Friday

We are stuck within a system that gives all the power to the mind, and just the leftovers to the body. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Didn't get any training done on Thursday, spent the entire day writing.

I suspect I have some degree of undiagnosed bipolar disorder, but I have learned over time how to harness aspects of it for the powers of good. When I'm in a groove (writing, working forms, housecleaning, whatever) and being really productive, it pays to just ride that train out and squeeze it for all it's worth. I can go twice around the clock on a task like gangbusters, and get a lot done. If I stop or divert, I tend to lose the momentum and never get back to the job. I got a lot done on my Work In Progress (to be henceforth referred to as WIP) yesterday. This run began with reading over some random scraps from different parts of the story that I had already written, and thinking- instead of "This is crap" and shitcanning it all (as often happens)- thinking, "Wow, this is great. Me write good." ;)


The flip side of this, of course, is that once the wave peters out, I'm done. Hope I don't lose all motivation for the WIP.



Friday: 134.5
FOD: Kiu 2.

Felt so guilty about my Thursday laziness that I went in on Friday lunchtime even though it is a workday. Brock was teaching.

From standup- armdrag setup. Slap opponent's left hand inward with your right hand and immediately step in (your foot between hir feet) to grab inside of hir left bicep with your left hand. You are side by side and hip to hip. Yank on bicep and make sure your leg is befouling hir stance as you jerk hir forward.

Note that of one of the opponent's feet is in front of the other when you being, you want to attack the arm on the same side as the forward foot.

This felt good. I felt like I was truly grokking on both a physical and mental level the way the arm and leg attacks were cooperating. It was easy to get the opponent off balance. Almost accidently took him down a couple times. :)


From standup: grab 1 lapel and 1 elbow. Step on hip on the side that you have the elbow. Drop onto back, swing out sideways with your leg out. Pull back in so that you are sideways to opponent. drop elbow, grab opponent's ankle. Hip up and place your butt on opponent's foot. Remove far foot from hip and place on opponent's far knee. remove near foot from hip and hook leg around opponent's near leg with your leg to the outside and your foot on the inside of hir knee. Push with the foot that you have on opponent's knee, to spread hir stance out. Sit up and hug opponent's leg. DO NOT REMOVE THE FOOT FROM THE KNEE!!!! Use the hand holding the lapel to feed the lapel to your opposite hand, which is behind opponent's knee. (Your arm goes ABOVE your own leg, not below.... for some reason I keep wanting to stick my arm under my own leg). Grab opponent's arm on the side that you are pushing the knee, so s/he can't post. Pull lapel, push knee, yank arm and cause opponent to face-plant. Let hir weight pull you upright and on top.

I was working with a really great white belt partner who had done the same technique yesterday, so was good at it. He was also very encouraging near the end, as we drilled this same technique for the ENTIRE class, and after about the 70 millionth time, I began to get very tired (which translated to sloppy and stupid). We repped it so often that I began to try it on the stupid side, even though it was a pretty complex multi-step technique. After a bazillion reps, the stupid side got better than the standard side- which happens sometimes. Figured out that the reason this time was that on the stupid side, my right arm was manipulating the lapel-feeding step, and my right arm is much less clumsy than my left. Same arm was the dominant during the dumping step, so made it less clumsy and more strong.]

Had to leave right after the drills, since I was WIPED- and also wanted to catch a nap before work.