Stigmata

Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Bellevue.

Bree complimented my Bad Boy gi, and proclaimed it the "steal of the century" when I told her I found it at the Goodwill for ten bucks and change.

Pat was teaching. Lots of peculiar warmup exercises... including one where we had to sit on a line, lift our feet off the mat, hold our hands out in front of us and inch our way to the next line using only our buttcheeks. I kid you not. Some people were completely unable to get any forward momentum, and protested that they could not do this because they didn't have enough butt!

He also had us do the reverse shrimps- which I smoked across the mat because Cindy has us do those all the time.

I showed Pat the Dead Bugs. He had never seen them before. I'll bet we get some of those next time!

Side control to hip out, get double underhooks, turn over, and reverse the opponent with a double leg.

Then side control to throwing one leg and arm out and using them as momentum to turn yourself on your belly and then up on your knees facing the opponent.

I had a lot of trouble with #1, because I could never remember which side I needed to have my head on in order to avoid being guillotined.

I was drilling with Bree, and being light, because she is recovering from pneumonia. She told me that she is not doing the Revolution nor PanAms (she is skeered now that she is a blue belt... she says that she would have done it if she hadn't gotten promoted). Our purple belt Angela is going, though (gi only).

Relay positional sparring- side control. There were fewer of us today (maybe fourteen or so), and I had to give up multiple turns to avoid the guy who refuses to work with me. Grrr. Pat was trying to corner me from the sidelines, but half the time I wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to get me to do. My top side control is credible, I think. I was even able to hold down Luis for a bit (to be fair, he was going with person after person and getting really tired). Lance laughed when I came over to him, as he always does... Lance is about the size of a manufactured home, and me rolling with Lance looks like a house cat rolling with a mountain lion. Sergei complimented the heaviness of my side control glowingly, which was cool. (And I wasn't even using the "dick-to-the-mat" side control, I was using the "knees in your ribcage" side control... I feel more mobile that way, although I can't be as "heavy".)


I swathed my wrist wound in coban and wound it with tape (heh heh). It wasn't the most comfortable situation in the world, but it held.



Evening Kung Fu.

SK: "Are you going to tell me when the Revolution is, so I can come?"

Kitsune: "Hell no."

SK: "Come on!"

Kitsune: "Thank you for the show of support. But the fewer people who are watching my fights, the happier I will be."

SK: "How about if I come and you don't know I'm there until after your matches?"

Kitsune: "Come on!"

I don't think I need to worry about him popping up, as the tournament is now scheduled on his birthday. I'm sure he has better things to do on a Saturday birthday than drive all the way to Bonney Lake to watch me get stomped like a cockroach. It's nice of him to want to back me up, though.

The most nervewracking thing about the last Revolution was having Rodrigo, Carlos, and a whole crowd of GB people lined up on the sidelines watching me. Again, I'm very grateful for the show of support- but man, that's a lot of pressure and it made me really self-conscious. I'd do better if I could fight the girl all alone out in the parking lot!

After two rounds of hand strike drills, we reviewed a little Kiu Two (I had asked if we could revisit this). Good thing, as it is already getting rusty- and not just for me! I grabbed Nemesis when it came time to do the form partnered up. We had to work slowly through the flurry sequence several times, and then rep it a lot.

Another round of knife defense, with the markers and white shirts. I had to fight Nemesis (me with the knife) and JoE (him with the knife). He got me right in the palm of the hand with his blue marker- so I had blue stigmata!

Slo-mo sparring. I had to fight JM and JoE. It looks like SK put me with Nemesis during the knife work, figuring I'm maginally more confident in that- but is still keeping me away from him during the regular sparring.

I don't think I can realistically assess my sparring performance at this time, so I'm not sure what to say about it.

I did note that once I loosened up a bit (I was stiff as a board when I started), I found myself sparring out of Snake guard stances- which is a little weird. But I recall that happening some last summer, too. It'll be interesting to see how that develops. I notice that JM almost always starts in the same modified Dragon ready stance that MM uses (although he got his from his karate background- it's almost the same stance, though). JoE uses a lot of Mantis- mostly Southern Mantis, which gives him an advantage, since the rest of us have trained very little Southern Mantis.

Once again SK didn't take a turn... I talked to him about that in the car; he doesn't see a point in him taking a turn, and doesn't think there's enough time. I tried to explain that I for one find it educational to watch him and see examples of the higher levels of skill that we're supposed to be working toward. He thinks I'm nuts.


(pic- Stephanie)