Hiccups hurt

You can have almost god-like technique, but if the story is boring, it's boring whether or not its well written.  -JCFarnham


I went to bed feeling like I'd been run over by a tractor, and I was pretty sure that this morning I would feel ten times worse- you know how when you go to bed really sore, you wake up really sore + swollen + stiff? Well, I'm sore this morning, but not nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. The body may be aging, but it still has quite a resilience. I have a lot of challenges as a martial artist, but one big strength I have always had is: you knock me down, I get back up and keep going.
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Lunchtime BJJ, GB Seattle. I told Carlos how sore I was from his class. It makes him happy to hear that. It makes *me* happy on the occasions that he admits *HE* is sore as well (he admitted it today!).

Rolled a little with Angela to warm up. Triangle defense, re: my usual strategy of circling to the side and stacking- it works less well on her because she is more flexible than most of the men. She suggests that I try to get my foot on the other side of her head, continue stacking and twisting. If I can get my foot over there, she won't be able to turn with me and readjust, and she'll get kinked and hopefully have to let go.

Same Del a Riva techniques we did last night. Angela made an error on the grip, and to my horror, Carlos told *me* to go first and show her how it's done, since I'd worked on it last night. Can we say AWKWARD, and PRESSURE??!? Fortunately I got through it without phucking it up too badly. I really need to stay thoughtful on the grips. There are several grip switches, and several spots where if you let go of the wrong thing, your entire plan collapses. Also, still not getting both hooks in every time. I get to the end, and all I can think is, "Thank God, I got through all those steps and didn't mess it up!" Well,  you're not done yet. Not till both hooks are in.

Angela suggests that I turn further over on my shoulder to get those deep, odd leg angles that I'm having difficulties with. She was turning almost to the point that I could see her entire back patch.  

Positional training from Del a Riva, then King Of the Hill from back mount. I can't keep back mount. If I can't sink a sub-worthy choke instantly, I try to turn and transition into a different position (usually front mount, sometimes me in closed guard). I backmounted Carlos, and immediately upon the "go" I turned us and ended up in KOB. He just looked up at me and said, "You lost the back mount." Yes indeedy, yes I did.

Resolution: next time Angela asks me if I'm going to stay for open mat, do it- no matter how tired I am or what I have planned for later in the day. I've turned her down the last four times in a row.

Hey- Nick has his purple belt, and Kelly shaved her head. Lindsey didn't even recognize Kelly.

Ribs- still slight ache- and hiccups are excruciating! but otherwise doing okay.
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I'm thinking about offering a women's self defense class at PSG. Probably not this year, but next year. We wouldn't be doing physical techniques; it would focus on how to avoid trouble in the first place, how to take yourself out of the "potential victim" pool. A lot of the Insights and Rory Miller material... awareness, avoidance, recognition of patterns, de-escalation, how to walk. Self-defense law. Dispelling myths. Why they should get a gun and learn to use it. The fact that they have a right to defend themselves. Truly, an hour of that stuff is more valuable than 20 years of martial arts experience. And there are just so many broken women in the Pagan community. So many who have been abused as kids, been raped, been battered by a significant other, have crappy self-esteem. Just ten minutes of instruction on how to "walk like a narc" could really change their perspectives.

There was a recent thread on the Feline Diabetes list where we got to talking about this sort of thing... most of the people on that list are middle-aged or older "Crazy Cat Ladies", and the board is heavily "moderated"- so I expected to get shut down as soon as I started telling them they needed to get handguns. That's such an emotional hot-button issue right now. But they were amazingly open to what I had to say, and several of them were in fact already shooters. I was able to address the "I'll just show him the gun" myth, the "I'm afraid that if I have a weapon, the attacker will take it away and use it against me" myth, the "I can't shoot an intruder in my house until he actually attacks me physically" myth, several others... I felt like I knew what I was talking about, and that they were really hearing me. I'd like to bring that to the PSG community as well.