Hey everyone!
These last couple days have been the culmination of our training for the Mundials.
There has been little positional sparring, mostly drills for warm-up and then many rounds to keep our conditioning strong and allow people to continue dropping weight if they need to.
Everyday this week, Master Lloyd has put on his kimono and stepped on the mats with us. Sometimes it is to critique our technique while drilling/sparring and at other times he will spar with other students and competitors. It is incredible to watch him work! He is both an excellent coach and practitioner of the art.
Diets have come to the forefront of each athlete’s attention, with most of the guys weighing themselves two to three times a day. Conversations have changed from technical insight to strategy and food fantasies.
We had our last practice today and then closed out class with some inspiration for each individual’s performance. Then there was a great promotion for Master Donnie and Master Marcos to first-degree black belt.
See you guys soon! Oss
Hey all!
So, we are getting into the last week of training for the Mundials and the workouts have changed a bit.
We are down from 3-4/day to 2 a day. One interesting development is that instead of being allowed to stroll in 10-15 minutes late, anyone who is late this week is not allowed to train. Master Lloyd said this was because if you are late to your match at the Mundials, what happens? You get disqualified. Interesting idea.
Another development is the workouts have shifted in schedule. Instead of 10AM, 4:30PM and 8:30PM, our workouts are now at 10AM and 5PM. I think this is to give the guys a chance to start acclimating to the time change.
Most of our training this week has been live sparring. Drilling is now relegated to warm ups only and the workouts themselves are a bit shorter overall. The intensity has not dropped, though. Everyone has the same mindset that their weapons are as sharp as they are going to be for the Mundials, now it’s time to make sure your weight is right and your conditioning stays strong.
While this week is not over yet, I am already starting to miss the time here. All of the guys have great personalities and interesting quirks that make them fun to be around. I hope I will have a chance to come back and visit/train soon!
Take care! See you soon
Hey everyone!
Today the guys from the Jungle and I took the metro into downtown D.C. for a bite to eat and some adventures.
Once we were in D.C., we wandered through different stores and consumeries (a consumery is a place you go to consume things). Different members of the house would pair up and hang out for a bit before switching off to hang out with someone else. I spent some time talking to Frank Camacho about his view on MMA and JT Torres and I spent some time talking about what he prefers in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu kimono.
Frank is a fan of Vale Tudo and would like to compete under a rule set that allows head butts, soccer kicks and knees to the head on the ground. Brutal! JT prefers rope-style drawstring for kimono pants instead of the canvas-style drawstring. Not so brutal.
It was an interesting day; I enjoy seeing the contrast between training days and rest days. It is as if everyone’s personality can shift instantly from laser-focused training to completely relaxed and easy-going. I’m certain that all of the guys in the Jungle genuinely enjoy each other’s company and since they all know the importance of recovery, they maximize their enjoyment when they’re able to rest.
They also get into a lot of spontaneous fights with each other. Slap boxing, grappling, etc. at the drop of a hat. Day and night. They never seem to get enough!
Oh, and I was lucky enough to be greeted by a zealous man on a crate! He asked if I was going to heaven and I said, “yes.” Then there was some shouting. Wild!
Hey everyone,
We have all been training hard and so today we were given the day off. It was needed! A bunch of the guys went to a pool to hang out and I stayed in and caught up on sleep and some work.
Yesterday was fairly straight to the point with our training.
We had three workouts, the first one was a guard pass to back take live-sparring session for an hour.
The second workout was another sprint-drilling session. During this session, Master Lloyd corrected fine details on each individual’s technique. It was useful and interesting to see how vast his knowledge is of each and every position in Jiu Jitsu. It’s as if he has everyone’s entire game in his head, all at once.
The last workout of the night was also straight-forward; instead of specific scenarios for our sparring, we did eight rounds of sparring from standing. Good workout and it allowed us to rest a bit so we can put in more work next week during the last part of the grind!
Take care!
Middle of the Week at Team Lloyd Irvin
Working to Learn and Learning to Work
Hi!
I want to take a second to cover what we did Tuesday and Wednesday for training. Is that okay with you? No? Oh…
Um…
That’s kind of awkward…
Well, if it’s not okay with you, can you leave so I can describe it for those who are interested? Sweet, thanks.
Tuesday we had three workouts. At 10:30AM, we did a massive drilling workout followed by an interesting strength & conditioning workout. It involved no weights and no partner work. It was very similar to a power yoga workout. After the workout I felt great, like all these stabilizers in my lower body had been activated. Now, a day later, I’m quite sore!
At 4:30PM, we did another block of “sprint drilling,” this time with more sets and less rest between. It’s intense! Sometimes the uke gets as much of a workout as the tori with all of the repeated falling.
At 8:30PM we returned and drilled some specific training scenarios in small bursts of time. Very similar to a tabata workout but with brazilian jiu jitsu sparring.
Overall, a really good training day. Master Lloyd was aware of how tough it was and so today (Wednesday) was a bit lighter, not just for his birthday bash but to allow for some recovery.
Wednesday
Starting again at 10AM, we did the standard drilling with a partner, back and forth. Today I worked on omoplatas with brazilian jiu jitsu world champion Alec Baulding. I learned some great details regarding the setup and finishes for the omoplata. We did 6 minute rounds for about an hour. After that, we did a brainstorm session to discuss the different people to look for in our divisions and techniques/strategies to utilize against them. Class afterward consisted again of scenario-specific sparring: one person is up by 2 points, the other has an advantage, get the win! Things of that nature. Only at the end of training is the “open” sparring; otherwise, most of the training consists of specific scenarios sparred at a high-intensity for short amounts of time. Very effective for competition training.
We returned at 5PM for the last session of the day. Started off drilling sweep for sweep and then moved into some heavy open-sparring. I believe we did 6 rounds at 10 minutes a piece and then 3 or 4 rounds at 5 minutes a piece.
Now we are all getting ready to head to Master Lloyd’s birthday bash in Washington D.C., should be a fun time!
Hello!
It’s the start of a new week and today we wasted no time in getting right to some intense workouts.
This morning we had a four-hour practice, started with an hour and a half of drilling. Then we moved into some sparring and continued for… the remainder of the time. It was pretty brutal.
Fast-forward to 4:30 and we were back at it, starting again with some mild drilling. Then we got into some “sprint-drilling:” 90 seconds on, 30 seconds off practicing one technique as quickly as possible. After you do ten rounds of this, your partner goes. Continue until around 6pm.
We returned tonight and worked some positional sparring, different scenarios and positions but with the same partner for the whole night. After that, we did a drill to simulate some dire circumstances where one person would be interested in stalling and the other MUST move ahead in order to win. Then some conditioning and now I’m home trying to rack my brain to remember our workouts. Sometimes my brain doesn’t function so well after training.
I hope y’all are doing great! :]
During clean-up after the In-house tournament, some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu mischief was inevitable. Here we see Keenan Cornelius in a double-omoplata, half of that courtesy of DJ Jackson:
Omoplata Train Craziness:
Today, (Sunday) on our way into D.C. for the second day in a row, we noticed a kimono had fallen on the side of the road. Obstacles and mayhem were potential roadblocks, but that kimono needed retrieval:
Roadkill Kimono:
Hey everyone!
This weekend was pretty packed!
It started off with an in-house tournament at Team Lloyd Irvin. It was both a no-gi and gi tournament for kids and adults.
I must say, I was very impressed with the skill of everyone that competed! White belts and up, kids, teens and adults, everyone fought hard and technically. Many of the competitors are already world champions at their belt and it definitely shows. There was non-stop action, flying attacks, jumping guard passes and relentless sweeps. An Olympic Judoka and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu purple belt faced off against one of the world’s Nick Schultz best purple belts in the open-weight finals. It was an excellent match, both competitors fought tenaciously.
After the tournament, a large group of us went into to D.C. to grab a bite to eat. Yum!
Tim Peterson (Robot Fight & Fitness) with:
Frank Camacho, DJ Jackson, Keenan Cornelius, Jordon Schultz and more of the Team Lloyd Irvin Crew!
Van full of champions!