Wednesday

"I've had 56 students win gunfights in the past 5 years.  I also had two students that died because they were unarmed when they were attacked.  Carry your f***in gun." - Tom Givens (Rangemaster)



Now that my sinus infection is being medicated, hopefully soon I will 1)stop feeling like crap, 2)stop skipping classes due to congestion, headache and exhaustion, and 3)be able to smell my food again- I've gained a few pounds while I was ill.


  Amusingly enough, I was trying to do a good deed by entering a charity raffle, and I just won a "chocolate pizza". http://www.curlyribbonkreations.com/let-there-bechocolate.html   OMG!!!  Well, it would take a stronger woman than I to turn THAT down!!! Ha ha ha!!  Yes, pre-diabetes in a cellophane wrapper... but it was for CHARITY, so that gets a caloric free pass, right?


Monday Form Of the Day: Northern Mantis Bo form

Tuesday FOD: Spear Hand fragment


Wednesday lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle.


From standing: opponent attempts to double-leg you, you sprawl and catch guillotine. Opponent hugs one arm over your back and steps to the same side, stands as upright as possible, uses knee to break down the back of your knee, takedown to side control. Opponent places both elbows on the far side of your body and postures up to shuck the neck hold.


Person on bottom: bump up (DO NOT SHRIMP OUT!) so that you can take the arm nearest the opponent and place the palm on your ear. Turn (STILL! DO NOT SHRIMP OUT!) just enough so that you can get that near knee in to touch the elbow, Black Crane style. Now bring your OTHER leg up and over the head (DON'T SHRIMP OUT!), push opponent away with your legs, and replace full guard. If you can catch that arm as you bring the leg over, and scare your opponent into thinking you're going for an armbar, so much the better. S/he will posture up and basically help you return to full guard.


Can you guess what I couldn't stop myself from doing? Yes, for some reason I felt that my life depended on shrimping out. I also had a really hard time grokking where the arms were supposed to go at the beginning of that second sequence. Carlos came over and kept going over it with me again and again until we both started to get frustrated with one another. I really hate it when that happens; especially when I'm working with a white belt that I don't know (can I possibly look any *more* like a moron now?).


Women's class... I usually can't make any of these; on my Wednesdays that I have off work, I am generally at Cindy's. She did not have class today, so here I was. There were only three of us today. We went over a pendulum sweep, then played with some spider guard, then I sparred both of them. I am not used to all-women settings, so it was interesting to observe the difference in my own mood. I felt less pressure- less of a sense of girding my loins, setting my jaw and preparing to charghe into the hostile breach.


Followed by: "all levels". The prof folded the line tonight (he had done that this morning as well).... as in, the highest belt gets paired up with the newest white belt, the 2nd highest belt goes with the 2nd newest person, and so on. As luck would have it, it was almost all blue belts in class tonight, and I ended up with Lindsey again.


Side control: slide your knee and elbow in to pinch off and isolate the bottom person's arm. Segue into scarf. Press the far side of the opponent's face toward you and step your foot over the head. Keep the other foot braced in a good position for balance, up on the toes. Armbar. I was having some trouble with this... and finally figured out that I have done similar things in Cindy's no-gi classes, but with the gi sleeve in the way, I was having a little difficulty figuring out exactly where the elbow was as well as the orientation of the hand.


If the opponent pushes at your knee, loop your arm overtop and trap hir with hir own arm crossed over hir throat. Get your arm under hir head, gable grip and squeeze to choke. It works much better- and hurts more- if before you gable grip, you take the arm that you put under the opponent's head and use your fingers to crawl it across the mat like a spider to tighten up. It kinks the head to the side a bit and makes you want to tap even before the person starts leaning into the choke. As soon as I saw this detail, I remembered it from Cindy's classes as well. It's a tiny thing, but it can really make all the difference.


If they're still not tapping, you can stick your arm between hir knees and turn the knees away from you. This- done correctly- apparently was making the choke worse, but when Lindsey did it to me, all it did was torque my back (which would have made me tap, anyway).


One roll with Justin and one with Ted. I was on top most of the time with both, but only finished one sub (a sloppy choke on Justin). I tried that baseball bat choke I've been experimenting with, and Justin spun with me to keep me from tightening it- we did three full 360's, and then started giggling so hard we had to stop. His front mount defense is getting really good. The few times I actually managed to mount him, he immediately got on his side- and he is just large enough that I can only get one knee touching the mat when he's on his side, so I would not get points for that. He is also defending really well against the armbar, and against all chokes.  I got three or four KOB's of three seconds or more on Ted. Seriously, they just lie there. I'm aware that I'm arguably doing it "wrong" by not posturing up and yanking them into a bow while I'm doing it- but I'd still get points if it was a comp, so why do they just lie there? I understand that if it's a white belt, they might not know what it is (or that I'm getting points for it) until I tell them... but these blue belts ought to know better. I also tried that alligator-roll thing with Ted, but I could tell even before I rolled him that I didn't have the arm controlled well enough (which is where I failed the last time I tried it, too). So there is that yet to work on. I am getting a little quicker at setting it up, though.