Perhaps even more than the dogma of scientific philosophies, the gloomy ghost of many different religious doctrines planted the seeds for the rejection of the body. Doctrines of renunciation according to which life is a sin to be amended. Doctrines born out of the fear to be truly alive. In their eyes, the Earth is nothing but a vale of tears, a place of suffering, nothing more than an obligatory stop on the way to reach better destinations. The body is a heavy burden pinning us to the ground, an obstacle on the way to Heaven. Not only are body and soul not in harmony, they are antithetical principles at war with each other. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path
Wednesday evening BJJ at Sleeper. I was excited to see two girls in the kids' class when I came in today; it has been way too testosterone-heavy lately! (When I commented, Cindy told me that her pee-wee class- the tiniest kids- was 2/3 girls!) The little three-year-old looks like she has good potential! I saw her spar, and she is aggressive and took direction pretty well for a three-year-old. Until she started to cry. But- potential! Cindy pointed to the little boy opposite her and said, "Go get 'im!" And man, she didn't need to be told twice- she charged the kid and grabbed him! It was cool to see! :)
You are in opponent's closed guard. Grab sleeve cuffs. Pull one arm to you and press the other to opponent's belly. Step up on the side that you have pulled the arm. Hips forward when you are standing. Switch your grip on the sleeve cuff so that it is going across your torso. Keep elbow in. (Note that you should keep that arm pulled out while you are standing up instead of waiting till you are on your feet and then trying to yank it taut (see Lamont, I *do* listen)). Push down opponent's knee and step back with the foot on the same side that you are pushing. Once you have knee to floor, scoot through with the NEAR knee over opponent's thigh. Or, option #2: Shrug opponent's non-floored leg over your shoulder and reach around to grab collar with that arm, then push hir knee to hir nose and ooze past, while keeping mucho weight down.
One roll with Jalen, who is still recovering from his back injury, so I still had to be careful of him. I have to bring my A game with Jalen, so this puts me at a disadvantage. I paused a couple of times while I was on top to ask him if he was doing okay, and I didn't put much weight on him- but I got the impression from Cindy that he might not admit when he's in pain, which means I have to be even *MORE* careful, because I can't trust him to tell me if it's too much. He was ready for my guillotine this time- he is catching onto my favorite tricks.
One really long roll with Lamont, who tooled on me as usual. I was starting to get a bit frustrated, so when he forcibly pulled my elbow into his closed guard, I said, "Dude, you are totally muscling me," to which he responded that if I was going to crossface the snot out of him, he was going to respond by muscling me. I then had to stop and ask for some clarification.
When I think of "crossface", what comes to mind is the way Alecia likes to hook her elbow around my jaw, bow my spine, and bend my neck backward as if she is trying to stuff my head up my own ass. It is very effective; it hurts like a motherf*cker and makes me immediately let go of everything and go meekly wherever she wants to move me because I am just trying to prevent my neck from being snapped. It also ticks me off. I really do not enjoy having that done to me, especially hard and rough- so I don't do it to others.
Turns out that the pressuring of the forearm against the jaw that I often do is considered "crossfacing" according to Lamont, so then I wanted to know if it is considered a douchebag move. He said no. I said that if he felt that deserved a response of muscling me, that was giving me the message that it was a douchebag move- and if it's a douchebag move, I want to be informed of that so that I don't do it any more. Honestly, if I'm really grinding it like that, I am unaware. That is not my intention, unless I'm trying to ezekiel-choke someone. Usually my forearm-in-the-throat tactic is (to my mind) placing it there and then torquing my elbow up against his jaw to try to force the guy to kink his head up and to the side, with the idea that he will then be less able to see- and less able to defend- whatever else I'm trying to accomplish. I didn't think I was being overly rough with it, though. I need to poll a few of my regular sparring partners and see if they think I'm being a jerk about that.
Anyway, Lamont insisted that it was not poor sportsmanship, but that he was taking it as a signal that I wanted to step up the competition a level- ergo, muscling. I said that that wasn't really fair- that we could both grind forearms into each other's throats, but he could muscle me and I do not have the option of muscling him in return. I'd rather have him do the same thing to me that I'm doing to him- partly so that I can see for myself if it's douchebaggy, and partly because it really frustrates me to be muscled (especially by people who are skilled enough to effortlessly clean my clock without resorting to that).
I informed him that he is a big mean bully, and he asked if I was going to write unflattering stuff about him on my blog tonight (I don't know how the heck he found my blog...). "If I write a bunch of good things about you, will you be nice to me?" He agreed. So I want everyone to know that LAMONT IS A ROCK STAR AND A BIG STUD WHO COULD MAKE RICKSON CRY LIKE A BABY. Trust me on this.
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