"This isn't a jerk move... really..."

129.5

Tried on the "medium" rabbit-ear tie-front yoga pants again yesterday. They look good, and are looser; not QUITE loose enough to feel comfy doing MA in. Another 2lb oughtta do it.

The small local tournament on Oct 2 in the new school site- the women's "feather" weight class cuts off at 129 (with gi). I don't think I will make that (comfortably) by Oct 2. The next up bracket goes up to 140- oof! It would be good to get a
little experience with this "Revolution Foreplay" tournament, but I'm not thrilled at the idea of going in at the very bottom end of the up-to-140 group. I'll have to see how I feel (and what I weigh) by the end of the month.

Friday morning BJJ in Seattle. I was still feeling pretty tired this morning, and it was tempting to skip a second lunchtime session in a row. But since I know I'm working this weekend and will miss Saturday BJJ, I got myself dressed and in the car.

No drills, sparring only. We got matched up for short timed spars, for pretty much then entire class time. There were enough of us that we had to take turns on the mat- so you'd fight one, sit one out, etc. There were 4 black belts on the mat, a
brown, 4 or 5 purples... every time I see this sort of thing, I am reminded how fortunate I am to be at a school like this.

Sabrina was there- haven't seen her in a while, and it's unusual for there to be any other women at the weekday lunchtime classes (especially in Seattle). I did two rounds with her. She, like Allie, has improved quite a bit. I could control her,
so I went slowly and let her work. If she did a technique adequately, I let her have it. I tapped her a few times, and let her tap me with a keylock (after suggesting that she pull it further down to my hip before lifting the elbow up). I complimented
her warmly at the end.

Two rounds with Marc. I dominated him positionally for the first round. He did better the second round- trapped me in his closed guard a few times (from which I was having a hard time escaping... note- try to stay out of Marc's closed guard in the future), and got me in a triangle- it seemed like a good triangle, but he couldn't quite finish me off for some reason. I got an approving, "Good, Keetsune!" from Prof. Carlos when he saw me KOB'ing Marc. (yay!)

Amusing interlude: Shawn was keeping time, and standing in the middle of the mat watching Prof Carlos pin Jim helplessly in some kind of excrutiating-looking crucifix-type thing. Shawn said wryly to Jim, "You've got him right where you want him!" and Jim (red-faced and straining) squeaked out, "ME????" and everyone, even the other people rolling, started cracking up.

I notice that in live rolling, I have been making much use of one of last week's techniques: Turning and sitting out to replace the guard from turtle. This is a move that my tiny, compactly-squeezable body is made to do. I've even been trying
for that cool sweep a few times. People jerk their leg out of my grasp before I can actually do it- but it's progress that I remember to try for it. I need to try it on somebody who wasn't in class last week!!

When open mat came, I had to sit for a bit to recover- but then Bryan asked me to roll, which is something to jump at, always. We closed down the mat, everyone else eventually left and Rodrigo came up to kick us out. I was getting frustrated
because I was always hunched up on the bottom, defending, and every time I tried to do something, Bryan exclaimed, "Don't do THAT!" and then proceeded to painfully demonstrate exactly why I should not do that. But he wasn't being much help today
telling me what I *SHOULD* be doing instead... other than waiting for an opening/opportunity (of which he was offering me none!)

He worked with me for some time on armbars- keeping tighter on the shoulder, sitting harder down onto the shoulder, keeping the leg tight in behind the shoulder blades, squatting right down on the head, just TIGHT TIGHT TIGHT, was the overriding theme. Then grabbing my own gi and pulling his arm down towards his own feet to straighten it out before doing the armbar. I felt like I needed to have his lower arm and wrist glued right up against my chest before falling back, but he was saying
that as long as my crotch is snugged tight up into his shoulder, I don't need to fret so much about that part. He also reprimanded me for giving up and letting go of subs that didn't seem to be working... he wants me to persevere longer.

Once again, my performance began to downslide severely as I got more exhausted. I always feel embarrassed after I've been rolling with Bryan for a while and I get so much slower and weaker and less effective.



Later..................


Very tired and sore. Neck, right shoulder, ribs. My entire body from head to toe is so spotted with bruises that I look like a leopard. I'm probably not going to be bouncing out of bed in a very lively manner tomorrow morning when I get up early for work. And Gods only know what fiendish plans CN has for me tomorrow evening. Whatever it is, it's probably going to hurt too. (SK claims to not know what CN has in mind for Saturday- I asked.)


Friday evening no-gi at Cindy's. I had the whole crew with me, which was cool.

Escape side control to the knees, then to taking the back. Alternately, side control escape to knees, then drive through to get side control on the opponent. I drilled with Ian, whom I always enjoy working with. We were doing the drills fast enough to keep switching and get a number of extra reps in while everyone else was finishing.

Cindy was explaining certain pain-causing details and saying, "This isn't a jerk move... all he has to do to make it stop hurting is move his head where you are trying to make it go.... if he doesn't move his head, and it hurts, that's his own fault... he's doing it to himself! You're not being a jerk or anything!!" We were all chuckling. She is such a hoot. I'm so lucky to have her for a teacher.

Timed spars. I got Ian first. Fun, competitive rolling, no taps for either. Then I got some guy that I think I've rolled with once before, but I don't really know him yet and don't know his name. He was a little harder, but I still did reasonably okay against him. I don't think either of us got a tap, but I had a kimura on that I might have been able to finish if the clock hadn't run out just then. Then I got Cindy. Ack! She was playing catch-and-release. I tried a bunch of subs but she didn't let me have any. She did let me have a few escapes and top positions, so I must have been doing some of those right. One of the most frustrating things about rolling with Cindy is that every time you set up a joint lock on her, she somehow turns the position back into a joint lock on YOU.

Cindy told me to make sure I had a good position before trying to do a sub. Sigh.

JB had left partway through the sparring, and by the time Cindy was done thrashing me, JM and SK were putting their shoes on. I asked them if either wanted to do one more, and JM took me up on it. That was fun. I tried a lot of subs, including some of the stuff that Bryan had worked on with me this morning- but her defense was very good and I couldn't get anything. I had an armbar on once that I was pretty sure was nice and tight... I thought I had it in the bag, but as I fell back, she somehow rolled up and stacked me. It was impressive (as I told her, although I could hardly breathe let alone speak.... I almost had to tap to the stack, it was a really good stack). She was on the bottom most of the roll, though. I did get front mount and beep her nose once. I had to tap once because she was pressing my contact out of my eye... but then we restarted. No other taps for either. Time was called and I whispered, "keep going, keep going!" I forgot all about the line-up and bow-out, so we got reprimanded for not getting in line!

I made a point of giving her lots of positive feedback in the car.

We did a quick drive-by to see where the new site of the Seattle Gracie school is going to be. Well, it would have been a quick drive-by if we'd been able to find it as easily as my Google Map seemed to indicate. We wandered around for a while in the warehouse district. Me: "There's a photo of the building on the second page." SK: "It's a warehouse." (pause as we all look around at the dozens of warehouses surrounding us) Me: "Well, that narrows it down, doesn't it?!"

We did finally find it. It has two "drive in" size doors which I hope will be openable in the hot weather. There are a lot of trucks parked back there, and I don't know if many- or any- of those will be clearing out when we move in... but if some of them do, the parking situation looks okay.