My day started at 10am when I was woken up by the sound of running water. My landlord installed fire sprinklers in the building last week. Today, they were testing them by turning the pressure up to “200 pounds” and seeing if any of the sprinklers fail.

One of the ones in my apartment did fail, soaking the majority of the room. My first reaction was to yell “What the f***!” I’m not sure who I was addressing, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Then I heard a voice from downstairs yell back: “Sorry, dude!” Reminded me a lot of Office Space.

I grabbed a cup of coffee, my gi, and went out the door to go train at Jared’s. Every guy there was tougher than the next, including as Mike said: “the world’s two best blue belts”. He was just joking, but when he said that, I realized how much I wish I’d gone to Worlds, and that I’m definitely going next year. Of course, there are many high-level tournaments before then that I really need to start medaling at. Andrew is game for the Chicago Open in August. And I think Jared and a few others might be going to the Boston Open.

In training, I opened up (as I have more and more recently) and tried different guard passes. Even tried lefty passes to help make sure my base is strong no matter what grip I have. X-pass is working well. The part I struggle with is stabilizing side control. I’m most successful when I really force a strong knee-on-belly right from the x-pass.