500 Hours of BJJ In A Year: March
This article is an update on the 500 Hours of BJJ in a year challenge, click here for last month’s update.
So, it turns out that this might just be the final update on the 500 hours of BJJ in a year challenge. It seems as though factors outside my control (the Coronavirus outbreak for those of you living under a rock) have completely killed the challenge off. I half-expected that I might have to struggle through an injury or some major unforeseen life event might take a few days out of my calendar and I planned accordingly at the beginning of the year, but nobody could have foreseen this. As a refresher, here’s what my week should look like if I train every day (and if there wasn’t a pandemic happening right now):
Monday: 6:00-7:30 Gi BJJ
Tuesday: 7:00-8:30 No-Gi BJJ (Teaching)
Wednesday: 6:00-7:30 Gi BJJ (Competition Training)
Thursday: 6:30-7:30 Gi BJJ (Fundamentals)
Friday: 6:00-7:30 Gi BJJ
Saturday: 11:00-12:30 No-Gi BJJ
Sunday: 10:00-11:30 No-Gi BJJ (Teaching)
I was fortunate enough to be able to compete for the first time this year (came in second, could’ve been a better performance but a decent result) but the UK government forced the closure of all gyms on March 20th, which was my final training session for the month. I missed three training sessions before this, one due to getting my working from home setup arranged after work, one to go and compete and one more to recover the following day, although I did manage to make up half an hour of drilling and half an hour of sparring outside of standard classes.
Like many of you, I’m using this time off to make use of the free Bernardo Faria and Tom DeBlass instructionals (Special thanks to BJJ Fanatics for those!). I’m also doing some weightlifting a few days a week and going for a run most mornings, which is great for my overall performance. But I know that I can’t honestly count any of this as BJJ training, because it’s not, it’s all just supplemental work. As a result, my time for this month comes in at a pathetic 27 hours and I’m way behind for the year now. Below is the breakdown of the month:
Target: 41 hours.
Actual: 25.5 hours.
Gi: 14.5 hours.
No Gi: 11 hours.
Drilling: 10 hours.
Teaching: 7 hours.
Sparring: 8.5 hours.
And the year so far:
Target: 123 hours.
Actual: 105 hours.
Gi: 59 hours.
No Gi: 46 hours.
Drilling: 35 hours.
Teaching: 26 hours.
Sparring: 44 hours.
In all honesty, if we spend the entirety of April in lockdown then I’ll be 59 hours behind where I planned to be. After that, the leglock training camp set for the middle of July is also under threat of cancellation and if both of these things happen then the challenge is definitely over.
To see the rest of the entries in the 500 hours of BJJ in a year challenge, click here.
