Thursday, August 26, 2010

New blue belt woman, stage right

Lunchtime BJJ at Bellevue. I saw a girl!!!! She was wearing a 4-striped periwinkle belt- it was so faded that I honestly couldn't tell if it was blue or purple. Well, I was in line behind her either way, so it doesn't really matter! Turns out she is Shawndee, a blue who has been training for 4 years, part of Dex and Bree's crowd. She said she plans to come in regularly Tues/Thrs lunchtime at Bellevue. That would be great.

We were doing all the same stuff we did last night. I worked with Shawndee. I noticed a minor thing or two that she wasn't doing quite as instructed, but I kept my mouth shut until she asked, "Am I doing ____ right?" At which point I told her my observations, then I mentioned that I had been in class yesterday and did these same things, that's how I know- so I wouldn't look like I was being a know-it-all in the face of a higher belt.

When it came time for sparring, she creamed me- the extra two years of training really showed. I was on the bottom defending desperately almost the whole time.... she would distract me by fighting for a sub, and then slap on an armbar while my focus was elsewhere. If she's competing in the tournament, she is going to clean my clock! But she is a worthy adversary, and very nice- so I do hope I get to work with her some more in the future.

We did some positional relays, and the first person I got paired up with was Eric- a gigantic purple belt. Carlos was laughing at me and asking, didn't I think that guy was too big for me? I yelled, "NO!" and then the whole class was laughing at me. Well, I fended off Eric's replacement of guard for a little bit, and he was nice to me, but that wasn't much of a contest.

I relayed my way through a few more guys (all white belts again today- except for me, Eric, Shawndee and Luiz), and actually won against one of the brand new ones. I clamped him into my closed guard, and he looked at me and asked, "Am I supposed to be submitting you?" I said, "No, just reset." Actually I should have kicked him back into line and stayed on the mat, since I bested him- but I didn't feel like taking the time to explain that to him, so I just jumped back into line.

I also had one roll with Ben, who armbarred me twice (a bit embarrassing, after Shawndee had also armbarred me twice today). Ben was very careful about it, though- he put them on nice and slow and controlled, and I thanked him kindly for that.

After that, I felt like a washcloth that had been soaked, wrung out and tossed on the locker room floor. I hung around a bit and womanned the timer, hoping to get a second wind and have another trouncing at Shawndee's hands- but I was whipped, so I left.

I had kung fu tonight also, but I will have to try to update that tomorrow- it's almost midnight, I'm exhausted, and I have to be at work early in the morning.

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