Saturday "competition class"

137.5

That's okay though; I had a late dinner last night, and I woke up ravenous again this morning- it felt like a cat was clawing inside my belly- so I know I'm still on the right track. I've also shaved a couple of cans off my usual daily Dr Pepper quota.

Tuna and hard-boiled-egg-wrap (again) this morning. At this rate, I'll be clucking soon. As I was headed out the door, I was *still* hungry- so I grabbed some granola (I know, it's full of calories, but it was the only portable thing I had other than a Slim-Fast- which I've already been reprimanded for using. )

Saturday morning "competition class" in Seattle.

Dan was wearing a new blue belt, so I congratulated him.

I was braced for a horrible conditioning regimen, but it was only moderately awful. The worst part were the sprawl-defensive sitting-technical standing- squat-sprawl drills.

First a few relays: Kevin (blackbelt-Kevin, not three-stripe whitebelt Kevin from Bellevue.... I'll tell ya, every new student who joins up and has the same name as someone else here really ought to be required to pick a new name!) was put on the floor and a group of us had to take turns trying to pass his guard while he tried to reverse. After a few rounds of that, we started in mount on him and had to try to sub him while he tried to escape. My turn came after Ron & Reuben had already tired him out, but he still had no trouble with me.

Then lots of specific sparring, mostly starting in guard- pass or sweep only for most of the time. I got paired up with Ron, Dave, Sabrina, and Sonia. I did reasonably okay with them, except Sabrina- I dominated her because she's a two-stripe white and 10lb lighter than me. Dave seemed impressed with my performance and told me that I had a strong core.

I went light on Sabrina and let her work; gave her a few pointers. Including the basic escape from mount into half-guard using the foot crossover. I talked her through it, then I got mount on her repeatedly for the rest of the spar and made her keep trying it. I could scissor-sweep her, which was great fun- I suck at sweeps and I don't usually get to do any unless someone is *letting* me. I scissor-swept her four or five times, and could barely suppress a cackle of glee each time. Then Sonia and I showed her how to base her knees out and sink her weight into her butt to avoid getting swept... sigh, so much for that... no more scissor-sweeping for me.
Sabrina's not bad; just needs more time and technique. I did chew her out for going limp and ceasing to fight when she figures we've got her pinned- I said several times, "DON'T give up- keep fighting, till *we* tell you the spar is over!" I hate it when the girls do that.

{buck-buck-buck}

I also dragged her out of the way of another pair of guys and repositioned us in a safer spot without pausing the spar... people do that to me all the time, but this is the first time I've felt so completely in control of an opponent to do that. It made me feel like a Big Shot for a moment.

It was a long while of good work,and I think I did reasonably okay. I did torque my neck once rolling over underneath a sprawled Sonia- hurts now.

At one point, I passed guard on Sabrina, got side control, and got off her- "Pass- start again." I'm trying to be better about paying strict attention to the stated restrictions on the positional sparring. Rodrigo called, "That's not a pass!" Huh??? I'm confused. "You were just about to lock in a controlling top poseetion! You have to get a controlling poseetion and you have to HOLD it for TREE seconds! In regular class, we might let you geet away with that, but in competeetion class, we have to make sure you know the rules!" Ohhhhhh. So then we counted "one....two....three....." before we restarted- but Sabrina was still not allowed to stop resisting and go limp during the count!

{buck-buck-buck-buck}

When open mat arrived, I saw that John had appeared, so I asked him for a roll. We rolled for a really long time, and it was very competitive. He tapped me twice. Once I got an omoplata-ish type of arm lock on him... it was an accident, but once I saw our positions, I recognized it as a potential lock and started cranking on it. I thought I had him, but he wouldn't tap. Prof. Carlos came over and motioned me to bend his wrist and push the arm in a slightly different direction, so I tried that, but the sweat allowed John to wrench his wrist out and escape. I puffed, "You stubborn son of a ___!" And he started laughing.

Someone also grabbed my foot while I was rolling with John- it wasn't impeding what I was doing at the time, so I ignored it. But then I could feel a gentle ankle lock being applied, so I glared over my shoulder, and there was Professor Carlos! But then he let me go and grabbed John's foot instead- that was fine with me!

Rodrigo was rolling with Dan, and after Dan had tapped and started to crawl away, Rodrigo pounced on him again and took his back. Yeah, you sure don't want to ever turn your back on the playful professors around here!

One student whose name I will not reveal- to preserve his modesty- ripped his undershorts right up the back. Then a few times while he was sparring, his gi pants started creeping down and he gave us all a show. I wished I'd had a dollar bill with me- I would have run over and tucked it in his belt- that would have been funny!

It was a great class, great open mat (Thanks John), lots of good practice. {buck-buck}

I was again ravenous when I got home, as well as sore and exhausted. I had some cottage cheese, and am now baking a chicken breast with cheese and garlic salt.

{buck-buck-buck-buck} Oh dear.