Return of Terry

 We can choose to step out and avoid everything painful, but that is a form of soul loss and only will make the journey longer and more difficult. - Tasara



Walked to work and back. I wasn't working today, but I had two little biopsies done. I am corpse-pale and heavily freckled, so melanoma loves people like me. Folks, do not wait to have any funky-looking mark checked out. Things to watch for: asymmetrical borders, a variance of colors in the same mark, bigger than a pencil eraser, and a spot that changes appearance over time. You do not need to see all 4 of these to start worrying. You don't even need one- anything that looks the slightest bit odd, have it looked at. Now, not later. Melanoma can be very deadly and fast-moving. Don't forget that you can also have odd marks on your back, scalp or other places that you can't see for yourself. Okay, that's my public service health care message for the day.


Friday evening open mat at Kirkland. No Lamont, to my disappointment. No Shannon, either. Apparently she injured her shoulder. But Terry was there! He brought his girlfriend Chelsea, who is a white belt. We also had Wei, blue-belt Lindsey, and Casey. I got to roll with everybody except Cindy today.

Terry- constantly moving; he makes me tired just watching. "What the hell do you eat to be like this?" "Gluten-free, lots of coffee." I was on the bottom constantly, but I tried to keep moving, because he gives me a bunch of shit if I Clench-N-Cling.

Wei- always a challenge, but I feel like I held my own with him a little better than I usually do.

Casey- I asked him to deep-half me, and I had some semi-successful practice at both defending it in the first place as well as trying to respond to it in ways that DIDN'T involve conceding the sweep and dropping back on my kiester. He showed me a baseball bat variant using the gi tail to wrap-n-trap the far arm. He had me KOB him weirdly high up on his chest- the idea being to bait the person to push your knee with the free hand, whereupon you pin it down with your leg and then choke the snot out of them. Forehead to the mat beside opponent's hip.