Twice Marked

Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Seattle.

Feels like an ice pick is planted in my back near the top of the right shoulderblade. The pain is radiating all the way up the back of my skull and halfway down my arm. I don't know what I did to it, other than the usual.

Standup- choke defense transitioning to hip throw. Carlos had to remind me to not grab the gi sleeve. They don't want us to use gi grips during the standup "self defense" techniques.

Opponent is in your guard, holding your belt. You break hir grip by grabbing hir wrist and then grabbing your OWN wrist so as to use both arms to pry hir hand off. Then pull that arm across your body and sit up with your chest to hir shoulder. Hip out (remember to keep that posting hand out of opponent's reach) and jump on hir back. Hooks in, gable grip under opponent's arms, roll.

More clock chokes from back mount. Fun times. If the opponent pulls the first collar grip out of your reach, just reach a little further and grab your own lapel instead. I like that, too. My partner was gagging and tapping before I could even secure the grip on my own collar. At one point he had to excuse himself off the mat and go spit into the trash can. I wasn't having much fun when it was his turn either, though- I was wearing my stiffest gi collar, and there was a goodly amount of pinching and gi-burning going on. Now I look like I've been making out with Edward Cullen.

Eight-minute rolls with first Mark and then Marc. Bottom half-guard is like the trailer park.... you may acknowledge that that's where you came from, but once you get out, you don't want to go back and visit. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of my roll with Mark and part of my roll with Marc in bottom half guard. It was just like old times, and not in a good way. They were both lying diagonally across me with heavy weight down, making it very hard to get my butt out to the side and get the underhook for my standard escape. I got an old school sweep on Marc once (I do that to him all the time, he never remembers to defend it). Mark was literally whimpering with frustration after eight minutes of struggling in vain to get the F out of my bottom half guard. I was just as frustrated, but trying to act suave about it. Let the white belt think I do that on purpose. I could get out of here whenever I feel like it, boy.... I LIKE it down here, and I'm just chillin'. I wasn't idle down there, either- I was constantly trying to collar-choke him- but I never got it. He keeps his chin pinned to his chest whenever he rolls with me... and never lets me sink that second grip in. I also tried to set up a triangle on him once- Didn't get it, but I noticed the opportunity, and I tried for it, which is a step forward for me.


I have decided to try dying my oldest, most sweat-stained white gi- the white Howard (well, it STARTED as white, anyway). Georgette has wonderfully detailed, painstaking instructions on her site. Kitsunes are lazy. My idea of dying a gi is to buy some dye at the Safeway while I'm picking up cat food, dump it in a bucket, add water and gi, cover it and leave it sitting on my porch for a few weeks, then take it out and hang it on the rain gutter to dry, then throw it in the washing machine, and we'll see what we get. (Georgette is cringing right now.) I bought four doses of "cocoa brown". If it ends up some kind of beige, that'll probably be acceptable as well. There's still a little scarlet in the bucket from my last project, but I don't have any other buckets, so I'm just hoping the scarlet will be overwhelmed by the four packages of brown. I'll post a pic when it comes out.