Wednesday

No man, however civilized, can listen for very long to African drumming, or Indian chanting, or Welsh hymn singing, and retain intact his critical and self-conscious personality. –Aldous Huxley



Saturday: 132.5

Finger is significantly swollen- not just at the kinky tip, but the entire length. Slightly discolored. Hurts. Can't close a fist completely.

I also have lots of funny green bruises on the fronts of my shins. MM's shins and knees don't feel like they're made out of cement, the way CK's do- but he kicks a LOT.

It took 2 days for the bodily-backlash from Arial Silk to show up- sore hip flexors and thighs! Ow! It's good, though- CK is always complaining about my tight hip flexors, and God knows the thighs can always use more work. Both arial silk and acrobalance involve a lot of SPLITS- or at least as close as one can get. I have never been able to do the splits- either the Chinese kind or the front-to-back kind- even as a high school cheerleader. I can get close, but no joy. On the silk, I can do double foot locks and use my body weight to try to squeeze another inch out of it.

Drum circle- went well. My sleep cycle was all messed up this weekend, and my brain was not cooperating as far as getting creative with rhythms and chants (especially as I was confined to stick drums), but luckily the old standbys served. I was being conservative with both fequency and volume on the bell drum so that it would not become obnoxious, but at one point the didge player crawled over and propped his microphone right under the bell drum- so I guess he thought I should be louder! There was a new flute player there, and after the circle closed, he came over and told me that he would have liked to hear more from the bell drum. When I told him that I was trying to not dominate the circle with it, he laughed and said that he had been minimizing the flute for the same reason. That was funny, because *I* had been wanting to hear more from the flute! It's usually the wrong people who are anxious about overusing an instrument. The truly obnoxious ones are oblivious!

I tried a shamanic beat on Ascha, my big frame drum, as I usually do one time per circle. It's always interesting to see what happens with that. This time, they did not know what to do with it, but it got them very excited nonetheless. They tried to join in, and it was complete and utter chaos.... but they seemed to be grooving on it, and two people got up to dance, so I kept going for a while even though I had to work hard to tune out the chaos and keep the beat!

(Bell drum is in the picture, in case you don't know what a bell drum is...)



Sunday FOD: Frolic Of the Five Animals. I didn't work on the mirror form. Can *almost* make a fist today.

Monday FOD: Tai Chi short form. I didn't do it. Sigh. I'm having a really hard time disciplining myself right now with this.



Wednesday lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle.

I wore my newly-tailored GB gi for the first time- the sleeve cuffs are the most annoying part now; they are so wide and gaping that everyone loves to grab them.

Finger did mostly okay; I still can't do a real fist, but I can grip as long as I do it carefully.

Warmups- huff, puff, huff.... oh, cardio.....

Double-legs.... my breakfalls still need work; once I hit the back of my head on the mat. (Eyeroll)

You double-leg, partner guillotines and pulls guard. You cartwheel to the OPPOSITE side of partner's body before he can close guard, pry your head out, and take side control. If you go to the wrong side, you choke yourself. (You only do this once before you learn.) Partner shrimps out and closes guard (or gets spider guard, or whatever s/he wants).

You double-leg, partner tries to guillotine. You change to single-leg (on the same side that you are getting guillotined), pull the knee to your chest, swing your body out to the side, sit down, and pull/shoulder your partner into falling forward. Partner must let go of the guillotine to avoid doing a face-plant on the mat. This took several slow-mo's before I caught the hang, but once I did, it was nice. Luckily I was working with Marc; we do well at helping each other work through things. Prof. Carlos' demo was funny because he tried to tell us that this technique was a little bit "complicated"- he tried to say "complicated" about five times and couldn't quite wrap his tongue around it. Finally I interjected, "Hard".

Open mat, I rolled with one of the new white belt women, Moe. She is really, REALLY strong. She claimed to have no martial arts experience. After rolling for a couple minutes and feeling how muscular she was, I was like, "Okay, wait a minute here..." then she fessed up to dance. That explains it. She has little technique, but enough basics that combined with the incredible strength and the extra weight, she was a real challenge. She's gonna be trouble as soon as she gets a little technique! We kept going till two o'clock- even Rodrigo left, and told us to lock the door behind us.



Acrobalance. I decided that in light of the persistantly painful and unreliable right shoulder, I would be judicious about what I tried to base- although I continue to wish for more practice at it. I declined to do table-stacking unless I was on the apex, but I did base some cathedrals and some plank-to-walkovers. My balance was a mixed bag. Basing is much more challenging for me than flying, which is part of the reason I want to do more of it.

Noticed during cartwheel lifts that one hip was much more flexible than the other. When I was supposed to drop my left hip, the leg went right down like a dead log. When I was supposed to drop my right hip, I relaxed it- and very little happened. That leg just kept sticking out stiffly.

I didn't get to do a whole lot tonight because there were a lot of people, and a lot of beginners. My good balance, and the fact that I'm not afraid to be dropped, makes me a good person for the virgin bases to practice on. I'm heavier than several of those wispy little girls, though... a couple of times, I was like, "You should probably do your first run on this other girl who looks like she weighs about 30lb less than I." It's a lot more about the correct form than about weight.... but with people (and I'm including myself) who aren't very experienced at this, our form is not always correct enough to support a good deal of weight, and so 30lb more or less really *does* make a difference at this level. I'm seeing that acrobalance is like some forms of partnered dance- in that when you're the one being lifted and thrown, there is a pressure (overt or subtle; from others and/or from yourself) to attempt to drop weight and be as light as possible.

Some pain in the upper back tonight. Also fighting a headache (which had begun halfway through BJJ class earlier; perhaps as a result of that flubbed breakfall) all the way through class.