Sunday

Even some of the best people I know live by the “I just wanna do my own little thing.” Satisfied with the happy little island they created for themselves in the middle of the ocean of the surrounding disharmony, they look at life from their seat in the audience. I consider this attitude one of the main causes in the mediocrity in the state of things. Often for creative people the beauty of their inner world can become a handicap. Too caught up by their subjective experience to learn how to dance through the physical world. The result is that, limiting themselves to the cultivation of their own spiritual world, the most sensitive people leave to the most careless the management of collective reality. Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path




The FOD is the White Crane Walking the Path fragment.

Evening BJJ at Gracie Seattle. I asked Lindsey about the weakness/exhaustion thing with tournament matches, and he feels it is all mental. He said that he was watching my face during the first gi match that he cornered for me, and that it all went out of me after I got taken down. He then spent much of the ensuing class calling me out on some of my defeatist attitudes. (sigh)

First we did some calisthenics, then we started with one person sitting while hir partner grabbed hir ankles and rolled hir backwards. The object was to try to tuck in nice and tight for the roll, and come out with one knee up, one leg tucked under, to immediately grab the standing opponent's sleeve cuffs and pop into butterfly guard. From there, triangle, sweep or armbar.

Then, rolling-the-shoulder-over armlocks from gaurd. I definitely injured something in my back/ribs/shoulder in that last no-gi match yesterday... the ribs on the right (same side as my previous rib injury- curses) and the shoulder on the left (at least it's balanced). I had a lot of trouble with the side where I had to engage my left shoulder to finish the sub, so I mostly did it on the other side.

Lindsey called me out on my having gotten trapped in mount in my first gi match. "What's the first thing you do?" The other students responded, "Hands on opponent's hips," I was like, "Uh, I don't want to do that, because he'll plump his weight down and break my wrist." I had that happen several times (not BROKEN, but painfully jammed) early on, thus I stopped bracing on people that way. I *need* my wrists. Lindsey wants me to put my hands on the opponent's hips far enough to the sides that my wrists won't break. Hmmmmmmm.

Second call-out: Kitsune assumes she can't hold front mount on anyone because she is too weak and lightweight- they'll just bench-press her off, or roll her over, so she doesn't even bother to try. Lindsey had me work on a high mount, although we ran into issues when we learned that I could not lean forward *AT ALL* without my weight (such as it is) immediately coming off the opponent's chest. Certainly I couldn't lean forward far enough for my little arms to reach the opponent's head, or for me to brace on the mat.