Snotmonster!

I know it's disrespectful to refer to one's teacher as a Manipulative Snotmonster- but CK is such a Manipulative Snotmonster!!!!!!!

She totally strongarmed me into teaching tai chi to LD. I had been waffling, and I think CK saw that I was fixing to say no. So that Manipulative Snotmonster went and told LD that I would do it, and cc'ed us both on an e-mail saying "here ya go, y'all work out your scheduling details for this class."

!!!!!!!!!

CK (did I mention that she is a Manipulative little Snotmonster?) knows that I wouldn't want to backpedal on LD, who is already all traumatized over past failed attempted to learn MA, and doubly traumatized by just having had cancer surgery last month.



Thursday evening kung fu. I related the above to SK in the car, and he cracked up. At both the trick and the moniker.

"Don't you tell her I said that!"

(pulling out his phone and pretending to text) "Dear CK...."

"If she ever comes back to me with that term, I'm going to know who ratted me out- retribution will be swift and dire."

"Hmmm... How many times can I cause Kitsune to threaten me with deadly vengeance in one week?" (I still have to pay him back for throwing that key at me on Sunday, recall...)

He insists that he relates to the feeling of not being competant to teach... but as he continued to press me for what exactly is filling me with anxiety, I'm not sure he really *does* get it. I know that we both have performance anxiety around teaching- but I don't think we're stressed about the same root issues in relation to it.


We started (again) with a relay of sorts. One person doing an endurance exercise (the same ones- low horse; high horse holding a weight in front of the chest; plank position. fourth round was "repeat whichever one of the three was hardest for you" (the weight!))

The other two people drilled 1)jabs to the head, 2)right jab followed by left hook and vice versa, 4)uppercut to the low rib area. Respond with parry *only*. As usual my worst performance was against the combo (the jab with the hook chaser). JM actually clocked Nemesis in the schozz and gave him a bloody nose.

As we were finishing that up, DD walked in. SK suggested that each of us get a short private with DD. "Kitsune, do you want to go first?" As they're both standing there staring at me (along with everone else). Sigh. "Sure." Are you noticing (as I am) that I have too many people around me who know me too well and are just not letting me get away with ANYTHING around here??!?

DD and I worked on a three-strike combination that uses the three-strike rhythm from the double short sticks. It has an open-hand version as well- which I have actually practiced quite a bit (against the heavy bag, too), but it's been a loooooooooooong time since I've worked on it. In the version DD showed me, the hand that's not striking moves through a natural arc that conveniently bridges the opponent's arm before the first strike. Then, just as conveniently, the same pattern serves to parry (twice) any attempted counter the opponent tries with hir arms, and the opponent tends to actually end up with hir arms sort of TANGLED TOGETHER and trapped underneath. As if this wasn't cool enough- the placement of each strike actually opens the opponent up for the next strike. It's truly a thing of beauty.... one of those things that looks so simple, but when you break it down, it's like a complex but smoothly operating piece of machinery. We practiced it against the wall corners, and then on each other.

Nemesis came out to get his turn, and I had to spar a knife-wielding SK. Then JM got the knife and I had to spar her. When I had tried all the same tricks I got her with last week and she countered (most of) them, we agreed that she is a quick learner!

Then JM went out to work with DD, and I got Nemesis (he with the knife). In the first forty seconds, he had punched me fairly hard in the eye and clouted me on the ear with such force that I had visions of recurring cauli. And then SK was badgering me for dancing around and failing to close on him. Geez, I wonder why! The boy has only one setting, "hard". He hit me hard enough to hurt significantly another four or five times in that spar. (I called SK's attention to that on the way home, and was like, "Why do you urge me in, when you *know* I'm staying out of range because he's whaling on me too hard??!?")

In addition, I suggested that next time we do the rotation of people getting a short private with DD, SK himself ought to get one as well. The rest of us can work on individual formwork while they are doing that. (Heh heh... I'll jump in next time and insist that ***HE*** go first!!)

We were also talking a bit about BJJ- I was whining about Hostility Boy, and grumping about Cindy's dropping the lunchtime classes... SK said again that he plans to start training again at Cindy's after he has his wrist surgery in mid March. That would certainly help my situation (the commute into the city is much more managable with a carpool), and of course it would be nice to train BJJ with him again- but I just don't feel very confident that he's going to follow through with that. If he actually does, I think I'm going to have to have a Serious Talk with him and make sure he's not doing it just to humor me. I'm fairly sure he doesn't actually *LIKE* grappling. I had told him at the outset that it was a gaping hole in his total MA game that needed to be addressed- which was true- but now he has enough of a solid base of basic skills that he's not helpless on the ground...so there's really no reason for him to push himself to keep doing it unless he actually *LIKES* doing it.


(pic- Doug)