Bear Trap

The personality of those who know how to come in contact with this dimension changes even in everyday life, during the ordinary state of consciousness. It changes the way we move. It changes the way we speak. It changes the way we face life. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Evening BJJ at GB Bellevue. Prof Carlos is always happy when he sees me come in for the 2nd time in one day, but sometimes he wants to tease me, so he was demanding to know what the heck I was doing back there again. I told him that I had missed him. He really liked that answer. (hee hee hee) He told me that he takes a 40-min nap between afternoon and evening classes. I said (aside from the fact that it typically takes me much longer than 40 min just to fall asleep), that I've tried taking a nap between classes and found that that just made me MORE tired. (I had that pre-class egg again, though... and felt fairly okay for a two-a-day.)

Allison was there too- I haven't seen him in a long, long time. It was fun to watch him rolling with Prof Carlos. The prof did some of the same stuff to him that Allison always does to me- the stretching-you-out from underneath with his long, long legs. Carlos has legs even longer than Allison's. Allison is also one of those people that grins delightedly all the way through the spar; and if he's getting his ass kicked, he grins even more.

Double-legs for a long time. Long enough that Kelly had to quit because she thought she was going to puke. I felt bad, since it was because of the way I was ramming my shoulder into her belly with each rep. But I have been conditioned very thoroughly to posture up hard when I do a double-leg, so that I don't get guillotined, and the shoulder-ram to the belly is just collateral damage (what we used to refer to as "bonus violence" in my former Kung Fu class).

A couple of weird techniques I have never seen before, and struggled with quite a bit (Advanced class is sometimes just too advanced for me, and tonight was one of those nights- sigh- I would have liked to get another dose of the stuff we did this morning).

Start standing, with opponent sitting, hir left knee up and elbow on knee to guard. Go side to side a bit and let opponent switch the wall from side to side. Then step in and squat with your foot right to hir crotch and shove your arm under hir guard armpit all the way to the shoulder as if giving hir a hug. Grab hir posting wrist (NOT at the elbow) and wrap it around your own belly as you turn the both of you and push hir down on hir back. Take side control, Bringing your bottom leg back first (this was the hardest part- I always had to pause there and think about it) and then rolling belly down. If you do get caught in half guard, it's fairly easy to get out, and you have your other foot to pry with if need be.

Same thing, only when you squat, your knee is pointed right at the middle of opponent's chest instead of out to the side like before. Then when you push hir down, you take front mount. I had to call the prof over and ask for clarification on where the knee went, because the first time I tried it, I had my knee out to the side as before. If I was Kitty Pryde and could pass my knee through Kelly's torso to get the mount, that would have been fine- but since I'm not, I knew something was wrong.

Positional sparring from the aforementioned squatting half-hug- pass guard versus sweep ONLY. I hate "sweep only" because my sweeps are awful. Kelly and I were both mostly ending up in bottom half guard. I told her that I was giving her her jiu-jitsu nickname: "BEAR TRAP". That's what it feels like to have your leg in her half guard. Good luck getting it out. Sometimes when she's clamped right on my actual knee, I almost have to tap right there. Her sweeps are really good. She also dumped me on my ass once when I was trying to do a standing pass. She is the same weight as me- she has a longer-leg advantage, but really, she is just plain damn GOOD. Strong and technical and aggressive- I can see why she's a good competitor.

One roll with Kelly. She tapped me; I kinda gave it to her because she had a good technical sub on and then let go inmmediately when she saw me squinch my face up. I thanked her for that- but said that I just squinched my face up because it was starting to hurt, but that she could go ahead and crank- till I tapped. I *might* have been able to escape, but she deserved that one, I thought.

One roll with the prof. We spent a little time in standup again. I wonder if I should start leaping on him when he begins to stand up- I wonder if that's what he WANTS me to do. (Part of the problem here is that lunging at him in this fashion is a certain one-way ticket to getting summersaulted over his head in a humiliating way.

He wants me to not hold my guard hands out so far from my body when we're circling each other in standup, because he will just grab one and pull me with it. Also, note that if you grab his gi, and he throws a fold over your hand and starts to twirl, LET THE HELL GO because what he is doing is wrapping your hand up in the gi and you'll be lucky if your wrist doesn't break before he gets 360.

I choked him once with the collar-and-shoulder choke that I learned at Cindy's; it seemed like it was on quite well, but he wasn't tapping. I asked what I was doing wrong, and he said nothing, to keep cranking. He was actually starting to bubble at the lips a bit before he escaped. I think I almost tapped him that time (of course I know that he LET me get those grips in the first place...)

He mentioned to me the same thing I mentioned in this afternoon's writeup- that I need to, as he put it, "shop around" more. I go for a certain technique and get too fixated on getting THAT, and I fail to look around and notice what else might be more available. I am going in with a shopping list, and he wants me to look around and see what's "on sale" instead. I like that analogy.

During our roll, some white belt on the other end of the mat yelped and started rolling back and forth clutching his knee. We paused while the prof called "Are you all right?" The kid called back yes, so we started again, but half a minute later he was still writhing there clutching the knee, so I stopped and said to Carlos, "He looks like he might really be hurt." Carlos went over to check on him, then came back rolling his eyes a bit. "Seexteen years old. He has a LEG CRAMP." I said, "Sorry, I thought from his reaction that he popped his knee." Prof said, "Me too!"

After we finished, he said, "I deedn't hurt you, deed I?" I said, "Only my pride." You really do need to stay alert when you're rolling with him, because he does explosive movements and puts on subs fairly speedily. I always have a tap ready on the tip of my tongue- but he does a lot of things I've never seen the likes of before, so often I don't recognize the subs he's setting up.

Kelly "Bear Trap" got a second stripe tonight!