The line

The short answer to handling active shooters is shoot back.  –Marc MacYoung


Friday evening BJJ in Bellevue. Same techniques we did Thursday, along with a variation on the sweep where the opponent stands up in your guard. This one involved using a butt-bump to break down one leg, and I struggled with it.

One roll with Doug and one with Cindy. Holy cow! Where else do you get to finish your class with super-fun rolls with two black belts- one who shows you old-man tricks and one who shows you small-woman tricks.  It was fun, exhausting and educational.

Took a decently long walk at Reiter Foothills with the dogs on Saturday, and then went up the Index wall on Sunday. There was still quite a bit of snow once we got into the forest, which made for some struggles with footing as well as struggles trying to stay on the correct path. It was a challenge, but we got to the top. Then coming down.... mama mia. As usual, coming down is LOTS worse for me than going up, and this was the worst it's ever been. I hope it was just the snow and all, and not my new normal. My knees felt like Ziplock baggies filled with broken glass and thumbtacks. When I got up for work that night, they felt like Ziplock baggies full of broken glass and thumbtacks encased in water balloons that were filled just shy of bursting. The degree of visible swelling at and just above
my knees was disturbing. I've never seen them like that.

It scared me. I was picturing being older and having them feel like that all the time.

I draw a strong line of distinction between pain versus incapacity.  My knees were bad enough last night that if I had found myself in a situation where I needed to throw down, I fear one or both of them may have mechanically given out. That is two VERY different places.... the place where you say, "this hurts, maybe hurts BAD, but if I need to do X, I can," versus "I mechanically can NOT make my body do X".

On the good side, the slight (unrelated) knee injury that was bugging me earlier in the week made it through 2 BJJ classes and 3 hikes without problems.