A slice of today
I arrived in my hometown last night from the city of Lahore where my grandmother is currently admitted into a hospital due to a stroke. She is better now and I came back to attend a wedding. A wedding in Pakistan typically entails about a week of dinner and functions for family and friends. Many people sleep at dawn eating and talking and wake up in the afternoon and begin getting ready for another evening. This goes on for at least 3 days, and for about a week if your a close member of the families getting married.
Anyway, this being a small town, two students that I am teaching found out I was back and knocked on the door this morning. They had taken off from school or had been given a holiday (a common thing in Pakistan, teacher will decide on a whim that he doesn’t want to teach that day) so they were free. I told them to come back in an hour to train since I was pretty sure I won’t be back in a regular teaching schedule due to weddings and my grandmothers illness. Might as well train when we can. they showed up an hour later and I took out a canvas tarp along with some insulation foam and set up my makeshift rolling mat in my grandparents front lawn. We then did some drills we had been working on on the ground. Escaping the mount and sweeps from the guard. Very very basic stuff. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 101 for sure. We did that for about an hour and then rolled for another hour. First the two students, whose names are Shakeel and Omar. Then each student rolled with me for a bit. We did this and I finished the class off just giving them some tips on how to train while I was gone and what possibilities I foresaw for the future of the sport in Pakistan. Its the 12th today and I leave on the 24th. After that it will be about 9-10 months before I get a chance to see how far these guys have progressed.
By the way I found out this morning that the owner of TapOut “Mask” passed away. He did alot to promote the sport from way back when it was still “human cock-fighting.” So I hope MMA fans thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends he has left behind.