Don't let go of the pants!

When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, then they do not know how to nurture their environment or how to rule their world- which is saying the same thing. Human beings destroy their ecology at the same time that they destroy one another. From that perspective, healing our society goes hand in hand with healing our personal, elemental connection with the phenomenal world. –Chogyam Trungpa, Shambala: the Sacred Path Of the Warrior


Despite exhaustion and soreness, my growling and complaining stomach forced me from my bed very early this morning. This frustrates me. I did eat half a chicken breast right before I went to bed. I don't want to eat a lot of calories right before lying down, especially when I'm dieting. But nor do I want my already-poor sleep to be disturbed by my stomach yelling "GET UP and FEED me!"

Had to baby-oil my neck and jaw- gi burn to the max! I really hope we're not doing any gi choke drills in class today.

Almost skipped lunchtime class- was still tired, sore, feeling a little off. But I did go, and I'm happy that I did.

Today's technique had 42,878 steps. The prof said it had 10, but he was combining a bunch of them.  He was being really patient with me today, and I was doing fairly well (with Herculean mental effort), but I really started to lose my shit near the end when I got tired and my brain just began freezing up, as it tends to do when it gets too full.

Anyone who has read more than 3 entries in my blog probably knows that "DON'T LET GO OF THE PANTS" is a recurrent theme in my jiu jitsu career, which just has not fully filtered through my skull as of yet despite many fervent efforts. Today was another chapter in my stubborn pants-releasing obsession, although it was kind of amusing to learn that I'm not the only one.

I made a beeline for Justin for drilling, and was relieved that he seemed agreeable to that... he is not a small guy- medium-sized- but everyone else in there today was a rhinocerous.

Opponent in turtle. You sprawl on hir shoulders (head to head), place your left hand crossways on the left side of hir neck, and spin to that side so that you are side by side. reach your rt hand under hir armpit, gable-grip around your partner like a Miss America sash, and roll to your left hip, bringing hir with you. Your bottom (left) leg is bent beneath opponent so that just your knee sticks out in front of hir belly. Throw your rt leg over hir torso. (NOT low enough down so that s/he can grab your foot in half guard.)

Open opponent's rt collar and feed to your left hand. (Always I dither about which side... note that this way has my arm down, making a "pillow side" for opponent's head, which is usually how I want it- thanks Bryan.) Grab the pantleg with your rt hand. It may be helpful to paint that hand with Superglue first, so that you don't let go of the pants.

Get your left knee under you. (This was the hardest part for me... I kept finding myself wallowing on my hip like a beached whale, leg folded under me, unable to get up). You want your rt foot on the mat at this point. (people with normal size legs may well have their foot on the mat from the outset, but with me, this was the soonest opportunity I could possibly get it down there.) With that knee on the mat, Turn your left foot out near opponent's head.

Roll to a standing squat just long enough to fall back on your butt. Do not roll onto your back or side. DO NOT LET GO OF THE PANTS!!!

Bring left leg around opponent's shoulder. both of your legs are now wrapped around hir trunk. If you can capture an arm or two, so much the better. DO NOT LET GO OF THE PANTS.

Lean back and choke. Guess what you don't let go of? That's right, let's all say it together, kids- THE PANTS!!!!!!!

Variation A: If opponent grabs your sleeve and pulls your elbow over hir head to defend the choke, you grab that same arm and keep it. Swing leg over opponent's head. Switch to armbar. What do you still have in a death-grip in your sweaty, white-knuckled right fist? The pants, you say? No kidding?!

Variation B: Now your opponent links hir hands together to try to defend the armbar. Now you are allowed to do the unthinkable and pry your hand off those pants. Switch your hands, now your right hand grips opponent's bicep. (Not sleeve- this is another common error of mine, I grab the gi and then the opponent just squirms around inside it like a ferret in a sack and gets away...) Lift your leg off hir face and quickly slide your left hand under hir neck to grip the back of the gi collar.

Use these two grips in tandem with a powerful twist of your body to hoist the opponent into a sitting position and either pull you to hir, pull hir to you, or a combo of both. hir butt should be snugged right into your crotch. Now you have hir back and can do a variety of unpleasant things to hir with your arms (including sinking that clock choke in again).

Justin seemed likewise a bit overwhelmed by the complexity of this sequence. He kept letting go of the pants, prompting the Prof to remind him about sixteen times. I felt his pain. Finally I began to stage-whisper to him as I took turtle position- "Don't let go of the pants!" "Right!" he stage-whispered back. As he grabbed the pants, I said, "Now don't let go of those pants!" "Not letting go of the pants!" he responded. We continued this patter throughout the drill, amid a few giggles, but by God we quit letting go of the damn pants. I hope Carlos didn't think we were horsing around too much- but honestly, we NEEDED that level of accountability.

One roll with Justin- he is doing really well, good technique and no muscling, so I didn't hand him stuff easily but I did give pointers as we rolled.

Then I was exhausted and tried to slouch off the mat, but Pat ambushed me and tried to single-leg me, so I tried to guillotine him and then tried to throw him, and we rolled around for a little bit. Then I *really* was cooked and had to go.