Thursday

The world would never have been the same had any of the Western prophets been struck by the same intuition that myth attributes to Bodhidharma. Probably, the entire Western culture would be drastically different. No rivalry between spirit and body. No tug-of-war between the soul yearning for Heaven and the body restraining it on Earth. Rather than wasting our energies quarreling with our bodies and with the natural world, we could let spirituality and sensuality dance cheek to cheek. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Friday FOD: Plum Blossom Fist. Note that the Leopard Fist section begins kneeling on the RIGHT knee.

Sat FOD: Box Form. Both versions. Did a micro-fu version in the break room while waiting for popcorn to pop- felt very powerful. Couldn't quite recapture the energy later while doing it with more focus, LOL. There's just something about this form, though. Little Red Dragon has cooler technique, Touch Bridge is more advanced. CC dismisses Box Form as beginner-level dross. I think I'd be hard pressed to even ID it as a Dragon form, if I saw it performed for the first time by someone who wasn't a Dragon stylist. It's got some kind of elusive spark in it, though.

Sun FOD: Hurricane Hands. Standard version a few times, a bit of the mirror version. Had to check a few things, but it was mostly still there.
This is the last stone in the bowl, time to start over.

Somnalist Trauma Theater offered up two "oldies but goodies" on Sunday as well as something a little different. The same: dreams about the principle villians in last fall's Trauma-rama (the more I try to just not think about those people, the more I think about them- and when I sleep, I DREAM about them). Also a rerun: a dream wherein my teeth are falling out. My mother read some dream-interpretation rag and insists that this always indicates a fear of growing old. I have some experience in dream interpretation myself, though- and things symbolize different meanings to different people. I'm fairly sure that this one, in my case, is a fear of being/feeling ineffectual/impotent/helpless. Which could go along with aging, but the two are not glued together by any means.

The different: Another violent attack/persecution adventure, but this time I had another person with me, and the attackers were firing at that person- not me. That distressed me, even though I have no idea who that person was.

Also worth noting: the restaurant nightmares are back.
When I was in high school and college, I worked for five years at a restaurant. It wasn't a pleasant job, nor was it a pleasant period of my life. For the following decade or so, I had recurring nightmares about working there. They showed up whenever I was feeling stressed, and were a reliable barometer of a point where I really needed to address the amount of tension in my life. I was so ready to forget that resturant, though. Eventually I started to wonder if I was doomed to dream about that damn place for the rest of my life.

A few years after moving to Seattle, I ceased to dream about the restaurant. It has been something like seven years since I last had one of those, and that was a relief. Well, now they are back. I've had at least a dozen of them in the last six months. The most recent was a few days ago, when I woke up with the certainly that I was employed both at my present job *AND* the restaurant- and I half-lunged out of bed in a panic that I was late for a shift at the latter- where the hell were my apron and nylons, and were they clean?!? Ugh.


Monday FOD: Kiu Two. Again.

One of the fantasy/sci fi creative writing forums I sometimes hang around in is doing a challenge project. You create two fighters, have them battle it out, and then the winner advances in brackets wherein you fight other writers. I had been discussing Praying Mantis and Monkey styles of Kung Fu in the "research" section of the same forum, so I decided to create characters from each style and have them duke it out on the page. I haven't gotten to writing the actual fighting yet, because my characters are still busy making snarky comments about the all other contestants and about each other. I'm hoping that I can get done soon and post my piece first- because that gives me carte blanche to make up whatever the hell I want about other people's characters- I'm creating backstories, sick rumors, giving them physical handicaps, all sorts of things that the other writers are just going to be stuck with if I post first. {evil chuckle}



Tuesday- 133.5. FOD: Northern Mantis Bo form. Done 3x with broom handle at work.

My lovely boss has denied two of my time-off-request dates for PSG (two from the middle of the week, of course). Now that I don't have my Kung Fu classes and events, PSG is normally the *only* time off I tend to ask for during the entire year. I registerd anyway- if you wait to get registration and plane tix till later, it costs hundreds of dollars more. She'd better figure something out. This is a stress I don't need, though.

Creative writing challenge is fun so far. I had my Mantis guy win the battle, but the Monkey guy walked off with the title because he bribed the ref. :D I also Tuckerized JB *and* Triin briefly, and thew in mention of the Bullshido forum, a put-down of Tae Kwon Do, and disparaging commentary about ring girls (recent hot topic on Jiu Jitsu Forums). Several of the other writers are incorporating the tidbits of backstory that I threw out into their own stories, so that's merry fun to see. Next I "fight" one of the other writers. I'll have at least one more fight to write and possibly as many as half a dozen. Winners are being chosen by dice roll, and each writer writes 1/2 of the scene.

I picked up my Gracified gi's from the tailor today. Yes, I have been assimilated. I'm not very happy about it, but it is a rule now.... and patching my gi's instead of buying new GB gi's is pushing it. Although after paying for the (really expensive!) patch kits and paying the tailor, I probably didn't save a whole lot. I really do not enjoy looking like a car in the Indy 500. At least the guy in the car is *getting* paid to look like a crazy quilt, instead of having to *PAY* to do it!


Thursday: 133.0

Somnalist Trauma Theater: spent most of the night trying to talk down a drugged out, morose guy who had a gun and knife and was threatening to use them on himself and on others around us. I hardly even mind these nightmares any more (well, the restaurant ones, I mind some) as long as they don't have people from last fall in them. Unfortunately, a few of those people showed up in this nightmare. Wonder if they would have gone away if I'd let the druggie shoot them.


Thuursday Lunchtime BJJ at Gracie Seattle. I am often not feeling very peppy to go to this class, but this is the second time I've gotten to roll with the Prof, so I should try to keep coming if just for that!

All spars, all the time today. All blue belts for me, except for Carlos. Glenn, Nelson (twice), some middle-eastern blue belt guy whose name I don't know, John (twice). Felt like I was doing medium-well... not too great, not too bad. A couple of people told me I was doing well, though, including the Prof- so I'll take it. He and I were doing a little stand-up again. Me trying to take him down is laughable, but I hope he at least appreciates my persistance. He says I should go for chokes more. I had let go of one that hadn't seemed to be working, and he asked "Why you let go?" He had thought it was on okay and I should have kept working at it.

Nelson already has 3 stripes on his blue belt. I said, "You must have been busting your ass in here the last year." He said, "They're giving them out like candy!" Then he said something about bribes.

John socked me in the jaw, and I ragged him a whole bunch about it... then he did it AGAIN, and he felt really bad. Then he klonked me in the jaw with his knee, and was ready to walk off the mat. By then I was cracking up- and I said, just keep going, I know you're not doing it on purpose. Told him that he needed to join the Muay Thai or boxing classes if he wanted to clobber people. Your control starts to do that when you're tired, and we had all been rolling hard for an hour and a half.

I had told him that I was going to call him on it if he started using strength on me. "Be technical." He has told me that he's working on that. He still used some strength on me, but less than he usually does- I could tell he was trying, and it was never eggregious enough to mention.

Glenn kept peeling and ripping my grips persistantly off his collar. Once he squeezed my fingers, and I ragged on *him*... told him that he was a big bully throwing his strength around and that's what everyone always says about him. That's funny because he's awesome to work with (and he knows I think that), and *very* technical- he never seems to be using any strength at all. He said that he knows I'm always going for chokes and that's why he doesn't want me to have that collar grip.

Two different people said that they were impressed with my back mount escapes today, and that they couldn't get/keep hooks in. I also shoulder-threw two people in slo-mo while we were on our knees, taking us from me in turtle and them on top to me in top side control. One of them was Nelson, which was gratifying, since he's a judo guy.

Carlos was eyeing my unbleached cotton Atama that had been Gracified at the tailor, but he didn't say anything. I hope they are not going to say anything about the colored ones. I didn't even do the bare minimum of patches, either- I went whole-hog with the LARGE size patch on the back, the EQUIPE patch under it, the big white GB strip on the front lapel, and the small round red patch on the shoulder. A couple of the other guys have slapped a medium round patch on the back of their unsanctioned gi's and called it good.