To Slay Pollyanna

Problems set in if the performer has a brittle dependence on the safety of absolute perfection. -Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”




Tuesday FOD: Five Animals. Both the regular and the mirror versions seem very smooth and powerful today.

Tuesday lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Bellevue.

Double-leg drills, KOB drills, butterfly sweep setups. Positional training- try to pass/defend open guard. A couple of rolls- Bree, John, some white belt guy.

A long time rolling with Ben, which was actually pretty frustrating- trapped on the bottom a lot, getting choked and armbarred.


Kung Fu at CC's. Started with some reps and apps of a section out of a Green Dragon form- same form we were working with last time, but a different section. I really like the way this flows; very Dragonesque:

Start kneeling on rt knee, left Leopard Fist extended shoulder level to west, palm facing south. Rt Leopard fist guarding rt side of head.

Stand and bring both straight arms down in front of body, then circle slightly to right. Turn to face south, continuing the swirly circle to parry a low kick off both hands in front of thighs.

Turn west and step with left foot, bringing both arms up and over in a karate-chop motion chest level. Left hand is slightly ahead of rt.

Step west rt foot, circling both hands over head from left temple to rt to strike rt blade-hand palm-up head level to south. Left hand is warding palm-out at left brow.

Scissor step left foot to west behind rt. Left hand drops to Black Crane guard at rt jaw. RT hand circles to left shoulder and then down-and-out to groin strike to west with knife palm as you sink into the scissor stance.

Note that all of these arm motions are continuous and flowing with no pauses.

After that, they made me teach them the first part of Hurricane Hands, up to the elbow-grind and palm-heel.

Then D and I did a little slow sparring. They're still on my back about my constant Snake striking to the neck. I also took D's back and RNC'ed him, although I couldn't actually take his back with good form because he's too big for me to get my legs around him. He was cracking up the whole time time, even after I proceeded to throttle him till he had to tap.

I'm still having trouble with the big kicks- I need to react faster and stop freezing up when I see one coming in. Also having some difficulty with his wide right hooks- no one I'm used to sparring really tends to use those, so it's new. I don't know what style he favors, but he uses a lot of Mantis- always a challenge.



I cracked like an egg. I e-mailed SK and asked him if he was ever going to speak to me again. I know, I'm weak and pathetic and I'm a masochistic dumb-ass. But it's been four weeks and I'm going nuts. I want to know if anything can be salvaged, and failing that, I'd like some closure. Either way, I really want him to clear up some confusion about what really went down. He gave me a lot of contradicting information. It's difficult to move on either way when there's so much conflicting information and you don't really understand what happened.

I've been really terrified to ping him, because 1)if he ignores me, that's going to be really hurtful, 2)If we do talk it out, it's going to be a painful and difficult conversation, and and 3)If we're really finished with each other for good and all, I'm not eager to face the finality of that. As long as it was kind of hanging there inconclusively, some corner of my mind could maintain a little Pollyanna fantasy that everything might be fixed somehow and we could all go back to class and relations as usual. But I'm going nuts. I think the time has come to step up and slay Pollyanna- much as that's going to hurt.