. All the fighters get feedback from the coaches and go away with stuff to work on as well as a lot of positive reinforcement.
 
The lanark MMA guys train a few hours after team sparring, this session gives me a chance to go over stuff with each of the individual fighters while stuff is still fresh and relevant. The team sparring contributed to our success in competition last year for sure.
 
My focus in training for this week was getting the second phase of the strength programme started, Basically it involved testing the programme, getting the weight right for the reps and sets I prescribed. The new programmes a bitch, I was walking about like I shat myself on Wednesday and Friday I had to spar a few hours after heavy squats. Not great but the last programme definitely helped my wrestling, and jits. I definitely got into lifting a bit late, for some one who has been training full time for the best part of 13 years and has a degree in sports and exercise science i should have known better and started ages ago but hitting stuff is always been much more fun.

Anyway lesson learned I'm adapting well to strength training, getting quick gains and as a coach I'm getting all my fighters on suitable programmes as early as possible.
 
Its now 11 weeks till I fight at Bushido Challenge, training is still not in full fight prep stages for me but with so many of our fighters in action soon I'm clocking up 40-50 rounds of sparring a week just now which is mental.

My aim for the next 5 weeks is to progress my jits game, so il be spending time drilling, rolling and analysing positional stuff and submissions 5 days a week. Out side of physical training I'll also read more BJJ literature, and watch more BJJ instructional's of fighters in action. You definitely cant substitute mat time for nothing else and get good, but for me watching and studying BJJ increases my learning curve and I feel a big difference when I'm rolling.
 
Before I go big props to the guys from the griphouse who took medals at the Scottish Open BJJ tourney this weekend.