Points

The best commander attacks when the least skilled is still busy making plans. –Sun Tzu


Today's FOD is Hurricane Hands. Yesterday's was Sil Lum Tao.

For Hurricane Hands, I focussed on fully extending the Snake strikes as well as trying to relax some of the tension in my arms and shoulders. I have used the visualization of tossing my hand off the end of my wrist and watching it splat on the opposite wall- weird, but that was the visual I was using when I was told my Snake strikes looked most correct- so I guess I should stick with that. I will also need to watch carefully that my hand position doesn't get sloppy while I'm focussing on that.

Improvement point- the two spots where the arm drops to do a block at the hip. Those need to bounce off and continue the energy into the following Snake strike. I knew that they were supposed to bounce off, but apparently I am putting a bit too much energy into the hit and "leaving too much behind"... need to bounce and retain/recycle more of it.


Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Bellevue. Rodrigo and Carlos both hugged me this time when I walked in. It's just about enough to make me tear up, seriously.

We didn't do any new techniques; we're doing something a little different this week. There's a small informal intraschool pseudo-tournament this coming weekend. Student will be acting as referees as part of our effort to become more conversant with the point system. The profs spent 45 min today talking about the fine points of points. Then they split us up into groups of 5 or 6 and had two people in each group do a match while the rest tried to score. At the end, the fighters and the "refs" had to explain how they scored.

I am still confused by a lot of this, especially the details of getting or not getting points for the takedowns and the sweeps. Guard passes and mounts I can usually recognize as good for points or not. It's more difficult to keep track while I'm fighting. It is also confusing that there are differences in gi and no-gi.

I did two matches with Kelly. She is doing very, very well. She now has two stripes, and will be doing the August Revolution. I wasn't going 100% on her, but I wasn't going easy, either- and she held her own very competantly. I tried some guillotines on her today, too, and she didn't freak- so maybe she is over whatever was troubling her before regarding that. She is still breathing too hard and expending too much energy, but those are common newbie problems. She did not gas out, even so.

I did that summersaulting takedown on her, and the initial portion worked beautifully- I pushed into her, and threw her as soon as she reflexively pushed back (Gotta love those white belts! Hee hee). Unfortunately, the same thing happened that happened when I did this on Saturday: I got her over just fine, but failed to get on top afterward- thus it turned into a scramble. I want to let go of my grips as soon as I launch them off my feet, and I think I might need to retain those. But I know for sure that I need to continue the momentum of the roll and not stop/stall there on my back. Both professors saw the throw and I could hear them exclaiming excitedly to each other in Portuguese. Damn- I would have impressed them a lot more if I'd finished it correctly!



Two hour strolling walk (up and down numerous hills).


Evening BJJ at Gracie Bellevue. Positional drilling with a teenage yellow belt first: taking turns just doing guard passes, then sweeps, against almost no resistance. I only feel comfy with about a half dozen different sweeps, so I cycled though them over and over on both sides.

Then, same thing we did at lunchtime. I sparred the teenage yellow belt, and he beat me. One of the other guys in my group did what looked like a scissor takedown, so my referee opinion was to DQ him.

Sparring with first Ron, then Pat, then Steve. Steve and I closed down the mat. I pushed myself to keep going through the exhaustion. Steve was thrashing me, but I could tell that he was exhausted too- so I focussed on being peppy and trying to fool him into thinking I wasn't tired.

I overheard Sasha talking to another white belt, thumbing over at me and saying, "...and she taught me to breathe." Wow, there's a warm fuzzy. I remember rolling with him months ago, and telling him that he was huffing and puffing a lot, and needed to moderate his breathing. Apparently he remembered that and took it to heart. That is so awesomely cool that I was able to help someone improve his BJJ game like that. That makes me feel great.


Got an e-mail from Cindy- she is moving her school from the Tully's building to a location on the Eastside. Also, adult classes will be coming back: Mon/Tues/Fri evenings. Hopefully this will be underway sometime in mid-August.