"Relaxed Jiu jitsu"

So often I have witnessed things I would never have believed possible that I am more than willing to keep my mind open to the idea that our bodies are home to forces that we don’t fully comprehend. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

Friday evening no-gi at Sleeper. Still punishingly hot. It was good to not be wearing a heavy coat and long pants, but the tradeoff is that you're working in an ocean of sweat. We kept moving around on the mat to find a spot that wasn't a skating rink of sweat, but it was a losing battle.

I had been noticing during the cardio this morning at GB that that rear high right side rib injury is definitely- well, THERE. It doesn't seem serious, but it's making me anxious that it's right in the same spot as that really bad one last year that sent me to the chiropractor (thousands of $, no insurance) and kept me off the mat for several weeks. My tai chi teacher  poked around in there last time she was here, and felt strongly that all the parts were not in their proper places. I'm going to be really careful of this for a while. Tonight I told everybody repeatedly that I have a rib injury, and to please be nice. They all were, although one new gal dived into side control once and kneed me right in the spot. **OW**.

I was sluggish in warmups.

Then a little basic guard break and backing out, breakdance pass to side control.

Sparring. I was in my typical form, trapped on the bottom and ineffectual. Terry seems to have made it a personal mission to try to poke and prod me out of my attitude problem. He is always on my case. He kept ragging me to keep moving, be faster, be more aggressive. As I observed the other day, I do continue to set up subs (and everything else) too slowly. After he goaded me a while, I rushed in on him and guillotined him off the handshake. Then I got that head-and-arm choke from side control (and remembered this time to hop off the other side to finish it).

Any claim of "I'm done for the night" continues to hold no water around here. They all taunted me back on the mat for another few rounds. Lamont continues to ride me hard in both senses of the word. I feel like they are all ganging up one me to try to punch me through this attitude hurdle. It's probably a good thing, but this type of change is never fun or easy. I know that Cindy is frustrated with people who cry on the mat- and while I have never cried on the mat (even when badly injured), I'm sure she is displeased with my attitude- I would like to not disappoint her.

I wonder how I can reconcile ramping up the speed and aggression with trying to pace myself so that I don't collapse 15 min into class. I may have taken the whole "relaxed jiu jitsu" thing too far.

By the time I got home from class (by the time I left, actually), I was ill. Headache, nausea, chills/sweats. Not sure if it was the heat (I was drinking plenty of water), overextending myself too much, menstrual cramps (you'd think all that frickin' cardio would have headed those off), something I ate or didn't eat (I had the single egg on the way to class, but was feeling hypoglycemic and drained halfway through)..... but I had to drag myself home, chug some Pepto Bismol and pop ibuprofin, and lie in the tub (first cool, then hot) till after midnight.

Polled Mythic Scribes to see if anyone has any cute ideas for killing the giant constrictor.