Friday night no-gi BJJ at Cindy’s. I was drop-dead tired…. I so need to find some time somewhere to catch up on some sleep! But there was no way I was going to miss Cindy’s class again if it killed me- and I thought it might!
Warm-ups were brutal. Again, she had a bunch of new stuff…. She must spend her spare time huddled at a corner booth in Starbucks with the ghost of the Marquis De Sade, both hooting and giggling while they come up with these new exercises. I suggested that before the next class warmup, she should pass out barf bags with the school logo embossed on them. Another student then suggested that Cindy had upped the workout because I was showing off. We had been instructed to walk on our hands… I was just doing as I’d been told.
We worked on a takedown involving snapping the opponent’s head down, sprawling, trapping the arms (hey, I can do this part, I remember it from other technique lessons), then driving through and putting the opponent on hir side. Then either 1) throw the legs away, or 2) post to block the legs from trying to get half guard, and get side control. Then a neck-cranky choke. Cindy does love those neck-cranky chokes.
I worked with a female student I’d never seen before- I didn’t even get her name, as she had to duck out early. She was small but tough. I had to whimper/grunt once as she thumped down on my ribs, and her neck cranks were pretty fierce as well. She does need work on that arm-controlling move, though. When she had to leave partway through the drills, Cindy paused and saw her run out the door, and asked me, “Is she okay?” “Yeah, she’s fine, she had to get somewhere.” Cindy made a suspicious face at me, and that same student who’d been ragging on me before said, “Sure, sure- we’ll find her passed out in the parking lot later.” Everybody is so ready to believe the worst about me!
So then I had to work in with that guy and Ian (the teen student that I worked with in this class two weeks ago- not the spazzy teen from Gracie’s Bellevue, I hasten to add- Ian is good to work with). I was glad to be working with him, because the next drill we did involved breaking the closed guard, then standing up and basically leaping on the opponent’s chest with one of your legs over hir shoulder and then transitioning into an armbar. It was crazy- but Ian was nice and controlled.
Then I had a roll with him- it was almost competitive; I spent a bit too much time trapped defending on the bottom to call it equal. I think I did somewhat better than last time, though. Neither of us got a tap, and we both tried stridently for a number of subs. I tried for a few chokes, but I still don’t feel very secure with the no-gi chokes- so it was mostly keylock and kimura attempts for me. I did try kimuras from a number of different positions. I’m starting to get better at being able to recognize the opportunities and set them up correctly.
After Ian, I had a short break, and I was watching Kaungren rolling with a big new guy. The big new guy was spazzing completely out of control- to a scary degree, especially being so BIG. I actually started to get up and go tell Cindy that she’d better step in and and put a stop to him before we had a serious accident on our hands…. But I could see that Kaungren- although he was having to work- was going to be able to take care of that guy. Also, he has already admitted that he enjoys pwn’ing noobs. So I decided that he did not need rescuing, although I continued to watch somewhat anxiously- especially when the Spaz started messing with Kaungren’s legs. This is not the type of gentleman that we want monkeying around with kneebars and heel hooks. At one point, they both crashed heavily and thrashingly to the mat, and Cindy called over to ask THE SPAZZ if he was okay. That made me think that she was quite aware of the whole thing, and had come to the same conclusion that I had about Kaungren being very capable and willing to take care of business… so we should just let him finish the job. It was a very nice display of good jiu jitsu technique versus rampaging, frothing bull. It would have been gauche of me to rise up and give Kaungren a standing ovation when he triangled the big spazz, but I almost did. The spazz tapped (I wasn’t sure if he would), and Kaungren let him go (I wasn’t sure if he would)- LOL. It was probably pretty tempting to squeeze just a TEENSY bit more.
At that point I figured the show was over, so I started rolling with some other folks. Cindy had a handful of giant NON-SPAZZY guys in there that I hadn’t met before, but they were excellent to work with. They were careful and controlled, didn’t crush me, and worked just enough to push my limit. More kimuras and keylocks- some that worked, some that didn’t- a few chokes, most of which did not work.
Cindy had informed me earlier that when we were scrambling, and I put my opponent in my closed guard, I had just reversed myself and given up two points. Duh. I felt really dumb, but that is exactly the sort of thing I need her to fill me in on, because I have never paid attention to it before. She told me to never willingly go over onto my back, to make the opponent WORK for that every single time. I think that’s a good philosophy for me to keep in mind, and perhaps it will result in me finding myself trapped on the bottom slightly less often.
Anyway, I was rolling around with one of those gentle giants and I heard from off to my left, “That sucks, doesn’t it? You do that shit to me, I’m going to do that shit right back to you.” Uh oh. One could almost feel sorry for anyone with so little self-preservation instinct that they would try a douchebag move on Cindy Hales. Almost. She makes you suffer so much when she LIKES you; I don’t ever wanna find out what it’s like to be on the Naughty List.
A minute later, she went nuclear. “You think you’re going to come into my school and go rough with my guys?!!! You think you’re going to come into my school and smash me?!!! Look how big you are!!! And I’ll STILL beat you!!!”
Um, yeah. O_o I would bet my dog and lot on the outcome of THAT contest… and I wouldn’t be putting my money on the big guy. I’d be on my cell calling him an ambulance.
I thought for a minute that we were in for an even bigger show- this one was going to be NC-17 for extreme violence and gore- but she got it under control. I’m so relieved that she did, and that it didn’t get any more out of hand than that. Must admit, though, that it gives one a warm fuzzy feeling and a healthy dose of school spirit to know that one’s teacher is willing and able to beat the shinola out of someone for going too rough on “her guys”. I like being one of Cindy’s “guys”.
Well, the Big Spazz apologized to Cindy, and Cindy apologized for losing her temper (I’m not sure she apologized to HIM, but she apologized to other people), and it all cooled down. Since he apologized, maybe he’s redeemable: not inherently an a-hole, just one of those people who doesn’t understand how MA schools work. I think a lot of these newbies come in thinking that we’re learning to fight in here, so that’s really how you’re supposed to act- that’s how we treat each other on a daily basis. Or at least that’s how you have to act when you come in in order to get respect or be accepted. They’re not evil, they just don’t know any better.
I probably looked like a deer in headlights when Cindy headed for me, but fortunately she switched gears fluidly out of Berserker Mode and back into Patient Helper Of the Lame and Halt. We rolled for quite a while. She gave me some helpful instructions, but spent much more time just letting me try this or that and see for myself what was working and what wasn’t. I often start to get frustrated and flustered with that when it’s not flowing for me, but she was being really patient- so I didn’t feel pressured or frantic to come up with The Right Answer immediately. Nor beat myself up mentally when I couldn’t do so. I think more of that would be very helpful, and let me relax enough to just explore. If I can relax and explore, I may get a better sense of the body/motion mechanics that will get me to *understanding* what to do- as opposed to memorizing techniques like spelling words on a list.
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