Focus, mood, and energy level

The laser sight on the Taser (or on some firearms) puts a red (usually) or green dot where the dart or bullet will land. One company that manufactures laser sights refers to this as “Helping criminals make informed decisions”.  –Rory Miller



I'm feeling frustrated right now with my lack of self discipline regarding work on my fiction. One of my favorite writers has made some noises about possibly offering some personalized mentoring to people. That perked my ears. I'd love to treat myself to that if it's in my budget, but that would involve committing to setting ass to chair and fingers to keyboard (and not to fart around on the web, to FOCUS). I've been pretty good about keeping up on the training blog, so I decided that I might try posting some more stuff to Facebook (I usually limit my FB postings  mostly to the martial arts quotes that I also put on my blog). Today- as a writing challenge- I wrote about changing light bulbs, and tried to make it funny and interesting. I got a good response.

I am quite firmly anti-drug, but today I also did a bit of an experiment.  Like any self-respecting psychology enthusiast, I am certain that I have about a dozen assorted undiagnosed mental pathologies. One of which is a moderate helping of ADD.

No one I know would ever give me two tabs of a controlled substance (let's call it Subtractorall), and if they did, I would never take it. But let's just say, hypothetically, that I took a Subtractorall today just to see what would happen (specifically, in class).

Well, hypothetically, I feel energized. Normally, the combo of depression, severe allergies, and wonky work hours has me perpetually feeling exhausted, and constantly prioritizing bed over any other activity that I don't absolutely *have* to do. Right now, I do not feel tired.... and it's very bizarre because I don't really know what it feels like to not be tired.  I was really excited to go to class, and was bouncing around and singing.

I also feel less depressed than usual.... although I may have stacked the deck in that respect by writing the light bulb treatise this morning. Creative work of any type tends to temporarily unfreeze my emotions, and I get happy or deeply morose (often both in succession... there's that undiagnosed bipolar disorder at work).

I also have a powerful placebo effect response, so it's entirely possible that I feel different simply because I was expecting something different to happen.

I will need to hypothetically run this experiment again on a different day and see if similar hypothetical observations occur.

Unfortunately, class today in Bellevue was an all-sparring class, which was a little disappointing because I had wanted to see if I could focus better on drills and learning new technique.

My goal for today was to not give people my back. This resolution resulted in having fewer (percieved) options once trapped under side control. I still did some turtling, but not as much as I usually do- and when I did it, I tried to transition out of it instead of just hunching there and waiting for the other person to take my back so that I could escape. I asked a few people to try to take my back- and if they could get it- to choke me and make it hurt (No one got it today).
I did mostly well at staying on the move.

Suranjen continues to let me have a bunch of KOB's, a bunch of front mounts, a bunch of taps. I continue to not know how to ask him why he's doing it, or how to ask him to stop. I am 100% certain he is holding back in a major way. He didn't used to do it, and I don't get why he is doing it now.

With John, I decided that I did not want to be in his guard today, so I was pretty assertive about passing, getting and staying on top. Was moving well with him today, mostly.

Did some standup with Nelson, which is always fun. One hilarious moment- I glanced over my shoulder to make sure there was enough clear mat space in that spot to try to throw him over there, and he took that instant to throw me instead. That's what I get for being considerate!

Trying to break Nelson's grips is a ripe bitch.

Another unusual thing- I wasn't exhausted at the end of class.