Del a Heeva

Often, the obsession for being fair and objective under all circumstances transforms our mind into a tribunal. We want tangible proofs and objective evidence to believe in what we already know. Unfortunately, intuition is not objective and offers no proofs. It travels on tracks that are much too fast to wait for the painfully slow speed at which logical analysis moves. Rational understanding arrives at the finish line hours later (if it arrives at all), only to confirm what intuition has already revealed to us. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


Ha ha, I spoke too soon about my kicked knee being "just fine". I woke up about a dozen times during the night because I shifted my leg (I'm a very restless sleeper) and placed it in a painful spot. There's a large ouchie bruise on the inside of the knee. While MM was poking and rubbing it, did he shift the bruise from the front bottom kneecap to the inside??? I'm pretty sure I took the kick on the front. Well, it's better to have the injury on the inside, else I wouldn't be able to kneel on that knee very well right now for BJJ.

Friday Form Of the Day: Wood Monkey

WIP: What I thought was going to be a paragraph of filler somehow turned into at least one full page of drama that really added to the story.
I do not want any "filler" in my story at all. I just want to write the juicy parts and link them together. = All juicy, no filler.
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Saturday FOD: Chen Dao
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Sunday FOD: Hurricane Hands. Note that the ankle kicks- right first, then left.
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MOnday FOD: Three Step Arrow fragment
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Tuesday FOD: Leopard At Dawn
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Thursday lunchtime BJJ at GB Belle.

All spars. Both Johns, Glenn, some white belt guy with a couple of stripes (went with him twice). On the bottom a lot. All of them (except for the white belt) were being really good about getting on top and then just removing ALL the space as if they were sealing me in shrinkwrap. I simply could not move *anything*, and then they just leisurely set up armbars. If they couldn't finish the armbar, they wristlocked me (both Glenn and the smaller of the Johns).

The wristlocks were quite a reminder of the fact that I simply can't rely on the fetal-position defense. The guys I'm most often working with- good blue belts- are going to wristlock me if they can't get anything else.
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Basics class followed by competition class, GB Belle.

Basics: standing guard pass drills, with gradually varying options for the bottom person. Then some rolling.

Note- that sweep from bottom half guard that Ben is constantly getting on me- to defeat it, I must 1)stop him from getting the toe under my thigh... and that toe can be pretty darn subtle sneaking in there... or 2)if he's already got the toe in, I must narrow my base and squeeze his other leg between my thighs. The danger here is that this leaves me very vulnerable any other sweep, so I have to be ready to switch back like lightning, or do something else. After he did it to me about 4 times in a row, I stopped him and made him show me what to do against it.   :P 

Comp: De La Riva (or if you are Brazilian, "Del a Heeva") sweep: You sitting, opponent standing, you have both of hir wrist cuffs and your feet on hir hips. You want to be practically sitting on hir rt foot. Let go with your left hand and grab hir rt ankle. Move your rt foot to hir left knee and your left foot is underhooking hir thigh (from around the back). If you are a normal person, you can stretch the opponent out and topple hir. If you have mutant-like stubby legs, you must use that underhooking leg to BUCKLE hir knee.  In either case, keep hold of the leg and do a tactical lift. OR......

Figure-4 your legs on opponent's bottom leg (s/he is now lying on hir side facing you where you dumped hir after the Del a Heeva). Grab hir pantleg and the back of hir belt. Dive straight over hir back (roll on the shoulder nearest hir head). If you do this correctly, you end up right on hir back. You may have to shrimp into postition (I didn't). Then some rolling.

I had a discouraging day today. I have really been struggling badly with depression and obsessive downer thoughts about last fall's traumas- this is around the anniversary of that, and I'm frustrated and depressed that I'm still having such a hard time with this. It can be really hard to have a productive MA class with this garbage going on in my head and heart. I got plowed royally by everybody today and was getting to a very frustrated and dispairing place with it.

I do feel like I'm getting to a place very soon where there's going to *have* to be a "level-up". My old game and old habits are simply not working any more, so it's going to force me to go someplace new whether I want to or not. If I can plod through this particular emotional valley, I feel like there is better jiu jitsu on the other side someplace.

I look *SO* like a domestic violence advertisement tonight. Not only do I have the usual array of fingerprint bruises all over me, but Kelly gave me a huge ugly bloody split lip. She also hurt my knee with one of those Del a Heeva's, but that wasn't her fault- her legs are a lot longer, and she just stretches me out hard. Carlos was really pushing her buttons tonight, on purpose- I could tell he was trying to push her envelope with the type of criticism that usually makes her cry. She had the about-to-cry face a few times, but sistah did *NOT* cry, nor did she shut down- she answered his questions with Yes Sir No Sir, and kept it together. Good for her. She also kicked my ass. Gotta give credit where it's due.

Hey, Katie ("A Skirt On the Mat") was promoted to brown!!! Woohoo!