"I tell heem to go harder on you."

Early I learned that people freak out more when someone tries to close, and that shaped my personality.  Thus, by nature and training, I’m an infighter. –Rory Miller


127.5  
I am really sick of chicken.

Lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue. Being the last kid picked for the kickball team today got me paired up with Professor Herbert (the new small-size guy with almost no English). It's always a great thing to be able to drill with one of the black belts, but it's also all pressure-y and embarrassing if you are a slow learner and you can't get the technique right.

Judo grips. Pull guard from standing. Square up. Before you can plant that second foot on the hip, opponent does leg drag and moves to side control. We also did a variation of this wherein afterthe leg drag, the personon the ground turned to the side and pulled the outside leg back over to try to replace guard- then standing partner leg-drags to the *other* side.

Judo grips. Pull guard from standing. Square up. Feet on hips. Use left hand to grab opponent's heel, and scoot underneath. You should have your left hip pressed to the inside of partner's right foot, and your left leg extended. This was tricky as it is the opposite of almost every other technique we have ever done from this approximate position.

Now, your left leg circles around to the OUTSIDE and you place it on opponent's hip. (thank you, flexibility... a lot of people were having issues with this, but I didn't, as soon as I figured out what the heck I was supposed to do.) Right leg comes in to pinch together, then you give a little push and the opponent should fall on hir ass. Try to bring your left leg back as s/he falls so that you can get up and you're not stranded there sitting on your own leg.

Repeats of all these drills, faster.  (Another thing that happens when you are drilling with a black belt- he's fast, so you are doing about 3 reps for everyone else's one. This is good, but... puff, puff, pant... wheeze....)

A little positional sparring from the standing guard pull. Carlos was sniping at me a bit because we were having trouble figuring out exactly what we were supposed ot be doing, and with how much resistance. I hope Prof Herbert knows what "sorry" means. I said it a lot today.

At one point Carlos stopped us and delivered a fairly long monologue to Prof. Herbert in Portugese. Then he said to me, "I tell heem to go harder on you."  Lovely, thank you sir. It drives me nuts when they talk about you in Portugese right in front of your face. There was a lot more said than that. I wonder what??   :(  At least they weren't giggling during this discussion.