I've got all the answers. Well, THIS one, anyway.

”We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves strong.
The amount of work is the same.”
- Carlos Castaneda


Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Man, I wish I could get to class more often. I was so happy to be in class. Carlos even remarked on the fact that I was laughing a lot today.

We did a bunch of spider guard sweeps that had about 862 steps with 5 critical little details in each step, and I have just tried and failed to transcribe any of them... although with Camille's help, I did okay performing them. She is better than I am at regurgitating long sequences of choreography, which is a persistent struggle for me.

I had one delicious moment of triumph today. Carlos demo'ed to the middle of one of these sequences, and said, "Now what if your opponent does THEES right now?" The front half of the line shouted several suggestions, all of which Carlos tried and demonstrated the wrongness of.  Then he told us to experiment with our partners and see if we could figure out something that would work. I immediately hipped out and transitioned to an armbar- AND I WAS RIGHT(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I was the only one who figured it out!!!!!!!!! To be fair, this was partly because we had been doing sweeps all day and everyone else was searching for a way to salvage the failed sweep. Whereas I- either because I still retain a ridiculous amount of always-attacking Tiger attitude, or just because my sweeps suck- went for a sub instead.

Related and funny: at one point, the prof noted that during the sequence of one of these sweeps, we must pause and remove our opponent's arm from the place where it naturally ends up, because if we fail to do so, it turns into a bicep slicer and we will get DQ'ed. He demo'ed the bicep slicer, and obviously noted my eyes lighting up (as they do whenever a choice bit of "bonus violence" presents itself).  He looked at me sternly and said, "Keetsune. You do thees in competition?" "No sir."

One spar with Camille, one with the tattooed purple belt whose name I can never remember, one with Jason. All fun rolls. Tattoed purple belt keeps pulling guard on me, and I tried to tell him that I'd like to work standup and that it's okay for him to take me down, as long as he doesn't slam me. He's one of those people who insists on being a little *too* careful with me.

Had to skip the structured dog walk tonight.... even January would have been disenchanted with the freezing rain. We have been hearing all week about this monster storm that's supposed to be coming in, and apparently the world is supposed to end and everything, but it has yet to materialize (except for some freezing rain). Rilla and I took dogs out in the rain yesterday (on her urging... we decided even 20 min was better than nothing.... if it had just been me I would have bailed, which is why I want walking partners to push me... I thanked her), and the sun ended up coming out and we walked for 2 hours. Particularly glad to get that in, in case we are stuck inside for the next week.