Slo-mo sparring

Stephanie's Ringworm Chronicles this week have me completely paranoid. I spent half the night last night scratching myself all over and convinced that I had ringworm all over my body. Thanks a lot, Stephanie!

Dr Scholl's Blister Treatment Pads get three foxtails up! My gnarly heel blisters are smaller and less painful today- even though I spent all day yesterday on my feet at work, and then walked another 2 miles afterward. Normally I would just slap some tape over the durn things and forget about them- but these were dire enough to actually go to the store, grudgingly pull out my threadbare wallet, and buy a specialized (name-brand, even!) product. I think it was worth it this time.

I would have given them FIVE foxtails up if they'd survived BJJ class- but the edges started to peel after the first circuit of shrimps. To be fair, though, a BJJ class is a very tough (unreasonable, perhaps) test of any adhesive, especially on the bottom of the foot. I ripped them off, and didn't have any problem with my feet during the class. If the Dr. Scholl's sped up the healing enough to not need a day 2 application, I can't complain at all. I was actually worried that I might have to sit out some of the warmups and standup, but I didn't- so I'm happy.

Pat was teaching today. We did a rather elaborate set of warmup drills, then some pummelling. Then arm drags to take the back. I was working with Beltan, who is just coming back from an injured rib- so we had to go light and careful. (We commisserated about how much it hurts to sneeze after a rib injury... as well as our mutual dumbfoundedness that Carlos only benched himself for four days after his rib injury.)

Then a really cool sweep from standup. It has a lot of steps for my little brain, but I really liked it- so I hope I can incorporate this. Grab opponent's sleeve at elbow with your left hand, drop onto your right hip while sliding beneath hir and between hir feet. Right leg is out straight, left leg cocked around hir leg. "Telephone" hir other leg with your right arm (make sure to grab ABOVE the knee). Pull on that sleeve + hook under the thigh with your right foot and lift + prevent hir from moving hir foot due to imprisonmment by your left leg. Tip her and roll on top. After watching the demo, Beltan just looked at me and shook his head bleakly- but I said, "Let's just walk through it real slow, I think we can do it carefully without hurting your ribs," and after a few tries, we did.

Relays, starting in closed guard: pass vs sweep. After a while, subs allowed as well. I think I did reasonably okay; the class today was skewed toward gorilla-sized and I was much smaller than anyone I worked with.

A couple of times, I was at the front of the line when Sauleh came free, and I grabbed the guy in back of me and said, "Go with Sauleh," One guy started giving me some good-natured guff, because it looked like I was wussing out of facing off against the brown belt guy. I said, "I'm not AFRAID of him... he won't work with me, because I'm a girl." The guy did a double-take, and exclaimed, "REALLY??!??" Nice to see guys in the younger generation viewing this as completely bizarre. It gives me hope that backward religions/cultures like this will die out for good in the next few generations.

(Sorry.... I am actually very religiously/culturally tolerant, right up until your religion/culture extrudes out of your own personal sphere and starts fucking up *MY* life. Which it is when I have to miss circuits and shuffle around in the relay line to avoid you because you refuse to work with me.)


Thursday evening kung fu.

The feet didn't hold up so great for kung fu.

Hand strike drills. Note: I am throwing my arm out too wide on the ridge hand.

Then we worked the Wing Chun two-person drill that we'd learned several weeks ago: Bong sau to outside parry to low press block to high Crane's neck strike, versus Wu sau to high left punch to low right uppercut to high cross left punch. I drilled with JaE, going careful and light because his right arm is still very injured.

Then Tiger circle blocks and straight punches with weights in your hands. While one person did that, the other held "boat pose" as long as possible, and then plank pose as long as possible. Then switch off.

More of the one-person-with-a-knife sparring. We had been told to each bring a long-sleeved white shirt, and the "knife" was a washable marker. I sucked ass at this tonight. Besides the foot blisters, my knees are still swollen and sore- and I could not hold low stances nor be nearly as mobile as I needed to be. Nemesis markered me up but good (in red). In particular, I think he cut my forearms about a zillion times. When it was my turn to brandish a marker at JM, she continued her trend of getting a lot better every time we do this. I didn't get her much. I did get one purple line right across her chest, and commented that it looked like I'd given her a breast reduction.

Then the threatened slow-mo open hands sparring. One person is designated the attacker, and that person can't defend the counter. That seemed to eliminate the speeding-up and "IGOTCHA" competitiveness; there was just a different dynamic since the exercise was really for the benefit of the defender, it wasn't really a competitive situation.

Nemesis defending and JM attacking first. I think SK- having been told more about my sparring anxieties- is deliberately putting me with Nemesis less often. I feel bad that that means JM gets stuck with him more. Furthermore, sparring JM is no better for me. True that I am less likely to end the evening with a black eye- and I am more likely to actually land a few strikes- but sparring JM kicks up a lot of emotional triggers for me. She is good. Yet a pompous egotistical part of me believes that I ought to be able to tool up on the girl every time, since I have been training a lot longer. So when that doesn't happen, I tend to get very frustrated, despairing, and down on myself. Sometimes, I catch myself going rougher on her in an attempt to get the upper hand back. Likewise, if I spar with Nemesis or someone else and get my ass handed to me, and then go with one of the girls, I sometimes catch myself going rougher on her and/or getting sloppier about my control because I'm frustrated and ego-wounded from the previous bout. That really upsets me when I catch myself doing that. I do not want to be that asshole.

Next, me attacking and JM defending. This was actually not too bad- again, I was in a mental space of "this one is for her" and I was not thinking about my own performance or any of my own issues.

Next, me defending- and I was taking a deep breath and girding myself to face down JM (and- worse- face down my internal demons regarding sparring JM), and then SK replaced her. Deep breath out in a sigh of relief. I said, "Go really really really slow," and he was like, "I KNOW, I KNOW," My throat was still closing up and my heart was racing. It felt very stilted and clumsy. I made a few really moronic moves. The presence of the observers bothered me a lot, and there were only two- when there are more (and DD), that's going to bug me quite a bit more.

Anyway, the jury is still out as to whether this is going to be helpful or not with my sparring issues.