Gi, gi, no-gi

Amusing interlude in dreamland....

On Sunday, I had inadvertantly gone to work without my folding knives. For the last six or so years- since I took my first knife class- the times that I have left the house without my knives could be counted on one hand, and have fingers left over. I feel so naked without them!

Last night, I had a dream in which I was attacked. I reached for my knives, and thought, "Oh, crap! That's right, I forgot them! Wouldn't ya just know it!" So I had to fight the guy off empty-handed. I'm pleased to say that I beat him anyway, though!


Wednesday morning at Cindy's. It was just the two of us today.... love it when that happens. I asked if we could drill the bottom half guard escapes that we have worked on, so we did that for a good while. Still haven't quite cemented the habit of getting the underhook, and getting it high enough. Still fumbling the legs a bit, too. But getting better. The drills are helping. The most important part of the sequences is getting the legs locked down correctly and tightly, and making sure you're wedged right under the opponent's butt, so that when you start doing the accordian motions, you move HIM and not YOU. Move him around and mess with his balance, and depending on what he does to try to stabilize himself, that will tell you which of the techniques to use- take the back or the sweep.

We worked in a third variation, that is reminiscent of the "Old school sweep" in that you get in really deep, grab the foot, and feed it to your opposite hand. Then hug the knee in tight, and once more it depends on what the opponent does to try to compensate- you either roll him or bulldoze him onto his back.

After we'd drilled all these quite a bit, I started in bottom half guard and we did some low-key positional training- in which I had to do the opening moves that are common to all these sequences, and then decide which of the finishers to choose based on what Cindy was doing. That was REEEEEEEEEEEEALLy helpful. Of course as soon as we started something that seemed more like "sparring" than "drilling", I started wanting to panic and rush and skip steps and get sloppy.... every time I did that, Cindy made me stop and go back. Thinking on my feet (so to speak) is one of my big weaknesses, and this exercise was making me do that. It was also making me look at my opponent's balance and where she was posting, and analyze where I had to make her go based on that (another thing I don't do very well under pressure). In this case, there was just enough pressure to make it more real, but not enough to make me panicky- and since I only had three options, my brain didn't short out trying to decide what to do. I'd like to work this exercise a lot more.

While we were working on this, I was able to figure out exactly what went wrong in my second Revolution match. Wish I had video, but I'm pretty sure I know now. I was in bottom half guard, and I had my top leg wrapped and locked around Rachel's leg. I had my body shrimped out to the side pretty well, but I was afraid to unwrap my leg and release her leg- and I kept trying to turn my body belly down enough so that I could get to my knee, but I couldn't do it without unwrapping the leg- thus I was stuck. Rachel must have had her arm around my neck- I don't remember that detail, but when Cindy did that to me, it was like, "Oh yeah, THIS is how that was". As soon as I got rid of the arm by shoving it over my head (or by shoving my head under the arm), I found that I was able to turn my body enough to get to my knee without releasing my leg wrap. It was a surprising discovery. I had thought the situation was all about the legs, but it wasn't- it was all about the HEAD. My focus had been on the wrong body part.

After bottom-half-guard positional sparring, we just sparred. When I found myself in Cindy's guard, I remembered the frustrating situation with the white belt guy last night (a recurrent fustrating situation)- where I had one arm in trying to control the thigh, and he just grabbed my sleeve or elbow and yanked the arm forcefully forward so that he could fully close guard on me. I asked Cindy what I could do to stop that, and she told me not to- to stop hunching low in people's guard and trying to keep one of their thighs pressed down. She had me do it, and showed me how easy it was for her to triangle me without even having to jump her hips up. I felt stupid... but I guess a lot of the white belts I work with just don't know enough to nail me with that on a consistent enough basis for me to make the connection. Instead, Cindy wants me to just accept the closed guard, posture up, and start working from there. (However, she is a big fan of doing whatever you can to stay out of the opponent's guard in the first place.... she always says that it's more work to get out of it than it is to KEEP out of it.)

Knee-on-belly was a topic of discussion as well. I tried to do KOB while hunching low, and found myself in a particularly unpleasant headlock followed by being flipped over onto my back and having Cindy roll right over my face and end on top. Okay, I can see THAT's not going to work. No low-hunching KOB. In fact KOB in general is probably not a great option for me.

Another thing- when a roll (or even positional sparring) begins, Cindy wants me to be more assertive about getting a little jump on the other person by immediately getting into whatever position *I* want (and paying attention to the details of where I want each appendage to be) instead of letting the opponent decide where he wants to go. For instance, make a habit of thrusting that underhook in immediately. Apparently, I'm being too polite and retiring... "After you!" "Oh, no, I couldn't, you really must go first." "I insist!" "Please do precede me."

We also ran into a few situations where it was beneficial to me to grab the foot and control it, like we had been doing in our new technique sequence earlier. "Clinging isn't necessarily BAD, we just have to make sure you're clinging to the right things." LOL.



I feel like we got a lot of really good work done today. I always feel that way after a private class with Cindy, but wow does it ever tire me out. It always makes skipping evening class look very attractive (sometimes too attractive to resist)! However, I had already committed myself by having told Angela that I would be at Gracie's Bellevue for no-gi. So off I went.



Wednesday evening in Bellevue is 1 hour of gi followed by 1 hour of no-gi. No open mat. Often I am too tired after an hour of gi to stay for the no-gi. Tonight, I had already set myself up, so I was determined to last it out.

One guy was late, at Carlos made him stop at the edge of the mat and do 20 pushups before he joined the class. Something to keep in mind when I'm straggling to get out of the house. Although I'll tell you, having Rodrigo be so nice about it and take extra time to help me with technique made me feel WORSE about being late than doing punishment pushups would make me feel!

I got a lot of corrections today, but I didn't get a sense of being picked on or anything (any more than usual, that is). JB thinks that maybe Carlos holds a grudge against me for the duel-repping thing. I'm not getting a sense of that. When someone reprimands me, or makes me aware that they're unhappy with me, I tend to cringe under that person's eye for a good long time afterward. But one thing I figured out early on with Rodrigo is that even after he reprimands you, you don't feel like he's looking at you the next hour, or the next day, thinking "There she is, who did that stupid thing before class...." It's like he reprimands you and then the matter is closed and in the past. You don't have to linger in the doghouse. I like that. Maybe Carlos is the same way. Maybe it's a cultural thing.

Note to self, Carlos prefers people to wear shorts to his no-gi glass as opposed to gi pants.

I was relieved that we were not doing the clock chokes again. The skin along my jawline is still raw and stingy from last night, and I wasn't looking forward to another dose of that.

We did pendulum sweep and triangles from guard. Only one quick demo, because apparently most of these people did these same techniques on Monday. I wasn't here on Monday. When my partner forgot to step his leg up for me on the pendulum sweep, I forgot about that as well, and was trying to sweep him without it. Much trickier. I also needed a correction on the grips. I was okay with the triangles, and tried to help my partner with them (he was a triangle virgin).

A little positional sparring from closed guard. Person on the bottom- triangle ONLY. Person on top, pass guard. If triangles are difficult, they are even MORE difficult when your opponent knows you are trying to get one, and that's all you're allowed to try. Angela had little trouble triangling me, but I was able to escape twice with an aggressive stack. She is not as flexible as JB. Then I got put with another white belt triangle virgin. I let him try a few, which I likewise escaped by stacking him. He got one on me without doing the body turn, and was trying to tap me by squeezing it. He was big and strong, and it HURT, but I try hard to not tap to white belts who are doing the technique incorrectly. Tapping to incorrect technique and excess muscle builds bad habits in the beginners, I think. So I let him squeeze till I got a bloody lip, but I wouldn't tap. Before I gave any advice, I asked him if he knew why it wasn't working. He said he did know, so I kept my mouth shut and let him try it again. I'm not sure he actually *did* know, but time got called before I had a chance to help him out.

No-gi. First we did some standing pummelling, then arm-drag to take the back. I got corrected on standing too close to my opponent- Carlos wants us to stand with our butts sticking out and our feet back while we're hugging the opponent from behind, so that we don't get taken down. He was also chuckling at me because I physically couldn't use my elbow to raise the opponent's arm and duck under it- when my partner's arms were in pummelling position, he was already tall enough that I didn't need to displace his arm to duck under his armpit (although I went through the motions of doing so anyway).

Then kneeling arm-drag. Drag the opponent ACROSS you and lock your arms around her sash-style, under one arm only. Gable grip (here is that grip again; why do I have so much trouble with this? I had to pause and re-orient my hands every time), use the elbow that is on the person's back to press her DOWN. I had a lot of trouble with this, too- half of it was cluelessness and the other half was not being able to get my stubby little arms all the way around my partner's torso. One you press her down, hip out a bit and get the second hook. Pause long enough to get your points (I got a lecture on that.... with both Cindy and Carlos on my case about that, hopefully it will sink in soon). Then choke or armbar. Angela had to help me a bit with the armbar... I needed to move my body out a bit in order to make sure her elbow was braced on it before levering. Then I needed help from Prof Carlos with the choke; as it was a head-and-arm choke where you brace your hand on your own bicep, and once again my stumpy dwarfish arms were inadequate to the task. Carlos had a work-around for me, though.


I am starting to make batches of food again which consist of things other than chicken breast and eggs. Still doing the chicken and eggs a lot, but trying to introduce a little more variety. I made some beef stew over rice, with extra mushrooms dumped in it- but I used brown rice instead of white rice. I don't like brown rice much, but I'm trying to make the healthier choice here and there. I divided the food up into my little one-cup-volume tupperwares. I make myself stop and reassess my hunger and how my body feels after one. I sometimes decide to have a second- or an hour or two later, I'm hungry again and have another- but it's better than sitting down with a big bowlful and just working through it.

I find that I can indulge my candy/baked goods cravings, within reason, and still keep my weight steady- as long as I am careful about meal portions. Controlled meal portions really seem to be the pivotal strategy for my body. Even with the chicken and eggs, part of what makes it work was that I had ONE chicken breast or TWO eggs at a time- it was a set, modest portion.

(pic- Jesse)