Chess on the mat

One of the first things to do is learn to accept, and to expect this Power to flow through everything we do. –Ernest Holmes



Sunday: 133.0

I got fast food yesterday- still working on the book of excellent and tempting coupons that Arby's hands out over the holidays. I was good, though- I cut the roast beef sandwiches (no condiments) in half, and also split up the fries to make small portions and stretch everything into multiple meals. Yesterday I also recieved the dehydrated Mountain House food I'd ordered- chicken a la king and beef stew. I adore that stuff. It's not cheap, and it's caloric, but you make your own portions and prepare them just by adding hot water (from kettle or microwave) and letting it sit for 5 min. "Make your own portion sizes" can be good as long as you are disciplined- but you have to be disciplined- it's easy to want to make a biggie portion if you're hungry. The ease of preparing this stuff, though, makes it simple to make a smaller amount and say, "If I'm still hungry after eating this, I'll just make a little more." It's also nice that it's dehydrated and you don't have to worry about it going bad for a long time. Portable, and doesn't have to be refrigerated unless you've already reconstituted it. We've had some instances of lunch theft in the employee lounge at work recently. I always worry about that, since I work alone at night. If my lunch gets stolen, I can't leave and go get food- I'm hosed. Another thing- I am not good about eating veggies; the Mountain House beef stew has lots of peas and carrots and things in it that I normally don't eat much of- so that's a good veggie-eating incentive. Both of these varieties are generous on the actual meat. It seems like most food companies want to try to get away with measuring out the bare minimum of meat that they can include, load up on the cheaper fillers, and still legally call their product a "meat" dish. Sometimes I end up buying extra meat and supplementing certain prepared dishes of this type (If I still consider them worth buying at all!). Mountain House chicken a la king has lots of chicken, and their beef stew has lots of beef.


Monday: FOD- Mantis Bo. I didn't do it. Bump to Tuesday.

Tuesday: FOD: Mantis Bo. Used the bamboo staff. So light, so short, so different-feeling. I don't think I'd actually try to do most of the staff strikes with this, if it was a real combat situation. Tangling up the feet and such, sure. Stabbing with the end (the ends of this staff are actually cut on an angle, so stabbing would be BETTER... easier to maneuver due to the decreased length, too). This staff is a bit thicker, too- not the best size for my hands to wrap around.

136. Gak. Sadly, I can't lay this at the door of the Arby's. This was too much Mountain House. Obviously, dipping out of the bulk container is resulting in too much portion-size upcreep. I shall solve this with a measuring cup and individual pre-allotted 1-serving baggies.


Wednesday: Measuring out one cup servings of the Mountain House. Sigh. It's a sad thing. Already back down to 134, though. One cup is 290 calories... sheesh. The beef stew is fewer.



Acrobalance. More practice on the standards, and a few new things: paired rolls with two people forming a wheel, each holding the other's ankles... standing on the shoulders of a seated base with no handholds, then transferring to standing on that person's hands (I managed the shoulders after a couple tries; was not successful with the handstand).

Also- plank with your feet on a big ball, then pike your butt up and try to get your torso vertical and your body folded as closely as possible. I had an easier time with this than most people due to my excellent balance and decent core strength, but even one or two reps is a workout.

The teacher made a point of coming up to me after class to tell me that she was enjoying having me there. That was cool.


Thursday- 131.5. Yowza. The measuring cup, unpleasant as it is, rules. I want to get a new tattoo on my hip, and it would be good to be back down to 124 first so that it will be in the right place and stay the right shape.


Evening BJJ at Gracie Seattle. It was supposedly "all levels" tonight, but Rodrigo had two sets of complex, two-sided, multi-step techniques to teach.

Standup: Sleeve & lapel grip, step on opponent's hip on the side that you have the sleeve. Sit down, place other foot on opponent's other hip. Let go of lapel grip and grab opponent's ankle. Yank yourself between hir feet and wind left leg around the back of opponent's rt leg, placing foot on hir hip. Use your rt knee to pinch hir leg between both of yours, take down. DON'T LET GO OF SLEEVE (I always have trouble with that). Get into side control, but allow opponent to grab half guard so that s/he can do the next technique.

From bottom half guard: frame up and shrimp out, reach the arm that's on the mat under opponent to grab hir ankle. Wrap other arm around the backs of hir thighs. Switch feet (don't cheat or skip this). Get to knees, pulling opponent's bottom half toward you with your arms and stretching hir leg out with your hooked toe, till you can put hir on hir back and get on top.

I was having some trouble with that bottom half guard one... it was hard to get my short arms all the way around the opponent's bottom half, and I was having a problem with stretching his leg out- I never did quite figure out what I was doing wrong with that part, other than I seemed to be wanting to get to my knees too soon.

Next: same beginning from standup, only as soon as you sit, switch your sleeve grip to a cross-sleeve grip. Now use your ankle hold to turn into inverted guard, and continue into an omoplata. Do a sitback all the way over the opponent and grab a triangle. Opponent's turn: grab the pantleg on the bent knee, and move around to the opposite side to put your knee in ther person's ribs. Pull/pry enough to get your arm out, then get the "seatbelt" guard passposition.

The most trouble I was having with this one was that sitback... just couldn't seem to get the flow quick and smooth. Also, I think I should have been hiking my hips up higher and being more forceful going into the omoplata, but I think my partner was being a bit *too* helpful about diving into it willingly.

Had to sit out the first live roll- I was so tired! Then went once with one of the female white belts, and once with Angela. Angela got me two or three times with a complicated series of moves ending in a sub I never saw coming. It was like chess.... I can't really wrap my brain around planning more than a move or two in advance, but some people have dozens of moves lined up in their minds. It really showed up the difference between Angela's level and mine. I hope that when I am at her level, I will be able to play better chess on the mat.

I tried the takedown of the day on her and F'ed it up, but good for me for attempting it.