Monday evening

The energy is always there within reach. It is a fire that doesn’t always burn in the open, but under the skin the coals are always lit. Anyone sensitive enough can feel the vibration. As soon as you enter a room, right away you perceive who is an individual from head to toe and who has never listened to the voice of the body. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Monday evening gi at Cindy's. I wore my "Black Forest" gi with the alternate pants. It matches well, altho I am just not happy with the fit of these pants. Oh well, they will serve. I wore my gi without the belt tonight.

Gi chokes! I like gi chokes. Then failed gi chokes transitioning to armbars.

Keylocks from mount. Cindy asked me why I stick my foot out sideways. I honestly had no idea, so I tried pulling it in- and my animal-brain cried, "Stop! You'll get rolled!" Okay, so that's why. Cindy wants me to transition to a lower mount and get hooks in instead. I am so used to sticking that foot out that it was really hard to try to deprogram that while I was doing the drill.

Then failed keylocks transitioning to armbars.

I was drilling with Alecia. I did not ask her to be careful on my ribs today, but I made sure to always have my elbows braced overtop of my rib cage before she mounted.

Spars with Miko, Daniel, and (oooh) Leah. On the bottom most of the time with all three. Neither of the boys tapped me out, and I came very close to tapping Daniel twice- but couldn't quite finish.

Leah- I told myself, Do not approach her the same way you approached her last week, because obviously that does not work. Try something different. This resulted in me spending considerable time dancing around her trying to decide how to come in. You can't just plunge in on those long, long legs... you have to either neutralize them or go around them.

Although I spent most of the time on the bottom, and I had to tap once, I did slightly better than last time.


Being aware of how irritated and self-flagellating I tend to get when people that I outrank give me corrections, I'm really noticing lately how often this is happening, and from how many different people. I'm wondering if this is normal. Does everyone gets lots of corrections from more junior students? Does everyone just brush it off, or is it common to get annoyed and feel stupid when this happens? Do people notice THEMSELVES giving corrections to more senior students? I'm wondering if I'm receiving a disproportionate amount of this behavior- and if so, why. How much is this responsible for my MA inferiority complex? This might be something worth polling the forums about.


(pic- Carlos)