making some progress... slowly

lasted almost twice as long last night, flexibility was a crapton improved. Stopped in precaution after a fella stretched me out a little too forcefully from back mount. Heard my back crack three or four times and asked him to please get off of me.

it's hilarious. you can tell someone you're injured, even wrap an appendage in tape, and instead it seems to draw some magnetic urge to attack. it's almost as though I should've said "hey I broke my nose last week" to safeguard my back.

but overall I am encouraged. if I continue to improve along these lines, my bjj will be back on course in a few weeks. I'm feeling a lot of fatigue today, but it's nothing major, nor outside the norm considering the inactivity. I'm just proceeding with extreme caution.

I do, however, anticipate my return to crossfit to be tougher. I imagine I'll have the same initial breaking in period to re-do. But who knows, maybe it won't be so bad. I will be very conservative with my lifting there for quite some time. Maybe perpetually.

Been reading a lot of Rippetoe's books during my off time, trying to better understand the lifts. I'm not sure whether to just avoid deadlifts altogether, or just become a form nazi using only the bar until I have the form just so ingrained that you could wake me out of a drunken blackout and I could fire off 100 perfect deadlifts on command.

knowing me, it'll be the latter.

guess I'll have to become a weekend warrior.

Drove by the gym after work saturday, but apparently missed everyone. I knew I was taking a chance as was: kids class ended at 4:00, and the snow was still coming down. Fortunately, Sunday brought in a few folks, and hopefully next saturday will be a different story.

it isn't instruction, but it is mat time. That will have to suffice for now. I'll have to make it work, and make it a part of my usual routine. And friends and family will have to accept this as just the way things are now.

Hoping some folks show for morning class today, but won't be terribly surprised if they do not. I may pack up some stand up gear just in case-- may as well at least get a few rounds in on a heavy bag, make the trip worthwhile.

more importantly, yesterday was just fun. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in our curriculum and what I need to work on and progress that I suck all of the fun out of it. My back is not yet fantastic, and I crapped out before a full hour of rolling, but it'll come back around.

And I've about come to accept that absolutely no one under purple belt has any power to alter the level of intensity with which they roll. It isn't a jerk issue, it's a can't help it issue. Maybe it's my call to ramp up my own intensity.

that's what I'm talking about

First day back went well, my back held up relatively well. It was mostly okay during training, but stiffened up a bit afterwards. Today is quite possibly my last chiro visit, so I'm presuming it's going to be time to start re-entering the fold of BJJ and crossfit.

I'm at serious odds at work: we're making slight changes to our work schedule and I'm not sure whether to take the same day off or not. To date, doing BJJ twice a day on Wednesdays has been less than ideal. The choice i'm dealing with is: stay the course and adapt, or change to Thursdays off and resume judo for a while. I'm hoping to add saturday to my list of days I train -- go in after work and see if anyone is around. If that doesn't work, I'll have to try going in Sundays for open mat.

What sucks is this is a decision I have to make today. I'm leaning towards leaving things the same and learning to suck it up and hit bjj twice a day that one day. Meanwhile, let crossfit do what it was already doing: forging a better physical foundation for my bjj.

sorry -- just woke up, so this will read scattered as I get my wits about me.

I would've liked to have made it to both classes yesterday, but felt it was asking a bit much out of a back and body that hadn't done much of anything for 3-4 weeks. I'd like to start back to crossfit as well this week, but everything is sort of in a state of "wait and see". I think I know when I'm ready for more punishment, and when I am not. I am trying to not be gun-shy on deadlifts, or anything, but also not be foolish.

anyway, it was a fun class in that it was just sort of "let's try these moves, analyze why it works, when it fails" and in my case "how to modify so that it works for short folks"

I try to not hate that process, having to modify like every damn move, but it makes sense. The folks I am working with are on average, at least a foot taller than me. the physics will be different. At least I'm starting to figure out what mods to make. I think it helps too that I definitely have to have my technique down for these things to work.

yeah, time for coffee. I'm a rambling mess.