This is what it's like to unload round here

This week is an unload week, which means no circuits, no conditioning, a tiny bit of strength work and lots of light sparring and technique work. Unloads, for those who don’t know what they are, are vital for preventing injury, and can probably be best described as fun. Basically they’re the easy week in your training that you need so that you don’t have a burnout and you can take it easy on those niggly injuries that you pick up.

Of course the very idea of taking your foot off the gas isn’t new or original. Pretty much every good coach knows when their guys need a light night but it’s only lately that I’ve started to structure the sessions in the gym so that they occur regularly in the timetable. Previously, I tried to do it individually, fighter to fighter but these days there are more fighters in the gym so I get to take everyone offline for a week together. This also works out well for the casual trainers as they get a week to go over stuff that they wouldn’t ordinarily get to work on.

Last night for example, we rolled (well, they rolled I didn’t cos of my shin injury) for about 40 minutes, and then followed up with some Q&A on techniques and difficulties. People shouted out and we got to drill closed guard breaking and then the side choke with some finishes. It amazes me sometimes that no matter how good and cool the technique is, like for example the side choke, people are always much more “ooh, ahhh” about something like sticking your chin in someone’s eye (a dirty trick I showed last night). What does that mean? That we’re just doing jiu jitsu so that we can be extra cruel to people? I’d like to think that’s not the reason.

In other news, damn it I think one of my dogs is going to have to be put down. She is the ugliest, smelliest, stupidest dog I have ever come across in my whole life. So naturally I love her. I rescued her from certain death by lethal injection about 5 years ago and she hasn’t forgotten it once and never misses a chance to put her stinking paws on me, or lick my ear when I’m lying on the couch. She’s as gentle as a mouse to me my wife and my son but outside the house she’s aggressive to people who come near us or her and after escaping out of the side entrance last week she went for a little girl who was walking her dog. There’s no choice but for her to go. I’ve an appointment with the vet in 10 minutes and he’s going to check to see if there’s something medically wrong with her that might have caused her to be aggressive, in which case she might have a reprieve but I know that there’s not much chance of that.

So if I’m depressed and looking miserable in the gym tonight, you know why. Pfft, what a depressing way to sign off for the day. Later.