Wednesday

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."-- Grace Murray Hopper



Saturday: 130.0. FOD: Snake Versus Five Animals.

Sun: 133.5 (WTF?!? Okay, I had a couple of extra cookies and things, but not enough to account for that. I'm calling it a hormonal thing.) FOD: Five Animals.

Mon: 135.0. (Yeesh! I really have not been snacking that much!) FOD: Leopard 3.

Wednesday: 132 (Okay, that's more like it).

I met with CK this morning, and we spent several hours doing grueling stance work- the kind where you're just standing there, or doing something seemingly easy like taking a step- and it's a more intense workout than a BJJ roll. Knees, pelvis, lower back, the crease where the trunk meets the top of the thigh. Note: engage the backs and sides of the thighs more, and try to open up that crease area more... about two minutes of that (just STANDING STILL, mind you) made me feel like I'd been digging ditches for eight hours straight... but it seems to take some of the strain off my bad knees.


A little tai chi. Then a sinful lunch. Then back to the gym for sparring. Her back is all messed up, and I didn't have my contacts in, so we were going fairly easy. I got her with the same trick that I got her with this summer- heavy bridging on both of her arms, doing a bunch of stuff with one hand to keep her attention, then suddenly popping the OTHER hand up into her chin. There is a lot of this in Hurricane Hands. I got her with it several times, to my surprise- I'm sure it will stop working soon! I was also getting her a few times with a trick I've been using on her for years: I kick or feint, she blocks, then as she lowers the knee, I nail her with a follow-up kick. It works best if I do both kicks without setting the foot down. Another thing that worked for me a few times was dropping into a low scissor stance with and underhand looping claw to the groin or lower belly. I should mention that besides her back being all messed up, she is very heavily medicated- which I'm sure has a lot to do with the fact that I was able to land anything at all on her.

We did not discuss my life disasters, to my relief. I told her that I had had a really ugly few months and did not want to talk about my life- and she was good about it. She twice brought up SK, and I gave short noncommittal answers and moved on quickly. She was playing with her phone at one point, and put on the ring he always used ("caffeinated rattlesnake")- that hurt. But I did okay overall, emotionally.

MM e-mailed me to ask if we could get together to spar a couple times while he was in town, which is great. I'm considering it a compliment that he asked. He'll kill me, of course.... I would sure love to get him on the ground and tap him out with a BJJ technique JUST ONCE. I couldn't manage it last time he was here, although we rolled around for a long time, and I came close with a number of things. He is REALLY strong, has significant weight on me, and besides his Kung Fu and Karate, he has some Aikido and other things in his tool kit. He is a formidable opponent indeed. He and CK and I will probably work together tomorrow afternoon. It's great to round-robin spar with the two of them... we can go for hours.

Acrobalance at the circus school. There were only five of us tonight, three intermediates and two advanced, so we did some challenging stuff and it was very much fun. Willis was basing for all of us, and having a challenging time, because we were all very differently shaped. It went from 5-foot me to a 6-foot student; and two were very skinny while one was a pear shape and one an hourglass. All of these sizes, shapes and weight distributions called for different balancing methods and post placement for him. I am doing well. Now that I have the hang of getting into the rear plank, I am much less clumsy- and my balance is always excellent. Gawds, but this stuff is an intense core/abs workout.