Sunday

If even for the blink of an eye you can control two of the other guy’s limbs with one of yours, either with angle or timing or some sort of clinch, then the opponent is in grave danger. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”




I'm relieved to say that after a tortuous Friday, by the second half of Saturday the pain from my my injury was easing up. After a long day at work on my feet today, it was flaring again a bit- but nothing on a par with Friday. I hope the worst is behind me.

Having a really hard time getting the energy up today. Tired and dragging and grumpy. I think a lot of small stressors are just ganging up on me right now.

An hour of competition training at Gracie Seattle. Cornelia was there- wearing a blue belt!!!! Shiny! She and Lindsey both teased me about the pink baby-blanket gi.

I had to skimp/skip a bunch of the warmups because of my rib.

We drilled an escape from half guard using the tail of the gi to wrap up one of your opponent's arms. After you get out, one of the most interesting options is to use that same gi tail to choke your opponent.


When I got to Kung fu, my moderately foul mood was not improved by being informed that the piece of Punch and Jab that we'd learned- and that I had actually PRACTICED for a decent stretch- had been tampered with by DD and now it was all different. I have to unlearn a bunch of stuff and then relearn the new way.

The turn to the side now has a high parry with the back of the right forearm, culminating with a back-of-the-hand thwack to the side of the opponent's head. It's Monkeyish. the left hand parry remains the same, but it's now up by your cheek.

Lunge and drop is the same, but now we are to have the toe of the stretched-out foot turned in. The foot is sliding between the opponent's feet and then doing a body-drop style jarring motion to break the stance. The right arm is straight, you're using your left hand to catch under the opponent's elbow.

Come up in a hill-climbing stance, do the same punch/kick/knife-hand, but then fall back into another hill-climbing stance. This involves turning the toe immediately before the kick and turning it BACK immediately after.

Several reps of that, a few reps on SK. I asked him if it was okay for me to be hyperextending and prying on his bad arm, and he said to go for it... but a few reps later he admitted it was a bit much, and we had to stop.

A few reps of the opening sequence of Bung Bo Kuen- up to the throw. Then working apps of the throw with JM. I let her throw me first. It's a White Dragon-ish throw in that you're twisting the opponent's head around and taking away hir balance until s/he sorta has to throw HIRSELF in order to avoid a broken neck. Especially the way JM does it. I recall the last few times we were working on those White Dragon throws, and she has a real knack for them. Likewise this. She threw me till I started developing a mild headache. Rib did okay, though- there was only one throw that I landed right on the injury, and that one hurt some- but I came through okay.

Then it was my turn. Before she could tell me I was doing it wrong, I said, "I was given a different version." If I'm going to do that, I'd just better be able to cowboy up a good app with enough confidence to knock her down on the first try. Which I succeeded in, this time. Good for me. It worked so well that after several reps, I started trying to explore some other ideas for apps. As soon as I started messing around with some different grips, she began to try to school me again...no thanks, sweetie... so I just switched back to my first app and threw her some more. I need to remember that if I want someone to let me experiment, this is not the partner to do that with.

Sparring. Between my low-energy state and the mild headache, I was not thrilled with the idea of sparring- especially with everyone (including DD) watching. Well, I needn't have worried about DD, as he vanished into a back room before my turn came up. Oh, I also found out that JaE is now going over to DD's place for private lessons (sometimes sharing SK's session before Sunday class, sometimes by himself). Looks like now that we're not seeing much of CN, DD has selected a new pet to replace him.... skipping over several more senior students. I don't know why I am still having an emotional reaction to DD disappointing me with the same behaviors he has been disappointing me with for years now.... but I am. Is some part of me still hoping/expecting him to show up one day and be the teacher I wanted him to be? Now that we have hard evidence that we are not just being kept waiting/held back for an extraordinary length of time for no apparent reason- that we have now been actually PASSED OVER- hopefully that concept can just be given a decent burial. Which would be easier if he would just stay out of here. I don't know why he bothers to pop in from time to time- mostly to huddle with his pet students- when he has his own little select subclass over at his house anyway. Well, at least he didn't pick JM for his new pet. That woulda been a hard lump to swallow indeed.

So, sparring SK- slowly, him attacking. I felt very stiff and nervous. It must have been obvious, because he told me three times to chill out and calm down. He came at me a few times with different-level combo attacks, including the one we'd been going over on Thursday... I had to ask for do-overs on all of those, and on some of the kicking attacks as well. In retrospect, I should have asked him to slow down even more so that I had plenty of time to react instead of getting flustered.