Elbow stands

Having a perfect body is not nearly as important as learning to listen to its voice.
-Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Sunday FOD: Silken Needle

Monday FOD: Box Form. I didn't do it, because for some reason my knee decided to go out. I didn't *do* anything at all to it; I was just walking around like normal, and then- couldn't walk. 12 hrs later, the same. RRRRRrrrrrrr.


Wednesday: 134.0 Knee seems fine today. I'm relieved, but perplexed.

Mindful of how low-energy I've been some of these mornings, and my subsequent suspicion that my 1-cup, 290-cal breakfast isn't quite getting the job done, I nuked an egg right before leaving for class. I seemed to hold up okay today, so I think I'll keep doing that.

Lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle. Pull guard from standup. (Note: do not get lazy about the elbow grip, or Bryan will grab your foot. Bryan also feels that I am showing poor form by slamming down on my back the way I do)

After pull guard: cross collar choke or kimura sweep.

The cross collar choke- You can use the sleeve to yank your opponent closer so that you can sink grip #1. Make sure to angle body a little when you get the 2nd grip, and also make sure to use your legs to pull the opponent down to your chest just before you choke. You can't really get that first grip too deep- Bryan was getting it deep enough that he was actually sliding it down the lapel again as he began to choke. This did not hinder his effectiveness a smidge.

The kimura sweep: I have a bad habit of gripping the sleeve at the elbow. There are several better options- and note that that one will not work at ALL in no-gi. Rodrigo also wants us follow the opponent's torso right up and attack with this *AS* the opponent is posturing up as soon as the guard is closed- do not do a "reset" pause; go ahead and hit him while he's focused on posturing.

We also did some fireman's carry setups from standing. Once again I had a severe blonde moment as far as which lapel to grip *and* which knee to kneel on. It didn't help that when Bryan repped it, he was doing it on the opposite side as Rodrigo had done it. Rodrigo had to come over and walk me through it about five times, while everybody else waited. He wasn't nasty about it- although Mother Theresa couldn't be faulted for losing patience with me when I do this sort of thing repeatedly- but I was mortified. And of course the more distressed I get, the more my brain freezes. I truly have some kind of learning disability related to the left/right spacial awareness thing. I wish I knew how to get better with this.

Lots of reps of the pull-guard-choke and pull-guard-sweep.

They are going to add a few extra 45-min comp classes which are going to be heavy on the "do one thing ten zillion times" method. SIDE CONTROL actually applauded when Rodrigo told us that.

One roll with Alex. Man, is he getting good. He is using technique and not muscle. His inside toe hooks are phenomenal. His shrimp-outs cannot be resisted. When we were done, I told him that he is *totally* working at blue-belt level. That said, I did get on top some (tried for some more of those leg attacks too, although I continue to fail to finish). Was having a female dog of a time passing his guard... he would do one of those irresistable shrimps and get his knee(s) in there no matter how hard I tried to foil him... I did get a couple of passes, though.

I had to take a post-Alex break, and after that, there were no leftover people to roll with, so that was all I got to do today.



Circus school (acrobalance).

Got there a little early to beat traffic, and repped Box Form a few times (just the standard version, not CC's version). I found that I am doing the eye-level spear-hand strike with the left hand on both sides, which is probably wrong. When I started trying to fix that, I realized that I wasn't entirely certain if the cat-toe forward is supposed to be on the same side as the hand you are striking with. Opposing them would seem to make more sense from a stability perspective, but I found that that made things weird as regards to the step-turn afterward. This is where it SUCKS MUD to not have a kung fu teacher. I am going to have to try to just figure it out as best I can, and live with it- instead of being able to find out how to do it RIGHT.

We worked on some handstands, handstands on blocks, and something new to me- the elbow stand. This is very intriguing. It's more difficult than a headstand, but not as difficult as a handstand. Note that the hands are very close to each other, fingers flared, and the elbows are out- so you are making a triangle shape. The back can be bowed- James was bowed to a severe degree.

Supported cartwheels- I seem to have gotten my crappy entry fixed somewhat, but Jenny feels that I am committing the same sin on the exit- namely, I look at my hand (I was not aware that I was doing that) turn my belly downward, and essentially do a roundoff out of the technique instead of a cartwheel. I was able to clean that up tonight, although it was good to have James basing- I think part of that turnout is a trust issue, and I knew James wasn't going to drop me. Also note that you have to straighten the arm on the OPPOSITE side as you are dismounting,and push hard off of it. The cartwheels are much easier when you do them faster- but I wanted to get my form errors fixed before I started speeding.

I did some cathedrals, triangles, and people-stacking with a new guy. He was really wobby on the planks, but we did very well on everything else, go figure. My first impulse was to make him stay with the plank until he got more solid on it- but once we got out of that position, everything got a lot more balanced- and honestly I didn't want to do planks all night, so we just bit the bullet.

Plank to shoulder stand to triangle to supported handstand with James. This was really tricky from the triangle to the handstand transition. We all wanted to pike, but you have to stay straight.