Written by Emilia Tuukkanen, BJJ Brown belt, BJJ&Nogi European Champion from Finland, living and training in southern Spain. In this now weekly blog post, she will detail her interesting BJJ lifestyle in Spain.

What does my ideal week of training look like?

Monday 13.7

Morning:
Jogging with steady pace for 1 hour on the beautiful beach boulevard of Fuengirola. A wonderful start for the day and whole week.

Evening:
BJJ for 1,5 hours, class taught by my master & coach Pablo Cabo at Roger Gracie Academy Malaga. We did warm ups for 30minutes, drilled passing the guard and continued to the back, did specific sparring from side control and kind of a half-back mount for 40 minutes and in the end sparred 3x6minutes. A bit more sparring would have been great, but it was so hot that I think at least few people would have died then.

Tuesday 14.7

Morning:
I went to gym to work on my clean&jerk and dead lift for 1 hour, and the end I did a bit of abs (because no girl can leave gym without doing a bit of abs) and stretching.

Evening:
Nogi for 1,5 hours by my better half Santeri at RGA Malaga. We did some stand up for warm up, continued to do specific training from single leg from there ( other one has the single leg and the other one tries to defend it) and sparred a lot of 8 minute rounds in the end.

Wednesday 15.7

Morning:
A workout at home for 1 hour. I started by taking the dog out for some hill running and stairs for 20 minutes, then did dynamic yoga and body weight training at home, and finished the session with good stretching.

Evening:
Trail riding for 1,5 hours.

Thursday 16.7

Afternoon:
Gym for 1 hour. I did a bit of everything: clean&jerks, kettle bell training and body weight training. I also started to learn to snatch for the first time, it is such a difficult (and hard!) move, but I really want to learn to do it right. One day…

Evening:
Nogi for 1,5 hours, taught again by Santeri at RGA Malaga. I did my all-time sweating record, and was able to squeeze not only drops, but streams of sweat from the end of my braid after class. That tells you everything you need to know about how hard we trained. Countless amount of 8 minute rounds after specific training with wrestling.

Friday 17.7

Evening:
BJJ for 1,5 hours. Friday night class is always taught by myself at RGA Malaga, and it is kind of a beginners class technique-wise, but with lot of drilling and sparring. We started by running etc 10 minutes and finished the warm up with basic guard passing (toreando, leg drag and full guard pass by standing up) and full guard submission (arm bar, triangle and omoplata) drills. After that as a technique of the day I showed how I like to control my opponent while passing the guard. We had a competition near our gym the weekend before, and many of our students had trouble getting the points from passing the guard, since the opponent was often able to escape despite a good pass attempt. For me, the important thing when passing is to get the undertook as fast as possible, and then defend it with my life. I won’t be able to stay in the side control without putting my opponents back on the mat, so we did some specific sparring from half guard, one on top has to pass and get the points (stabilizing the situation for 3 seconds) and the one on bottom tries to sweep or get full guard. After that we sparred 8 minute rounds rest of the time, not sure how many exactly.

Saturday 18.7

Andalucian Top Team training in Marbella, Dynamic Team Gym lead by black belt Carlos Varona. Every saturday we have an open mat in Marbella, where everyone is welcome, no matter what team. We work hard to have good relationships with other gyms in the area, because I find it crazy to train only at one gym all the time. The more I get different kind of sparring partners, the better I will get. On saturday’s we always have first few rounds of flow roll to warm up and then we just sparr for the rest of the time. We have a great group of people who train to compete, and every saturday night I am ready to die.

Sunday 19.7

REST DAY AKA SUNDAY FUNDAY. It is so important to rest enough, at least one full day per week. Sunday is always my lazy day, when I just do everything fun, like go to the beach or just watch Netflix all day. Whatever I feel like. Usually I feel like Netfix and Häagen&Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream.