Multiple-opponent practice

Scale says 138.5 this morning. My ideal weight is 124. I might be satisfied with 125/126, because I've put on visible muscle mass in the past 14 months.

Revolution gi bracket I'd like to aim for is 118-129 *with* gi... haven't weighed the gi yet, but maybe 4lb? So 124 would be perfect.

The no-gi brackets are 113.6-124.5 and 124.6 to 135.5.... I most likely would not attempt no-gi, but 124 would put me at a good place there as well.


Tuesday morning BJJ in Bellevue.

Rodrigo's on the bench. This isn't funny... but it sorta is. Guess who took him out? ALLIE!!

He asked where we'd been last night, since my group has been doing most Wednesday nights in Seattle lately. It's nice to be missed. He mentioned that Wednesday nights in Seattle seems to be when a lot of the women are in.

Sauleh was there- with a fresh brown belt on! If it had been anybody else, I would have gone over and congratulated him. But this is the guy who refuses to work with me because I was born with the wrong plumbing. Yeah, I know, I am being petty and unevolved and incapable of being the BIGGER PERSON. But probably my congratulations would not be of much value to him, coming from a woman. (Pbbbbbt!)

As we were waiting for class to start, I saw a skinny Filipino dude walk in... did a double-take... "Nelson!??! Holy crap!! Where's the rest of you?!??" He has lost 35 pounds since the last time I saw him. I honestly barely recognized him.

While we were shrimping across the floor in warm-ups, Prof. Carlos was chasing me up the mat, chivvying me to go faster, and to get my butt up higer and turned more on the side.

Same techniques as yesterday. I was drilling with James, a two-stripe white that I have never seen before. I worked the drills off both sides. When we got to the side-control-escape-to-replacing-guard, I was so clumsy on the left side that I stopped alternating and repped that side for the rest of the drill.

Positional sparring from side control- I do poorly once trapped in side control, and today was no exception. James isn't a huge guy, but bigger than me- and he dominated me completely once he had me in side control.

So, yet again- in frustration, fury and dispair- I swallowed hard, folded my tattered and threadbare pride into a tiny tiny little bundle and stuffed it in the bottom of my saddlebag, and said, "You're gonna to have to go kinda light on me, okay, because you're a lot stronger than I am." Story of my life.

In the last few days, I've been surfing around reading some blogs by other female BJJ'ers, and I don't know whether to be comforted or dispairing to see the same refrain of helpless, frustrated, self-flagellation that characterizes my own training blog.

Anyway, on to two six-minute free spars- once again I reminded James to go light, and he did, but he still had me on the defensive the whole time. He was doing a lot of straight-armed pushing against me, and if I had had a bit more technique, I'm sure I could have taken more advantage of that and gotten some good armlocks. But I don't really have enough upper-body-only joint lock technique yet. He had me in some primo positions more than once where I thought, "Damn- kimura- I'm toast" or "Damn- keylock- I'm toast." But he didn't go for them... I don't think he had enough technique yet to see the gaping openings.

I got a short break while I womanned the stopwatch, then I had to spar Carlos. I didn't do as well against him today as I'd done last week. He got me in a triangle, and I puffed- "I'm not strong enough to pick you up and slam you!" Then some guys on the sidelines, too far away to have heard me, started yelling for me to pick him up and slam him.

He got a handful of my gi wrapped around my neck and retained it there for a very long time while we struggled- One of the things I'm learning on an ongoing basis by Cindy's example is how to just roll out of any arm or gi tail or anything else that is wrapping you up. I'm starting to get more of an instinctual feeling for where I need to roll, but it still needs work. It took me a while this time to figure out where I needed to go, and when I finally did figure it out, there was an arm in my way that I had to displace before I could do it. But when I (finally!) managed to roll out of the gi wrap, He gave an exclaiming chuckle, like I'd surprised him with that.


Later...........

Kung Fu Thursday. There was just CN, Nemesis, JM and me today, and it was a shortie class because CN got held up at work.

We started with a few rounds of the build-a-form game. I continue to focus on flow. The final form we made turned out really cool- it was *all* Tiger stuff (with one random rebel Mantis step that Nemesis threw in for some reason).

Then we worked on some multiple-opponents stuff. CN blocked off one area of the courtyard and assigned one person as the defender and two as the attackers. Stipulations were that the defender could ONLY evade, and block/parry if absolutely necessary. Everyone had to move through low Tiger stances (lunges, horse, scissor) the whole time, so we couldn't just race around chasing each other. Rolls were allowed, though.

I focussed on trying to keep my opponents stacked- specifically, I tried to keep Nemesis stacked *behind* JM, since she is slower and a lot less scary. My natural tendency to take a fight to the ground is Bad Medicine in a multi-attacker scenario. I knew that going in, but I still wound up on the ground a lot- at which point while I was grappling with one of them, the other moved in and clobbered me, of course.

Another thing that was not working very well was latching onto Nemesis and trying to immobilize him long enough for JM to deal with him. I don't mind eating a hit or two if that will let my ally step in and finish him. JM was neither quick enough nor efficient enough to take care of Nemesis before he turned on me and cleaned my clock.

Nemesis socked me hard in the forehead with a punch. Are you seeing a pattern here? This guy, in the (three years? Has it been three years? Something like that) time since we've started training here, has gotten better and better at aiming and generating power, but his CONTROL has not gotten better along with it. Thank Gods I put my contacts in and hadn't had my glasses on when he slugged me.

Nemesis- with his long legs- also had a major ground-covering advantage over JM and me. He could have conceivably evaded forever without letting either of us close in, had he chosen. On the flip side, when he's after *YOU*, he's gonna get you- it's just a matter of (usually very little) time.

After we had each had three "deaths" as the defender, we did another set- this time, the defender was allowed to attack as well as evade. I suggested that instead of having this be a free-for-all melee (I was just not in the mood to get my head knocked off my shoulders by one of Nemesis' wild blows), we do it using the 40-count-freeze-sparring-game template- at least to start. CN agreed.

That worked out really well. The same problems with staying on my feet and with keeping away from Nemesis persisted, though. After my third "death", CN remarked how impressed he'd been with my kick defense as I was going down under Nemesis. I had absolutely no recollection of what had happened- so I asked them to reconstruct it for me so that I could note what I had done right. Apparently as Nemesis was taking me down, I had rolled onto my back, chambered both legs and kicked (well, pushed- because ***I*** have *CONTROL* and try to refrain from killing my training partners!!!!) Nemesis far enough off me that he was out of the fight for long enough for me to try to finish off JM, who was pouncing on me from the side. It was not quite long enough, and they "killed" me yet again... but CN liked the move, so that was good.

That was a lot of hard work. This is the first time any of us has worked multiple-opponent sparring in a concentrated and prolonged fashion as the defender, with so few restrictions.... even as slow and elementary as this exercise was, it is new material for us. We did quite a bit of multiple-opponent sparring last summer to help SK ready himself for his disciple test, but always with him defending and us attacking.

My knees are whimpering about all the low Tiger stancework.....

Forms time- I had brought my short sticks so that I could review the three-strike double-stick flow drills... high, low, and alternating. I don't think I have touched the short sticks for almost a year (bad Kitsune!), so I was relieved that most of it came back pretty quickly. I fumbled the alternating sequence a bit, but then that came back too. It still needs a lot more work- I tend to cheat the third strike as soon as I start going really fast, because the momentum wants to carry it on through- it's hard to stop it at the front like it's supposed to. I really need to focus on visualizing what I'm hitting in order to make sure that third strike happens. And I only smacked myself with my own sticks twice.

CN came over and commented, "You're getting better." Really? Hard to believe. I must revisit this again soon- repping the alternating sequence until it's more instinctual, and working the speed at the point where it starts to get sloppy, so that I can gradually get faster *without* the sloppy.

JM and I were both starving on the way home, and talking about food (milkshakes, to be specific). I told her that I am dieting, and she was surprised and bemused- "Really? Because you look great." Thank you. And yet....

She and SK have both lost several pounds since starting BJJ, without even trying.(grrrrrr)