SNAP

First of all, please just take a moment to admire the vast awesomeness of this photo. This is Alecia (blue) and Rihanna (red), photo taken by Angela. Angela took a lot of great photos, many of which I have now cached to decorate my training blog posts for quite a while to come.

Wednesday morning BJJ at Gracie Seattle.

Prof. Carlos put us through some killer warmups. The first cycle would have been killer- and we did three cycles. He assured us that this boot camp would not be happening every Wednesday (I think he realized that attendance was going to drop dramatically on Wednesdays without that assurance).

Double-leg, opponent sprawls, you turtle, grab hir belt, sit in, and get full guard. Carlos had to correct me as I was bending my leg outward instead of inward at first. I am flexible enough to do that, but he demonstrated that it was too easy for the opponent to pin my leg down that way. Glenn and I had some problems figuring out which side the knee was supposed to be up on vs which side the head was supposed to come out on.

One six minute match with a smaller white belt guy. Spent most of the match with him in my guard and one really nice deep collar hold, trying in various ways to finish the choke. Almost had him a couple of times, but not quite. I did, however, keep him well occupied enough that he couldn't focus on attacking *ME*.

Those warmups were vigorous enough that they had actually made me kinda nauseous... so I had to quit after that one live roll.

Prof Carlos told the entire gym- multiple times- that I had won my no-gi match 22 to 2. (Yeah, I'm still getting conflicting reports about the final score, but all agree that it was a rout). He has stopped calling me "Fox" and started calling me "Twenty-two".



Tai chi. LD was not very spry today. She says that the radiation treatments (of which she has a week left, IIRC) are kicking her butt. Making her very tired and achy. She is blowing off PT- even though she says the PT helps her a lot- because she'd rather take a nap. I'm worried about her.

Review of all the usual suspects, then another piece of the form. Her drill stuff all looks good- I haven't really looked at the form itself yet because she freaks out and goes blank as soon as I'm watching her. So I have just been doing a bunch of reps and letting her stand behind me and follow. At some point soon, though, I'm going to have to watch!



No-gi at Cindy's. We drilled scissor sweeps, tactical stand from failed scissor sweep (posting on opponent's head), and a simple omoplata. I drilled with Leilani. The first time she tried the omoplata on me, I ended up lying on my back, and we couldn't figure out why it didn't work. Then I realized that I had automatically done an extra roll which negated the technique, even though my CONSCIOUS intention had been to be a good training partner and let her omoplata me. Oops.

Cindy came by and showed me a "bonus violence" variation, with a crossface. I told Leilani, "Yup, that's definitely the Cindified version!"

Cindy demoed a very evil takedown on me. First, she said, "I'll just set it up," Then she changed her mind and asked me if she could take me down. I said, "This is going to hurt, isn't it?" My wonderful classmates all cracked up. I was told to just go with it... yeah, it seemed like it would snap your neck if you didn't. Cooperating, it was reduced from murderous to merely excruciating. Of course Lamont had to ask to see it a couple more times. Thanks, pal. Next time YOU are the demo dummy, I'll make sure to ask LOTS of questions.

Rolls with Leilani (more sweep practice), JB (more stacking), Peter, and Cindy. I know that Cindy only has four limbs- but when you roll with her, it seems like at least eighteen. It's insane.

JB threw some weight on my ribs and forced an involuntary little squeak out of me. She immediately asked with great concern if I was okay- without letting up the weight. I managed to say I was fine, and she said, "That was such a pathetic sound!" still with a voice of concern, all the while continuing to cheerfully crush me. It was so funny that I started laughing uncontrollably, which seemed to perturb her a bit- but not enough to get off my chest.

JB did a really nice sit-up sweep on me, and then started thrashing around grimacing and holding her knee. I said, "Do you want an ice pack?" She lay there with the ice pack on her knee for a while, then put it away and started again. She did a lovely hip throw on me, and my left hand hit the mat first. I distinctly heard a SNAP.

First thought: "Wow, that was a sweet hip throw!"
Second thought: "Ahhhhhh! My finger is broken!!!!!!"
Third thought: "It's not my dominant hand, thank God."
Fourth thought: "it's not an index finger or thumb this time, thank God."
Fifth thought: "Dang! JB is only here for another two days! I don't wanna be on the bench!"

JB said, "Do you want an ice pack?" and got me the same ice pack that she'd just put away. It's the little finger on my left hand. It hurts, but not nearly as bad as my last sprain. It still bends, and is not (as of yet, a couple hours later) visibly swollen. I think it's okay. Time will tell. Boy, it definitely went "SNAP!" though. That scared me.