Esta quente.

Instead of thinking about conquering an art form, think instead about kissing it hello, wooing it, exploring it in small, enticing steps. –Julia Cameron


Thursday BJJ in Bellevue: Carlos was absent, and there was a brand new girl taking her first class- so I taught her how to shrimp and then did the drills with her (side control escapes). Then there were a few short spars, and I matched her up with safe people. Will was there- I have not seen him in forever- so I called him out after class and we had a really fun roll.

Thursday BJJ in Bellevue: Standing guard pass drills. Standing spider guard pass by pinning one knee to the floor and underhooking the other thigh. King of the hill, spider guard sweep vs pass. I did pretty horrible today for some reason.

I got to try out my beginning Portuguese on Carlos today. I informed him that he is a very tall Brazilian man. You should have seen his face. He made me repeat it, and made a minor correction. Later I told him that it was too hot in the gym. At the end, I tried to tell him that the class was great, but he didn't understand me.  I hope my pronunciation is not that bad. I will keep trying. I was able to read a comment today on one of his FB posts that was in Portuguese.

Eye-opening

The four lines people cross that take their actions out of the self-defense justification are:
1)The threat isn't physical
2)The threat isn't immediate
3)They cross into excessive force
4)They participate in the creation and escalation of the situation.
-Marc MacYoung

Thursday BJJ in Bellevue. I had a really good spar with Seth; asked him to not let me do any escapes so that I would be forced to try other things. He praised me for staying on the move.

Thursday BJJ in Bellevue.  A lot of King Of the Hill from back mount. As usual, I was doing well at escaping back mount and I was not doing well at keeping it.

Friday evening BJJ in Bellevue. All spars. Carlos left early, so Chrisanne wanted to spar with me for the first time in forever. I didn't injure her. Another good spar with Seth (no escapes allowed). Kevin.... OMG. Nobody rolls like this guy. Every BJJ artist on the planet should get a chance to roll with this guy once just to experience it.  That Brazilian purple belt woman that I have always found challenging- neither of us was able to tap the other tonight, and we spent a long time working standup... so nice to get to work standup with someone my own size. New girl: she stared at me wide-eyed after time was called and exclaimed, "That was..... so EYE-OPENING!"  

Chrisanne is competing next month for the first time. She has 4 stripes on her blue belt. I have spent a lot of time puzzling over our differing strategies. She has done everything possible to set herself up to win. Whereas anyone who has been reading my blog for a while well knows, I am self-sabotaging- I set things up so that if I lose, I have excuses. It seems like either Chrisanne or I have things fucked up- and I suspect it's me.