"Don't theenk, just squat"

We must defend ourselves according to our opponents' ability, not their intentions.  -Koushun Takami


That is Prof Carlos, on the poster for July's Revolution!

Friday FOD: Plum Blosson Fist fragment. No longer have to think hard about this.

Saturday FOD: Long Qi. Uh, I *did* have to think about this, because the beginning is the same as the beginning of Little Red Dragon. I hate that.

Sunday FOD: Plum Blossom, again. I think I have 3 tokens for this one in the bowl. I'm taking this token out now.

Monday FOD: Chen Dao. Trouble with the weight shift just before the three 360 spins. It goes from a cat stance (rt toe fwd and up) to a step with the left foot, and I just couldn't reconcile the balance. Had to rep it about eight times before I was finally able to shut my brain off enough to just *DO* it- at which point it of course went fine.

Exceedingly odd interlude Tuesday…. First I dreamed that I had moved, and was checking out a new BJJ school. The mat space was only about 5 x10. Everyone was doing a lot of stretches and hardly any BJJ. When I looked down at myself, I was wearing hospital scrubs instead of a gi.

Then, another steakhouse nightmare. This one was very different, and yet SSDD. I was working the buffet, and some of my BJJ classmates came in. Apparently they knew one of my steakhouse bosses, and before long Pat and I were demo'ing some BJJ on my former boss- on the restaurant floor. I tried to RNC him, and when that didn't work, I did a gooseneck on his wrist till he tapped. It sounds as if this should be some kind of triumphal thing with an 80's pop soundtrack, and I walk out of there never to have a steakhouse nightmare again…. But instead, after tapping my former boss, I just went back to the buffet. The new guys hadn't labelled the cheese or put out spoons for the chili, and the crouton bowl was totally empty. Instead of exorcising my former boss/dictator with my mad BJJ skillz, I felt guilty for horsing around instead of making sure the croutons were full.

Things not looking very rosy scheduling-wise for CK's upcoming visit. It looks like for the first half of her stay, she will be engulfed by her Tai Chi workshop with *her* teacher, and for the second half of her stay I will be engulfed with work. We'll see if we can work out a time or two.

Tuesday FOD: Dance Of Life

Thursday lunchtime BJJ, Bellevue GB.

Shoulder throw setup drills, two different arm configurations. 

Spider guard pass drills: grip inside of pantleg, snap elbows together, push to side, Step to other side. Your leg must be right against opponent's leg, so that s/he can't catch X guard or De La Riva.

Same lead-in, but after the elbow snap, switch grip to grab opponent's RT pantleg with your Rt hand. Grab opponent's rt wrist  with your other hand. (NOT the sleeve, the WRIST) Do not step forward. Instead, step the *OUTSIDE* foot back. (Terribly counterintuitive; also this gave me fits with my left/right confusion.) Pull both of your hands apart to yank opponent sideways. This presents a beautifully unguarded set of ribs right to your pointy, heavy knee. The fact that you stepped the outside leg back means that _this_ knee is perfectly placed for KOB. "Don't theenk, just squat!" Remember to keep the straight leg out of the opponent's reach.

Then: add an armbar.  DO NOT LET GO OF THE PANTS!  Also, yank the opponent's arm straight up before you step into the armbar.

Start sitting back to back, on GO, try to get side control. Angela side-controlled me in about seven seconds the first two times, then I started getting the hell out of there on "go" so that she couldn't spin around on her butt and immediately clamp me into her guard. After that, it took her maybe fifteen or twenty seconds.

Same thing, with a white belt guy. I clamped onto his neck just long enough to jump guard on him, and the Prof started yelling at me, "No submeesions!" I yelled back, "I know, I was just trying to get him in guard!" Then he started teasing me that I just wanted to give the guy an extra throat squeeze. Well, it took him a few minutes to get out of my closed guard, then he ended up on top, stuck in my half guard. He spent a good three minutes trying to free himself from that, whereupon he tried to mount, and I grabbed half guard on the other side. "Well, that was productive." he grunted, and we both laughed- then he set about trying to free the other leg, which he did a better job at this time- previous experimentation having taught him what worked and what didn't.