Friday

The type of physical awareness we have and the kind of relationship we maintain with our bodies influence our personality at least as much as the kind of books we read.
-Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

Pic- that is Kelly (bottom) and Amanda (top).

Thursday evening: circus school (arial silk). I think I made the right decision to limit circus school to twice a month (one acrobalance, 1 silk), as that freed up both the time and the energy to get to Cindy's a few times- which is the more important priority. I'am already feeling kind of sore from the dreel-o-rama at lunchtime today. Probably will be worse in the morning. Carlos had told us that we were all going to be sore from today until PanAms. He does not keed. I can't wait till the PanAms are over!

Single footlock in the air- clumsy clumsy. I sat on the foor and repped the leg motions with the tail end of the silks a few times, and only then was I able to manage it in the air.

Hip hang- managed it from a stand, although my efforts to do the lovely flying entry to this technique were an utter fail. On the list to work on next time.

The slide down the silks where you look like you're crucified- I can't remember what this is really called- I was able to do this for the first time tonight. It took me four or five tries, and now I have silk burn in my armpits and on the tops of my feet. But I did it. Feet need to be right under you, with both butt and chest stuck out. The hardest part it keeping the descent smooth- mine was hitching quite a bit the first few tries. You can't adjust your foot placement once you've started. If the foot placement is not perfect, you go plunging to the floor and die, because you are not holding on with anything else.

Russian climb: silk goes inside the knee and outside the foot. I can never retain that for some reason.

Flying Dutchman- a bit better than last time; I might have even better luck with this if we didn't always do it at the end of class- when I'm really tired, and brain-fried, and my arms feel like overcooked spaghetti.

My poor posture is a decided hindrance in this class. The teacher poked and prodded my torso for a good while as I hung on the silks, and I tried to tuck my tailbone under and tilt my hips where she wanted them. When she finally pronounced it correct, it felt so unnatural- and seemed to be using several muscles that I did not realize existed. These brand-new muscles are dismayingly weak.



Friday lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle. Dreels only, since I had to work Friday evening.

Worked with Kristen- single leg setups, double leg setups, shoulder throw setups. Armbar from guard, then armbar from guard transitioning to omoplata. I had to spend most of the drilling time explaining both of these to Kristen, and then she was still doing something not quite right with the omoplata- which I couldn't figure out exactly where the problem was. I had to grab SIDE CONTROL after class and ask him to walk us through it, which he was kind enough to do.

One short roll with Kristen, who has little technique yet but is strong and squirmy. One with Angus, who showed me a cool escape from a failed triangle/armbar wherein you are being stacked. Swim the arm closest to the opponent back behind hir leg and move your own hips to follow it. he dumped me with it three times in a row. At first it seemed like he was moving *me*, because I had to take a dive every time. But when he demo'ed it, he was just moving himself. Note that I need to ask him to drill that with me a few times next time we meet. We didn't have time today because Kristen and I were working on that omoplata thing.

Kristen is the one who took the photos of Carlos that I have posted for the last 2 days. I complimented her on her photography. I saved a lot of her photos from last weekend's tourney, and will be using some of them on my blog. She's going to try to get a press pass for PanAms.

Sore! Knees, neck, back, thighs, rt shoulder. That darn right shoulder, AGAIN.

Unfortunately, I lost the dice roll in the Mythic Scribes battle challenge, so my Monkey stylist character is going to lose round 2. Bummer. Now I have to write the second half of the fight, and write my own defeat!