BJJ makes your henna tattoos disappear faster.

126.5


Note #1: BJJ makes your henna tattoos disappear faster. :(

Note #2:Next time I want to do 2 clock-choke classes in one day, rethink that.

Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Bellevue (The Danger Room). Drilled with Kelly (glad to see her still training). Clock chokes, transitioning to the one with the hand behind the head if it doesn't work. Peeling open the turtle.

Evening BJJ at Gracie Seattle- Second verse, same as the first. With JB, whose technicality is excellent and chokes are Not Fooling Around. Definitely approaching blue belt level work.

By the time I got out of there, I had a headache and gi burn.

I didn't do any free rolling today.

Oh, Rene got his purple belt last night!


After the second class, I had to drive to Eatonville to pick up my cat from the catsitter. The headache persisted and got worse, and some nausea joined in. Luckily I made it home before puking my guts up in a spectacular fashion and lying on the bathroom floor with a cold cloth on my face. I think that's the worst headache I've ever had in my life. The puking was intense as well- I half expected to see my toenails floating around in there. I feel okay today, although I didn't get much sleep.

I have not done the Form Of the Day for the last two days. The day I got back from my trip, it just plain slipped my mind. Yesterday, I planned to do that Form Of the Day plus Monday's FOD and get caught up, but I was too busy being sick as a dog. I plan to do all three forms today: Chen jian form, Silken Needle, Box Form.





So, the trip itself, if anyone cares:

"Drum till ya puke"- I've joked about this before, but one of my Hunt drummers took it literally this year.

I gained six pounds on vacation, back up to 130! It was way too hot to get any formwork done (and when it wasn't broiling, it was raining). My Herald volunteers were moderately reliable, but the new site was much better than either of the two previous sites in that respect. It was mostly flat, and a lot less disseminated. Two Heralds could have covered it in a pinch (and did so, a few times). It was great to have Dru as a third Herald coordinator- that worked out very well for everyone. Thus, I spent way too much time sitting on my butt around the Herald Camp fire and eating bad things. The very first thing Rhonda said to me- even before "Hello" was, "Are you even SMALLER???!! Why??! Why are you even smaller???!?" The most exercise-like thing I did (aside from the Hunt) was when we stayed up at the fire till 2:30 am on Monday night and laughed hysterically like a bunch of maniacs till our abs burned.

As mentioned, it was a Good Hunt. Dru did more work on drum coordinating than I did. She did most of the grunt work, while I just stood up there and waved my arms around and ended up getting most of the accolades. (Silverdrake asked Dru to lead the drums for the Hunt he will be doing at Ravenstone shortly…. Sigh… I wish I wasn't on the west coast. But Dru will do a good job, and I'm glad she's getting the chance. I had offered the position to her for next year.)

There were a couple of snags. Before bringing the Hunters in, Silverdrake went to the far end of the road and sounded the horn to make sure that Aegis could hear it, and that Silverdrake could hear Aegis' chime in return. They neglected to tell me that this was a test (and only a test… had this been an ACTUAL ritual cue…...), so when I heard the horn, I started the heartbeat. The result was that we were doing the heartbeat for an excruciatingly long time. Since my broken finger had already started aching early in the week, I decided to simply conduct the heartbeat and not actually strike the drumhead. The heartbeat always wants to speed up, and we had a lot of Hunt virgins in the drum section- so I conducted with very wide sweeps of my right arm to try to keep the tempo slow enough. (Dru informed me later that it *did* speed up some- especially after the Hunters were all in the circle. (She was nodding at me from the back, but I didn't realize that that's what she was trying to tell me- I thought the nod meant everything was groovy! I said, "I was conducting really big to prevent that from being able to happen!" She responded, "Yeah, but you were doing it faster and faster! You looked like Jack LaLanne up there by the end,") That's not too bad, though- that makes sense- as long as it wasn't too fast as they were coming in.) We must have done the heartbeat for well over ninety minutes. I thought my right arm was going to fall off.

Then the Hunters were in their spaces, and we heard some of them start screaming from all sides. They had begun without the thunder drums. And still no Silverdrake to signal me to begin. Found out later that he was tied up ejecting a Hunter who had tried to come into the ritual space with a rock on the end of a chain. Thank you. I would not like to be standing in that circle when a tranced-out Hunter charged in with a freakin' rock on the end of a chain. It's scary enough when they have only dull wooden spears and knives.

When he finally appeared to give me the signal- after an eternity- I flubbed the cue because I was supposed to signal "One, two three, halt" but my arm was so sore and I was so tired that my fingers literally would not function.

Once we started the thunder drumming, my finger ached some, but all in all I must say it was the easiest Hunt yet for me in terms of endurance and staying on beat. (I had the heavy drum, too!) People moaned afterward about how long it was, but it seemed short to me. I hit the "I can't do this for another thirty seconds without literally keeling over and dying" moment only about ten times instead of a hundred times. The worst part was that I couldn't see much. I had backed the drummers up against a big bush so that no Hunters would come crashing through the back of the group- but I couldn't see Hunters, leaders, Villagers, nor fire without turning around, and every time I tried to do that, the drums immediately began to falter…. I had to keep my full attention on them. I feel like I missed a lot and didn't personally get as much out of the rit as usual- but I got the job done, which is the most important thing. Interestingly, two of the feedback comments I got were "There was an optical illusion in place that made your hands invisible- it looked like both your wrists ended in bloody stumps." (from two different people)….. And, "Do you know you grow two feet when you do this?" (LOL)

After we quit, they took seriously my instructions to remian absolutely still and silent. So much so that the guy who puked waited for permission before leaving the canopy to charge into the bushes and toss his cookies. (One of the Hunters had to vomit as well).

Afterwards, I was tired and sore, but not as much as I have been in the past. The next morning it was difficult to get up, though- I went to move and my body hollered, "ARRRRRRGGGH, NO!"

Unfortunately, I did not get any contact improv this year (Extreme CI for Martial Artists or otherwise). Eric was a no-show again, and Nataraj and I just never got around to it. Sniff.


Highlights:

The Hunt, of course- in toto

Erecting the tent with Pathwalker. We put up my tent together every year, and every year we can't figure out how the poles go. It's surprising how many double entendres you can squeeze out of putting up a tent. I also set up just a few spots down from the CRONE TEMPLE... we could hear them over there cackling, swearing like sailors,and telling vulgar stories. Pathwalker was laughing and telling me that this was going to be an interesting week, and that he sorta wished he was camped up here too. I've camped near the Crones before, so I already knew they are one of the rowdiest camps in the whole place! I heard later that they actually got a noise complaint the first day!!! While we were putting the tent up, Moonfeather came by in her golf cart and sat there for a while to watch. Then she said matter-of-factly, "Do you guys know you're playing in poison ivy?"

At first I couldn't find Herald Camp. I decided to just stand perfectly still and listen for Rhonda's voice yelling. If they were putting up the tent, she'd be yelling at someone, I knew. Sure enough, in a few seconds there was that distinctive tone, and I was able to dollow the sound of her voice to the camp.

The first and last Heraldings of the week, which all three of us coordinators did together. I love it when we all yell "HEAR YE HEAR YE" in perfect three part harmony, then again with the "THANK YOU" at the end.

A hilarious story around the campfire at Heralding camp Monday night, related by Brandy. I won't repeat it, but it involved an aggressive purple vibrator. After we ran with that for a good 20 min, laughing so hard we were falling out of our chairs, Brandy turned to Willowhawk (Moonfeather's hubby) and gasped, "Hi! I'm your new childcare coordinator!"

One morning meeting wherein a pudgy crone went went down the drum line and gave each of us a little belly dance- she was very good at it, and the smile on her face was sublime.

Shibaten in concert on the digeridoo and drum (Youtube him.... he's even cooler in person)

A pizza date with Pathwalker, and time to talk... we make a point of scheduling this every year.

James showing up to drum at a morning meeting in a thong and nothing else. I do not grok thongs... but James wearing that little clothing is worth a second look nonetheless.

Repetitive hug ambushes by Nataraj

Repetitive hug ambushes by all the kids in Heralding Camp. I do not like kids. The kids in Herald Camp, though, are kind of cool.

Two dozen toddlers doing a modified Hokey Pokey with rainbow ribbons on sticks. Again, don't like kids- but undeniably cute.

Getting shanghai'ed into leading the drum processional for the main ritual, with *NO* notice and *NO* prep.... I didn't F it up too bad, so I'm considering it a highlight instead of a lowlight.

Coming out of the shower in one of my favorite dresses- one that I get a lot of compliments on- with my shower bag in my hand and wet hair. Met Gypsi on the road, who exclaimed, "That looks FANTASTIC!" Just as I said, "Thank you." She said, "...A shower!"

A sitcom-worthy session of patching up Jaysen's skinned knees and elbows one night at Herald Camp. Rhonda: "I need some light here." All nine people in the circle pulled out their flashights in perfect tandem and spotlighted them in enough light to make them both clap their hands over their faces and yell. Then Rhonda went to cut open a package of gauze, and it exploded in her face. "Nice sharp knife ya got there, Kit."

Closing meeting, wherein all the coordinators were standing up front in a row with our arms around each other's waists so that Moonfeather could thank us... Arthur started a Vegas high-kick line. Moonfeather: "I can't believe they all have energy to do that after this week!"

I didn't forget my FRS radio in a Portajohn ONCE this year. I forgot it at someone else's camp one time, though.


My friend Ed, who had a stroke in March, was there. A lot of people moved heaven and earth to get him there. We were so excited, but I was scared to go up to him at first because I was so afraid that he wouldn't recognize me, which would have been painful. Happily, he did recognize me, and could hold a semi-intelligent conversation, although he often had to pause to hunt for a word. He will also fall asleep several times during a talk. He was a great drummer, and now he can only druma little with his right hand and foot (the stroke cripped his lefty (dominant) side, cruel fate). His rhythm is mostly gone, which was painful to watch. At one point he told me he was gearing up to get back to work in the next few weeks. He can't even go to the bathroom by himself, there's no way he's going to be able to work again. He did, however, feel physically and mentally sound enough to try to talk me into his tent on Thursday night- which gives me a lot of hope for his future.

I had an interesting dream on Sunday night about playing the didgeridoo. I have never felt called to the didge, and I know this dream came out of watching Shibaten…. But I connected the didge to Power Voice in the dream, which intrigued me. I might need to acquire one of those little pvc practice didges and play around a bit.