Thursday, June 28, 2012

Five classes in two days- whew




A dog needs only a few seconds sniffing people to decide whether to snap at them, ignore them, or jump on their legs wagging its tail. Damaged perceptions are the only reason why humans need more time. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Thursday lunchtime BJJ at BB Bellevue. Five Animals (both ways) to warm up; plus a little Touch Bridge.

The prof was complaining good-naturedly that he was tired and wanted to go back to sleep. I offered to put him to sleep. He said,"Try."    ;)


Thursday lunchtime class is always multiple hard rounds of drilling. Single legs, double legs, armbars from mount till we were all huffing and puffing.


One roll with a blue belt guy whose name I forget- he was pretty good, he tapped me once (maybe twice) and didn't use strength.  Then I had to sit out one.  Had to take some good-natured ribbing from the prof for being so tired. I told him that I'm out of shape and have gained a few pounds. I don't really want to admit I had ringworm, but I hope he doesn't think I was just slacking.


One roll with Charles. I forgot how much he loves the head and arm choke- note, do not let any arms go above chest level when rolling with this guy. He was using strength, but not quite to the point of ticking me off. He took me down against a wall, and got a warning from Carlos for that... I said he was fine (wish he'd been watching that closely last night, while Ritchie was grinding his knuckles into my face!).



Afternoon basics class. A few reps of Sil Lum Tao, and Wing Chun hand drills, and some kick drills to warm up. I am awkward doing kick drills in a BJJ gi. So bulky.


One roll to warm up, with the white belt guy who keeps asking me questions. He asked me about triangle setups today, and I did my best, but this is *not* one of my strengths (as I stated). He tapped me with one by the end of the roll, so I don't think he really needs any help from me. He's still huffing and puffing, and GOODNESS is he spazzy and aggressive. He is medium-sized; if he was any bigger, he'd be too dangerous for me to roll with. It was all I could do to defend for a few minutes before he got the triangle.


Same bottom half guard reversal that I did at Cindy's last night. The purple belt teaching the class wanted us to use a hand to post instead of hugging the opponent's knee. Drilled with a white belt woman I've never seen before- Pam. She was good, and strong.

Positional training- half guard, pass vs sweep. As usual, I suck on the bottom, but my passes are decent. Pam made me work for them, though.


Competition class. Ai yi yi. Several laps of shrimps- enough to make me think I'd made a mistake trying to do a third class today. Then rolls with everyone in turn, no subs, just points. I got the Prof first. Deathly tired, but did my best to keep moving and transitioning. He started teasing me- "Calm down! Calm down! I'm your friend!" "No, you're my OPPONENT!" Unfortunately, he is no easier to fight while he's laughing his butt off.


I bit the bullet and grabbed Ritchie next- I knew we'd have to fight everyone in the room, and the more tired I was, the worse it would be. He muscled me a lot- yes, you're stronger than me, congratulations, here's your sign, let's move on. We spent a lot of time with me lying on his stomach in his closed guard, because if he wanted to just hold me there and stall, there really wasn't anything I could do about it. It would be so nice if this guy would learn some good sportsmanship before he gets elevated to purple. I don't think it's just me, either. Other people tease him- not in an excessively mean way, or an affectionate way, but with just enough bite that it makes me think he's not much fun when he's rolling with other people either.


A white belt that I've worked with a few times; I remember getting KOB on him repeatedly and telling him that he needed to shrimp out in 3 seconds. So I did that to him again today. He just lay there for the first couple, but when I started chivvying him, he began to shrimp violently as soon as he felt my knee sliding in. Good.


Another white belt that I've never worked with before. As with any white belt man that I've never worked with before, I gave a disclaimer (In this case, "Don't kill me. I'm old and weak."). I tried to choke him a lot, and he was tipping his chin up even when he knew I was trying to choke him, so I said, "Keep your chin down!" I ended up tapping him once anyway (sloppy forearm choke while leaning over his head). He said, "I thought you were old and weak!" "I am, but sometimes I get a lucky choke in."


The purple belt who taught the last class- he mopped the mat with me.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Wednesday




A sensitive body gives back to life its natural intensity. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



I'm afraid to weigh myself right now. My ideal weight is 124. For the past year, I've been running about 134. I haven't been competing, so it was easy to just blow it off. For this past month, I've been on the bench with ringworm, and my diet was very poor while I was out of town. I can tell just by looking in the mirror that I'm at least 137, maybe even a little heavier. I'm reasonably okay with being 10lb over, but I do not want to see the 140's- which at my height puts me firmly in the "stocky" category. I see a trip to the chicken breast and egg sections of Safeway in my near future. Sigh.


Wednesday lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Seattle. Standup: collar grip and elbow grip. Step back to pull opponent off balance, scoot back in and inside-hook leg for takedown. KEEP TOE ON THE MAT. End in closed guard. KEEP ELBOWS IN. Posture up. Break opponent's lapel grip, cross hir arm over hir body.  Clamp everything down tight. Slide grip down to sleeve end. Stand up, on the side that you've arm-tapped first. Switch grip to opposite hand. KEEP ELBOW IN. Yank! Reach-into-back-jeans-pocket guard break. Clasp opponent's knee and squat parallel. Opponent should be slightly on hir side. Let go of knee and grab collar, grind forearm into throat. Stack, pass.


I was working with Angus- who doesn't treat me like a girl- and this was a lot of get-up-get-down, when my cardio sucks and I'm still struggling with this terrible bout of allergies. I was blown by the end of drills (truthfully, I was pretty blown by the end of warmups), and had to duck out of open mat.



Weds evening BJJ at Sleeper. Bottom side control. Frame up, shrimp out, get half guard. Stick your topmost knee in to get some space, then swim your topmost arm under opponent's arm. Shrug shoulder violently. Duck out, scoot to the side, take the back.


Same opening to half guard. Then duck head in deep (push opponent forward by the butt if necessary), grab opponent's ankle, feed to opposite hand. Grab opponent's knee and hug tight. Switch legs. Depending on what opponent is doing with hir arms, you can either push forward, roll hir overtop of you to reverse, or scoot out the back as before.


I got to drill with Jalen, so extra reps for both of us.


Jalen has a back injury, and although it was a big class tonight, it was a big class full of *BIG* white belt guys- so no one else was even vaguely appropriate for me to roll with. Cindy had Jalen start in top half guard or in my closed guard, and I just tried to work from there. I was not allowed to get on top of him. He tried that nasty thing on me again, where he feeds my arm behind my back. I recognized it immediately this time, and defended it the first few times, then he muscled it. Ow.




I'm covered with fingerprint bruises today. I've missed being covered in fingerprint bruises.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

PSG, and back to BJJ






"There's a girl here who looks just like you- only she's wearing more clothes." -Julie, Herald Camp




Ringworm update: As of last Sunday (the 17th) it is GONE. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Other highlights:


Kaliska (whom I have seen every year at this event since she was an embryo) is now taller than me. I feel old. And short.


Jaysen is now so tall that he picks me up when he hugs me.


The "Cult of Kitsune and Dru" apparently lives on among the Herald Camp kids. Kids are like cats- they gravitate to the people who do not like them- although both Dru and I confess to liking all the Herald Camp kids (this is very unusual for me). We are told that the kids are manipulated all year long with with "This is what Kitsune and Dru would do."


A transexual (male to female) woman was banned from participating in the women's ritual. She called the facilitator out in the following morning's meeting. The next day, that woman and the meeting facilitator stood up in meeting holding hands, and pledged to work on healing and cooperation. It led to an onsite press conference podcast featuring the two of them and Selena. This is not the first occasion of this brouhaha (and it's one of the reasons I avoid the women's rit), but it's looking like Circle is going to start requiring the facilitators of the men's and women's rits to include anyone who self-identifies as female (Arthur ran the men's rit this year, and he specified "Men and anyone who identifies as a man").


I called out both Dru ("Heralds are sexy!") and Arthur ("Musicians are sexy!") in morning meeting. For good measure, when the women who had been newly croned stood up to be announced, I hollered, "Crones are sexy!" They appreciated it.


I encountered a few people (mostly Guardians) who actually knew what a khukri was. They all agreed that I had lucked out on a nice piece, after risking a buy off the internet. K-Bar (and Bones, maker of the bell drums) both should sponsor me on this trip next year, for all the advertising they got.


Tuatha Dea did a neat thing at the end of their evening concert. They started playing the final instrumental, and the lead singer ran offstage, went down into the audience and crowd of dancers, and pulled a guy up onstage to replace him at the djembe. Then another band member ran offstage and pulled someone up to replace her, and so on, till the entire band was comprised of audience members. They all picked people that they knew could play their instruments (mostly members of the other bands), although one little four-year-old girl was pulled up to play the tamborine. It was really neat.


The Roaming Gnome was placed at my feet for a photo op during the morning meeting drumming.


"Magic skirts"- I think by the end of the week, I was the only female onsite who didn't have one.


I was happy that I asked my Hunt Drum lieutenant to take point this year. I missed the role some- especially when some of the underdrummers told me that they had nicknamed me "The Machine", and reminded me of visions that they had had wherein I grew to about ten feet tall, and my hands turned into bone and blood(!). But being the understudy was much less stressful. Dru did very well, and it seems to have been a transformative experience for her. Even if she did almost kill one of our drummers. This guy in the front row missed a cue, and she looked daggers at him (Dru looks daggers very well). The second time he missed the cue, she bared her teeth and charged him! I thought she was going to take him out! She later claimed that she meant to just take a step or two toward him to get his attention, but her injured knee faltered, and she stumbled forward right into his chair. She did indeed succeed in getting his attention. The guy did not miss any more cues. Dru's totem is Godzilla- so for the rest of the week, we were all singing "Oh no- there goes the front row- go go Godzilla!"


One Hunter arching back and spitting the blood of his kill in a glittering fountain into the air, with the backdrop of the bonfire...   I felt like I'd been struck by lightning...


Another Hunter- a woman- when invited to put some of the kill on the bonfire, she picked up an entire straw bale and dumped it on there. In the post-mortem, she explained to us that she had done it because "It wasn't dead yet."


Although I knew I couldn't detatch enough to consider Hunting my autumn 2011 Traumarama, I had been hoping to at least do some internal work on it. However, I was too distracted with propping up Dru to even have it cross my mind more than a couple of times. I could see that she was in serious physical pain. I'm really pleased that I had enough focus and energy to not only do my job, but send her a lot of energy as well. Derek was pretty busy this time with a problematic Hunter, so I barely saw him. Normally, he makes a point of feeding me and the other drummers a lot. I did notice the lack.


I did throw the situation on the fire when the drummers were invited forward to help burn the kill. I climbed on top of the straw bale and sunk my arm up to the shoulder to get a handful from the center. When I tossed it on the fire, it rolled right off. Sigh.


Someone saw a "shield" in the circle. That would have been Derek (whose use-name, Aegis, means "shield"). Wow.


One of the Hunt drummers brought an extra drum to the rit- he has been using it as a therapy drum for his severely autistic nephew. It's the only thing the kid shows any response to. Andy used the drum in the Hunt to charge it up with Hunt energy, then Pathwalker blessed it during the Hunt post-mortem.


Also during post-mortem: Bo described having been looking right at the drummers when we stopped and froze. Dru and I have really harped on that abrupt break and the ensuing moment of silence as the most important point of the rit. This was the best abrupt stop and moment of silence that I think we have ever done. Bo said that one of the drummers slumped, bugeyed, back in hir chair and mouthed "OH.....MY........GOD!!!!!!"  


We are going to have to kick James out next year. Well, *I* am going to have to kick James out next year, because this was kind of my fault and I need to redeem myself with Dru. Ugh. Dru was pissed at me for not warning her ahead of time that he had a questionable history. He argued with her (and Aspen too) before the Hunt because he wanted to use a djun djun, which we do not allow. Dru wanted him gone right then, but I lobbied for him. Then he argued with her right before we began becase he forgot a chair, and she couldn't let him leave because the wards were already set. I was relieved to have him in the rear left corner, because we turned out to have a REALLY disruptive guy back there who kept getting up to walk around (he had leg cramps!). If James and Michael had not been in that corner, and there had been Hunt virgins beside Mr. Disruptive, that entire sections would have been a clusterfuck. I thanked James after. But next year I'm going to have to tell him he can't drum with us because he was being argumentative with Dru. Not looking forward to this confrontation.


To my displeasure, a mike is now being used in morning meetings. When Dennis tried to hand it to me, I hollered, "I don't need no stinkin' microphone!" to applause. And no, I didn't need it. The back row and beyond can hear me just fine. This is my job.


Shel chasing me down the road to stop me and tell me that I looked "Smoking hot" in that dress (that would be the scarlet column dress with the zigzags).


Faceoff with the trash detail. The trash/recycling truck was coming up the road, yelling "Bring out your trash!" We were watching them with some respectful admiration, and I for one was wondering if I could steal away one or two of those people next year- then they saw us watching, and one of them yelled, "Trash workshift is louder than Heralds!" Oh baby, then it was *ON*. Luckily we happened to have all three coordinators, plus Derek's very loud wife, plus two underheralds and a couple of the teens in camp at the moment. "Come over here and say that- we can't HEAR you!" "Trash truck is Herld Camp REJECTS!" "AMATEURS!!!" We heckled each other at top volume all the way from one end of camp to the other. Hilarious.


A good latenight campfire convo with Dru about weapons and such. She has just gotten a CPL, and is currently reading a bunch of the same books about violence etc that are in my own library. Need to send her a pack of links. I told her that if I showed up next year and still had not gotten around to buying a gun, she should give me a hard time about it.


My Evil Twin: I had at least a dozen people inform me of the existance of my doppelganger (including the Herald Camp teen quoted above, who has known me since she was a sprout, and still followed Jo up the road calling to her by my name and wondering why she didn't turn around).  Only one person actually called me Jo- but I am much more famous there than she is, so she had lots and lots of people calling her Kitsune. Two of me- how scary is that? But it's not just that she looks like me, and walks like me, and dresses like me (albeit with more clothes, hee hee)- she practices Kung Fu and Tai Chi (that explains the walk), she plays djembe (she was one of our Hunt drummers again this year), we have both Hunted once and figured out that we picked the SAME SPACE on subsequent years and also were each given a Hunt token with a deer antler in it, and a couple of years ago we sat beside each other at a workshop and noticed that we were both wearing the same watch. We are the same person. Next year she wants to bring us shirts- mine will say NOT JO and hers will say NOT KITSUNE. Of course she does not need to ask my size, color or style preference.


"Accept your power." Someone said this during a meeting. I don't even remember who it was or what the context was, but it struck me.


I offered to coordinate Heralding on Hunt day as well as the day after, since we've stuck poor Dru with Hunt day for the last three years. I was fortunate enough to have two sets of excellent volunteers (including Gypsi). I had to do very little of my own heralding, although when I did do it, the camp was even more appreciative than usual. I was fairly mobbed after each announcement.


Dru's story about getting food poisoning or something the first night, and having a conversation with a concerned Guardian who was standing outside the portajohn while she was puking.
Dru: *heave*hurl*
Guardian: "Ma'am? Are you all right in there?"
Dru: *braak*gaak* "Yes, thank you, I'm ok."
Guardian: "Are you camped right around here?"
Dru: *heave*heave* "Yes, I'm really close."
Guardian: "Well, you understand we're very concerned about your welfare."
Dru: *bloog*blorg* "Thank you, now please please go away!"


I got to do two concerts' worth of Extreme Contact Improv For Martial Artists with Eric (who was back after a two year hiatus, yay!). I taught him a couple of the things I learned in Acrobalance Circus School.  We danced the afternoon concert right in front of the stage. I don't like dancing down there right in front of the crowd with everyone staring at us, but that was the only shady place, so it was either that or dance in the frying lunchtime sun. We were on cement, too, but he did not drop me.


Random woman in showerhouse: "Do you have anything sharp?"  (It would have been pretty funny to whip out the khukri at that moment, but unfortunately I did not have it on me that day. I do, however, ALWAYS have something sharp.)


Sunbow at morning meeting. I have never seen one before. It was literally a full rainbow in a circle around the sun.


Counts as exercise: I had the heavy drum this year, so I get weightlifting points fro hauling it around camp all week. I also dragged two big wagonloads of drums from Herald Camp to the Hunt space and back again.


Due to Dru's injured knee, we did not do the first morning meeting heralding all three together as per custom. I was disappointed, but informed her that we were doing the closing day morning meeting heralding all three together even if Derek and I had to drag her by her feet. The three way harmony of "HEAR YE, HEAR YE!" is one of my favorite moments, every year.


Ed was much better. He was gaunt, but much more present mentally than last year, and did not need to be babysat every minute. He still gets a bit lost now and then. I was dispatched once by FRS to hunt him down and bring him to a sweat lodge where they were waiting on him, because he was wandering around camp aimlessly.


I went by the lost and found box, and lucky I did, because one of my bras was in there. There is a reasonable explanation for this. I swear.


Do not ask for "just a little honey mustard" at the Minneapolis Airport Subway unless you want three gallons of honey mustard dumped on your sandwich.


My djembe arrived home with a broken head. Argh. I had been afraid of that. The guy who threw it on the conveyer belt at O'Hare really THREW it. This is going to be an expensive fix. Plus I had really wanted to use that drum to lead Turtle Drum next week. Oh well.


Improvement points for next year:


Remember to prelim-stake the tent before trying to set up the poles. Better yet, see if instructions are available on the web for setting up this damn thing. With pictures.


I have been using the same two dog-eared little notebooks for heralding for a few years now. They are disintegrating, and I had to put them in ziplocs to keep them together. I really need to put the information that needs saving (Instructions for Herald Minions, Instructions for Hunt drummers, FRS channels, snarky rhyming couplets to Herald on rainy days) in the computer and print out what I need to take, then I can just burn my daily notebook pages instead of flipping frantically through a lot of crap trying to find what I need. Maybe even printouts to give the Underheralds.


Do not attempt the second verse to the "One spirit in the dark" chant. I sound like a rock star on the first verse, but the second is *not* in my range.


Duck out of the main ritual procession BEFORE getting into the circle. I keep getting pulled unwillingly into going through the entire main ritual structure when all I want to do is drum. This time, when I tried to duck out of line and go stand by Dennis and his djun djuns, one of the ritual traffic contollers actually grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along. I pulled back, so she gripped harder and yanked harder. Grrrrrrrr. I know she was just trying to do her job, but DO NOT grab me. I am a drummer. I am only here to process and drum. I do not wanna walk in spirals, chant, have people trying to hand me rocks and slips of paper, and do all sorts of other crap. I resisted belting her, and just went along like a good girl, but next time I am stopping on the road and not even passing the wards.


I really do not like processing with a djembe. Next year, I am going to ship the tom to Derek. Damn the expense and hassle.


Print out better maps. I got pretty close to the campground with no problem, but then spent a frustrating two hours making gradually-decreasing spirals around a specific section of farmland. I knew the campground was within my little Bermuda Triangle, and logic would seem to dictate that I would sooner or later cross a road that was mentioned on the directions, but I just never did.


Improvement points from last year which worked and should be kept:


Do try to fit the Remo sound shapes into the luggage. They are not Ascha, but they're better than nothing.


Lighting Dru from below (with bucket candles) and above (with hanging lanterns) during the Hunt worked.


This year, I decided to endure the expense and weight of bringing Duracells for my FRS's instead of using the crappy staff rechargable battery setup. MUCH LESS STRESSFUL. Repeat next year.


Make sure to examine the rental car windshield minutely. This time, I found a chip which I certainly would have gotten charged for had I not pointed it out before I touched the car.


It is worth it to refrain from packing the djembe until after the final meeting. I know Pathwalker won't be there. People *do* want to dance. This year I was the only one to show up on time with *any* instrument, and had to hold the space all by myself- although two others showed up just in time to perform for a couple minutes with me before we were called to order.

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Jiu jitsu!  I wasn't sure if I would remember how to do jiu jitsu. Between the ringworm and the trip, this was definitely one of the longest hiatuses ever.


Advanced class in Bellevue. Rolled a bit with Chris to warm up. He was being a nice partner and not using his considerable size and strength advantage. I was on top a lot. He's doing the Revolution on the 7th. I got KOB on him several times, then told him to shrimp out immediately and stop letting me get that. He got better in the second half of the roll. I also warned him about the trap of losing points by grabbing half guard and letting the guy get out.


From standup: break elbow grip, you get sleeve cuff grip,  place elbow over opponent's elbow, kneel and grab leg. Fireman's lift. Throw. Note that you must crank opponent's shoulder up before you go in for the kneel. Also note that if you can keep your own elbow at your ribs when you go down, it torques opponent's shoulder painfully and makes it difficult for hir to do anything. Keep head postured up during the throw. I grabbed Ron to drill with- "If I have to pick somebody up tonight, I want it to be you."


Back mount: choke, armbar. The key to both is hip placement, but don't get slopy- you must do it step by step.


One roll with (groan) Ritchie. With Hostility Boy out of town, this is really the only person in both schools that I dread working with. Sure enough, he came out really spazzy and aggressive, got a half-assed triangle with just my elbow in, and spent the next four minutes grinding his knuckles viciously into my lip, cheek and neck trying to bully me into giving up the hand. I held out for a while, because I hate rewarding this type of behavior with a tap, but finally gave it to him. He knew he'd been hurting me, because he said, "Are you all right?" Yes, asshat, no thanks to you, I'm fine, let's just go. I was expecting round two of the same, but somehow I stayed on top of him and kept him on the defensive for most of the second match. Finally he reversed me and ended up in my guard; I'm sure it would have gone rapidly downhill from there for me, but luckily the clock ran out.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Ringworm sucks




“Oh, tonight we’re gonna drum till we fuckin’ EXPLODE.”  -Helen Bond (Medusa)





Monday FOD: 3 Step Arrow fragment.


Tuesday FOD: Catherine Dao


My assistant gave me an "energy shot" last night. Jury's still out. I had a really hard time getting to sleep.


Ringworm sucks. It also itches. Fiercely. There's only one spot, thank Gods, and I hope it goes away quickly. It's on top of my shoulder, which is weird. Even in no-gi, that area is covered by my short-sleeve rash guard. Anyway, the location suggests I may have gotten it at Cindy's, since that's the only place I don't wear a full gi- but I haven't been in there since May 16th, and incubation period is supposed to be 4 to 10 days. I was at Gracie's (both locations) right during that window, so that's my primo suspect. It's even possible I could have picked it up at Circus School.


It drives me nuts to be benched for some little thing like a finger or toe injury- this is worse, because I FEEL FINE.  But I'm not going to be the jerk who comes in and spreads ringworm.


I didn't really want to become the infamous Ringworm Poster Child, but I felt a duty to contact both Rodrigo and Cindy and let them know that there may be ringworm making the rounds.



Thurs: 134.5 (Argh) This benching right before my trip is not good timing, weightwise.


Fri: 133.5.


I'm going crazy here. The spot looks just the same (medicating morning and night, covering with bandaid).  I am allergic to latex, so now that I've had a bandaid on my shoulder for a week, I have a red itchy latex rash encircling the ringworm spot.


 Got a lot of my packing done for the trip yesterday, since I couldn't go to class. Got a bit of an allergy attack from the dust and mildew, searching boxes downstairs. Really bad nightmares, too.  I wake up so drained, exhausted and depressed after these nightmares.


Sat: Did some working out in the form of housework and yard work, including some heavy-duty dirt shoveling and vine extermination. Whomever introduced the invasive English Ivy to the Pacific Northwest should be strung up by the balls (although I dare say the villian is long dead and beyond the reach of my retribution). Not feeling much more love for my housemates at the moment. Once in a while, my sense of "I am am so very sick of looking at ALL THIS SHIT" overwhelms my sense of "I didn't make *any* of this mess, so why the hell should I be the one cleaning it up?"  More allergy issues (one of the reasons I hate cleaning; it always makes me physically ill). It was poor timing for a cleaning frenzy, but I was that bored. Hope I don't give myself a sinus infection right before my trip. THAT'll be a fun plane ride.


It still looks like I have a cherry LifeSaver sitting on my left shoulder, but today it looks a wee bit paler than yesterday (if that's not just wishful thinking). Please go away!!! Tonight the latex rash from the badaids is actually more red and swollen than the ringworm. I'm so relieved that no additional spots popped up anywhere else.


Sun FOD: Wood Monkey


Thursday: 132.0


Ringworm is less red, less swollen, but still very much present. It has a huge, irritated bandaid-rash star star around it, even though I did find some non-latex bandaids to use. Goingt o go to the little "spot" bandaids, if they will stay put. I am looking forward to this entire unfortunate chapter being OVER when I get back to town. I want to go back to class!

Monday, June 4, 2012

Sunday




 Teaching beginners, you have to break down a lot of conditioning.  Years and decades of being told not to be rude. Don't swear, don't spit, don't use nasty words and don't touch people inappropriately.  Almost everything that falls under the umbrella of self-defense is rude.  Injuring people is very inappropriate physical contact.  Setting boundaries is yelling at strangers.  "How can you hit someone if you can't even look him in the eye?" –Rory Miller


Pic- Carlos & Rodrigo


Friday: 133.0


FOD: Touch Bridge


While the stuff I ate at the Thai restaurant (the leftovers of which I finished this morning) wasn't diet fare, between that and the broccoli thing CK made for lunch yesterday, it was probably more vegetables than I normally eat in several months. I feel like some kind of granola-crunching healthy person (not that granola is particularly healthy- it's very caloric!)  It would be nice to be down a few more pounds before PSG, although I'm not really up for the kind of effort it would take to get back to 124 at the moment.


Researching for weblit: fun educational fact of the day. You can move your beehives by blocking the entrance at night while the bees are all home, then when you get the hive to the new spot, keep them confined for 1 to 3 days. When you reopen hive, place a distracting object (like a big leafy branch) right in front of the entrance, which will force the bees to reorient before they just peel out and get lost.


I have corrections on forms from my lesson with CK on Friday morning, but I haven't had a chance to transcribe them yet. I'll try to get that done in the next few days. Unfortunately, Cannon Fist seems to have some directional errors. I get turned around 180 degrees, then at a later point I get turned around 180 AGAIN so that I actually finish the form facing in the correct direction. When I had a (single) directional error somewhere in the Chen Dao form, it was a major PITA to track it down and then re-transcribe all the directions in my notes... and this form is about a jillion times longer. I'm dreading the note-revising.


We didn't get time to nitpick other corrections in Cannon Fist, so next visit I'd like to start with that form. The other thing I want to make sure we do next time is some serious sparring, which we also didn't have a chance for this visit.
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Saturday FOD: Southern Mantis Long Form fragment. I'm mixing up the little hop-and-shield here with the similar technique in the Green Dragon form. Mantis: Hop slightly to left with left palm-strike outward at rt shoulder and rt palm-strike at groin (palm down). Rt knee is up. Green Dragon: Little hop to the RIGHT, Black Crane guard toward left (Rt palm at left jaw, left palm outward at left thigh).  Additionally, re: Mantis- ahrrrg, forgetting the double down-block again. As the knee comes up for the strike right after that, don't forget to pivot the toe out on the posting foot. Otherwise the next turn is ludicrous if not impossible.  And... why do I continue to turn all the Mantis fist strikes into Dragon fists? Hello, this is a MANTIS form.


Also Saturday: Unfortunate encounter with ice cream bars at work. Thanks a lot, Archie.
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Sunday FOD: Leopard At Dawn fragment


Bought three fridge-packs of Diet caffeine-free Squirt. It's pretty foul, but I'd like to try to cut down my Dr Pepper habit. I know from past periods of abstinence that it doesn't affect my weight, but I don't care for the caffeine monkey on my back.  Also: made a healthier-than-usual version of my beef/potato/mushroom stew for work lunches this week. Healthier than usual because there are less potatoes and more meat. I have been haunting the about-to-expire bargain meat bin at Safeway, because I found some 30%-off lamb in there recently that I could feed to Richard. I've been picking up random meat for stew and throwing it in the deep freeze; this particular package I totally underestimated and found the crockpot more than half full before I even started adding potatoes.


Housemate's stolen car has been found. The thief left "a big knife" in it. Am I weird if the first thing I thought was not "Fingerprints!" or "OMG, if she'd been *IN* the car, he might have actually KILLED her for it!" but "OOOO- a big knife? What kind of knife? Is it a cool knife? Do we get to keep the knife?"


Cringe-worthy search term of the week on my blog: "kneeling beauty rear view". Jesus, I hope someone wasn't looking to *ME*  to provide that.