Fear of legitimate danger is a good thing. It is your ally.
It’s your inspiration. Your muse, if you will. Strength increases, reflexes are
faster, pain sensitivity drops and you can run faster. In these circumstances,
adrenaline becomes the get-it-done drug.
–Marc MacYoung
Thursday and Friday BJJ,
Thursday and Friday and
Saturday BJJ, and Friday BJJ (Thursday I was tired and lazy and did nothing).
One of the Thursdays was at
Kirkland. Remember when I said it was nice to go there once in a while and tool
up on their white and blue belts? That was Hammer Day, and this was Nail day!
All those same people tooled on me... including a female white belt who tapped
me twice right away. Then I thought, "Hmm, I'm going to have to take this one
seriously," and then she tapped me again! She was very tight, and
shrink-wrapped everything up methodically the way Luis does, leaving *no* room
to do anything. My happiness at seeing skilled women coming up in our school far
outweighs my momentary peevishness at getting tapped.
Note that Carlos does not
want to hear me say that I got pwn'ed. He made his usual "I no see you" comment
the week I spent Thurs at Kirkland. I like that he misses me, but I was a little
hesitant to tell him I'd been at Kirkland because I wasn't sure if that would be
weird. He seemed (outwardly) okay that I'd gone elsewhere that day, but gave me
a serious talk about the way I refer to getting my butt kicked. Much of
this monologue was sort of lost in translation (and also he was following me
down the mat while I was doing shrimp drills during it), but I think the gist
was that he doesn't want me to get too hung up on being smashed- or doesn't want
me to talk too much about it- which I guess is related. And both good
advice.
The Saturday was at
Seattle. Seth showed me a cool sweep. I want him to drill that with me every
time I see him.
The other Thursday was the
first day at the womens' class that I was not allowed to work with Chrisanne. I
found myself with a teenager who looked like I could sneeze and blow her though
the plate glass lobby window. I thought Carlos would switch up the pairings when
he saw us (I'm too dangerous to work with Chrisanne, and he's going to let me
work with this little wisp of a thing?) but he didn't. (I didn't injure her,
BTW.... and she is really good at single-legs)
That most recent Friday, I
finally succeeded in talking Lindsay back onto the mat. She said that her body
still didn't feel quite like her own, and that she was afraid that when she
shrimped, her "uterus would fall out". I am not sure what that means, yet I
found it was a rather disquieting prospect- but I just told her that I was happy
to see her back, and we could deal with whatever limitations presented
themselves. I think she ended up tapping me more than I tapped her, so it was
good. She seemed really happy to be rolling again. Going to try to get her in
again this coming Thurs.
Chrisanne got a stripe! PSG is coming up and I will likely have only one BJJ class this week (if that), so I ought to be able to escape promotions yet again (muah ha ha ha). Mini posted a promotion/ranking rant on her training blog this week- glad to see I am not the only one who feels this way.
One of the techniques we
worked on was a sweep from guard in which I struggled, in a way that really
pointed up several persistent failings of mine which show up across multiple
techniques; I fail to break down the opponent's posture and/or control hir arms
adequately, I try to sweep to the side instead of tipping hir head toward my
shoulder, and I fail to be forceful enough with the sweeping thigh (I have it
stuck in my head that this is a strength move- which of course will never work-
I need to fix the technicality and then COMMIT). Once again, a thing that will
have all sorts of sweeping improvement-type effects as soon as I can cement
it.
Another interesting
technique: choke from top side control. Inspired by Pat, I sometimes pull out
someone's gi tail and pass it behind hir head when I have top half guard, as I
know there are several intriguing things to do from there.... but I can never
remember anything to finish it with. Carlos showed us how to pass the gi tail
back to your far hand after passing it under the neck, then yank the person in
toward your knee and cross-collar choke hir. If s/he puts out a hand to try to
block your second grip, you grab the wrist and yank the arm forward, then lay
your chest on hir shoulder and s/he chokes herself with hir own bicep. I had
Lindsay coughing several times on this one. I like it.
I asked a few trusted
people to try to put me on the bottom and to let me have a legit sweep if I made
a halfway reasonable attempt at one, but to *NOT* let me escape. This was
totally frustrating, which tells me I am on the right path. I am going to need
to keep doing it.
I tried to get my new
favorite choke from bottom half guard on a few people, but did not succeed.
Being banned from working with Chrisanne flummoxed my plan to drill that with
her at every class. I need to find a new drill dummy.
Finding myself questioning
my performance aloud too much- ie, asking my partner "is that right?" even when
I have no reason to think it's not right. Obviously I *DO* need to ask this when
I think I have a problem. But it feels like I am often saying it just because I
am being too self-critical. I also find myself saying it as a social lubricant
(ie, "Even though I outrank you and we don't know each other well, I'm humble
and we're peers, go ahead and correct me (which- again- has its place, but
should not be overused))". It backfired badly on me that week, as I found myself
working with a no-stripe purple woman that I've never seen before, who was
messing up worse than I was but still became more and more didactic (including
several blatantly WRONG instructions) over the two days we worked
together.
Holding at a reasonable
walking-around weight of 133, although I would like to drop another few. The
local wild salmonberries are dying, but the thimbleberries are in their prime
and the blackberries are starting to appear. The slugs are actually leaving a
few of my strawberries for ME this year. Thus whenever I go out to walk the
dogs, I have a fruit snack. I've been doing really well on meal portions (I'm
still working on the freezer full of half a dozen different meals that I cooked,
divvied up and froze several weeks ago), but junk food at work (left by
colleagues) continues to be a major pitfall. Tonight there was an unfortunate
Doritos incident... thanks a lot, evening shift. Please take your bad food with
you when you clock out.
I bought a whole bunch of
tuna packets to use as meals at PSG. I'm going to let myself eat at the food
vendors' stands a bit, but that is problematic for portion control when I have
no fridge or microwave. The tuna packets I bought have condiments in them (I
tried the plain- as well as the plain chicken- and just couldn't get jazzed
about eating that all week long), but they are portion controlled in 120-cal and
100-cal envelopes. And no cooking, no cleanup, portable, with low perishability.
(The tuna packets unfortunately are not going to be a very good option for
regular life due to their unreasonable prices.) I also got almonds, granola
(caloric, but not as bad as candy/crackers/cookies/doughnuts/breakfast
cereal/other poor options), and will get some fruit and Slim Fasts before
getting onsite. I'm looking at myself in the mirror morning and night and
wondering how much of the abdominal bloating I'm seeing is my bad soda habit. I
should go cold turkey one day and see if there is a visible difference. But that
would involve going cold turkey all day. :(
