Are you okay?

Because of the physical nature of martial arts, we can’t lie to ourselves. There is no need for somebody to tell us whether we are moving mechanically or are truly present. When you are there, you know it. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Thursday no-gi at Bellevue.

I got there a little early, and accepted an invitation to roll from a girl of maybe 11 or so, from the Federal Way pod. I didn't really want to get my gi top all sweaty (since I planned to do the gi class later as well), so I asked her to take off her jacket. She was pretty good! I tried to not crush her with my weight, tried to present her with a variety of different things to deal with, let her tap me a few times. We rolled for about 20 min.

No-gi class started with a few double-leg setup drills, then this from standup: opponent hooks one arm behind your neck. You turn out of it, grab at the armpit and wrist, step behind, and push on the back of hir shoulder to armbar. Since we had done something very similar in Kung Fu, I felt reasonably okay with this. We'd both done quite a few reps before one of my reps worked a little too well, and Kelly let out a pained yelp.

I immediately felt like a monster, of course, and apologized repeatedly. She was okay, luckily. Carlos came over and showed me how he wanted us to make sure the elbow was bent and clutched against our chests- and also, to not bend forward while doing the technique. (Okay, another case of Kung Fu Cross Contamination... having to drill  ABCTUV after previous years of drilling ABCDEF instead. Oops.)

Follow this up by stepping in front of opponent's leg and back-kicking hir near leg out from under hir for the takedown.

The rest of the class (more of this, then a bunch of takedown sparring with rotating partners) was Pick-On-Kitsune Day. I know Carlos was pissed at me for hurting Kelly, but I don't even think the two were related. He just does this once in a while- usually with no apparent trigger. Literally after every single set, he would reprimand me about something- until it was obvious to me and everyone else in the room that I am an idiot who can't do anything right.

I've seen him do this to Angela, too- for likewise no apparent reason. Kelly told me that when she's having one of her "teary" episodes, she feels like he gets on her case in this fashion as well. It's definitely a female-targeted thing. I wonder if he thinks he's going to toughen us up, or if he's just having an interlude of being disgusted with us.

I can take a few corrections- that's what I'm there for- but when he is on my back after every single set, I start to get very tense and down on myself- the worse he does it, the worse my performance becomes. It also really bothers me when he caps this off by pointedly not meeting my eyes during the handshake line at the end.

I decided that I really didn't want to deal with a second hour of that tonight, so I bailed before gi class (altho not before apologizing to Kelly another ten times). She's not hurt, and she's not mad. She should know by now (as should Carlos!) that I'm not a douche. I'm a careful partner, and if something happens, it's an honest-to-God accident that I feel terrible about. It happens. I have been doing MA for a long time, and I have *NEVER* injured anyone seriously.

On the positive side- hey, my Kung Fu elbow lock apparently works really nicely! It's not a technique I've ever felt was one of my best- partly because when I was in Kung Fu, I never got to try it on anyone who didn't tower over me in height.