"She's tough!"

Perfect is the enemy of  good.  - Voltaire


Saturday competition training in Seattle.

Lord, this comp class wipes me out. I don't know how long I am going to be able to keep doing this. Usually I have to bail on the second hour- which I went in today determined to not do- but the cardio, at my age and carrying the ten extra pounds I'm currently carrying.... UUUUUUUURGGGGGGGGGGHHH.   I was whimpering as I climbed out of the car back at the Mount Index Daunless Outpost after class. Right now my thighs ache the way they usually do the morning after. Which means tomorrow morning is going to suuuuuuuuuuuuuck. But what a great week of training!

Chrisanne hasn't had a chance to work with Georgette yet, so I told her she could have first crack at asking Georgette to drill. She's like, "Oh my God, no, I'm just a blue belt... you go ahead..." so I went to the locker room and told Georgette that Chrisanne really wanted to drill with her but was too shy to ask.   ;)   I had been hoping that Z or (short) John would be there today, but none of my favorite men were there (unless you count Lindsey and Griff, whom I can't really ask to drill unless they offer). I also didn't want to shanghai Casey, because we had already used each other to warm up before class. Now that Pat is brown, I feel a little awkward asking him to drill an entire class with me unless he offers first. This put me with Emma, a white belt that I seem to recall working with once or twice before. She had weight on me as well as enough skill to match if not dominate me.

Standup- one lapel grip that you can't let go of; try to get a takedown. I couldn't get anything on Emma, who has very superb reaps and was also trying a few other things.

Standup to pulling half guard.

We were doing some rather complex multi-step drills, and it was a struggle to get all the steps.

Opponent has spider guard. You pull back, squat, and pass your left hand UNDER the leg to grip inside of pantleg. Step to the opposite side and stand/yank upright, then crouch so that hir thigh is trapped atop yours. S/he tries to roll away, you take the back. It flows really well *IF* you shove your right knee between the floor and hir waist just as s/he rolls- the momentum seems to sorta suck you right into the gap and there you are with your hooks and choke sunk.

Opponent has Del a Riva. You turn your right knee (the one s/he has trapped) to the outside. (This same detail was in one of the techniques Carlos did with us earlier this week, so THAT step at least was easy). Then kick that same leg in the opposite direction, and pass to that side. DO NOT LET GO OF THE PANTS during any of these passes, until you are well past and the position is secure- otherwise s/he will just roll away from you.

Lots of drill reps, interspersed with about a zillion more periods of takedown sparring, and some random positional sparring. All the takedown fighting, combined with the repetitive get-up-get-down of the half guard pulls, and all the get-up-get-down of those spider guard passes, had me reeling with exhaustion. I made a very poor account of myself against Emma, which was kind of embarrassing. I really notice how tired I get when we do drills that involve a lot of having to stand back up over and over, as opposed to drills where you just stay on the ground and roll/wiggle back into place after each rep.

I had wanted to get at least one roll with Georgette, but she had to go (which was probably just as well, since I'm not sure I had the energy left to fight off a newborn kitten at that juncture).  I sat a while (mainly because I was wishing someone would come along to carry me out to the car), then noticed Lindsey sitting on the mat with his back to me. So of course I had to take it.

He stuck his head right up into my favorite gi choke, but I still couldn't finish it on him. He explained that if I can crawl my guard up a little higher on his back and/or teepee my feet up a bit, I might be able to get that little bit extra enough to finish.

It was amusing to have both Chrisanne and Georgette come up to me separately afterward and say of one another, "She's tough!"

I am considering calling out Anica for the next Revolution- not because I'm ready to compete again or because I think I can beat her, but because having a comp on my schedule seems to be the only way I can reliably discipline myself to get my weight back down to normal. If Georgette competed, we could have a three-woman purple belt bracket between 120 and 140.

This got me thinking again about my defeatism problems and my utter lack of making any progress on them. I don't know what to do. I'm considering pinging Side Control (Dave) on FB and see if he has any advice. I don't really have any reason to think he has the answers to this issue, but I'm just not feeling comfortable discussing this with any of the other black belts right now for some reason. I can't really imagine any of them dealing with persistant and serious defeatist mindsets. Dave is at least near my age and he says he has a cruddy comp record at black, so maybe he would at least be able to relate a little easier than some of these BJJ machines.

Del a Riva and reverse Del a Riva

It’s easy to say, reading this in a safe and cozy environment, what you would do. But that’s only what you THINK you would do. It’s like yelling at the TV screen at the quarterback what he should have done on the last play. You didn’t see what he saw, feel the pressure he felt. You’re simply judging it from a technical standpoint, minus the impact of how emotion affects judgment and performance. You can’t know what it feels like until you’ve lived it. –Campfire Tales From Hell



Thursday lunchtime in Bellevue.

Ankle pick. We were picking the opposite ankle, which was a little odd, and made me have to concentrate really really hard to remember which knee to drop onto. Note that an ankle pick means pick the ANKLE- not the shin, not the knee. Also note that you can't just pick it up without knowing (in advance- don't try to wing it) where you are going to take it and how you are going to avoid fouling up your own legs. Once you have all of THAT straightened out, you can start worrying about yanking the lapel to tip hir.

Standing pass of del a Riva guard. Jerk violently upright to dislodge the foot, shove your pantleg holds to the floor (DON'T LET GO OF THE PANTS), pass to the side and take KOB. Carlos continues to remind me that in the end, every teachnique is ideally ONE step. I get wrapped up in cataloging and counting out my steps. In particular, I tend to execute standing passes with several shuffling steps to the side (which Carlos sometimes mimes me doing; it looks hilarious with his telephone-pole-length legs). Just step once and drop.

Standing pass of an inside del a Riva guard. I am unfamiliar with inside del a Riva, so that was interesting just trying to get into the drill position. Kind of the same technique, only we ended in side control instead of KOB.

Many drills of these, then positional sparring from these positions (varying goals... sometimes pass vs resist, sometimes sweep vs resist, sometimes pass vs sweep, sometimes free-for-all).
At the end, he did one of my LEAST favorite things.... more drills and positional sparring interspersed with cardio (pushups, sprawls, burpees (which Chrisanne always calls "barfees")).  Chrisanne was tired as hell but kept fighting gamely through the positional sparring with a little encouragement.

One roll with Jason. He crucifixed me, which was impressive. He is one of the few people who makes it really difficult for me to pass top half guard... he stretches my leg out in lockdown. He also keeps putting his arm up by his head. I trapped him in a head-and-arm a few times, but was having a bitch of a time trying to free my leg enough to finish it (he kept doing lockdown and pulling me down just far enough that I couldn't get quite high enough to finish the choke).

DLR passing

In a sudden attack, you will have little or no time to work out your glitches, your ethical issues, your capacities. Whatever time it takes will cost you in damage. That is why it is imperative to work out all you can well in advance of any attack. –Rory Miller


Thursday advanced class in Bellevue.

Standup, judo grips. Foot on hip, on the side that you have the sleeve grip. Drop on butt, swing leg out, swing back in to DLR. 

After we did that for a while, we advanced to sweeping partner over head from there. Note that although it seems necessary to heave the person forcefully over your head, it is actually much easier (and works better) to pull hir head to your chest- it forces hir to summersault.

Same entry- now when partner tries to sweep you, you kneel and grab hir pants at the insides of the knees. Push hir foot off your hip, then turn your body toward your knee-up side to remove the hook. Creep knee over opponent's thigh, hug head, backsit, take side control.

Same entry. Now, when you try to turn your body to remove hook, opponent responds by turning knee in. Counter by turning the OTHER way and "sliding into home" knees and hips first. Take side control.

Positional sparring starting from one person in DLR, the other kneeling and gripping insides of knees. Rotating partners.

Brotherhood Of the Banned

The primary skill, rarely practiced or taught, in defense weapons is getting the weapon into play in the first place. Drawing under close assault. –Rory Miller



Lunchtime BJJ at Bellevue.

You are seated, opponent standing before you grabbing your pants at the inside of one knee. Cross grab hir arm, use it to pull yourself up and around (Your inside foot remains planted between hir feet, your outside knee bends as you life yourself) and rear clench.

Opponent tries to butterfly sweep you. You post on your outside hand, slide your OTHER SIDE knee between hir legs, then launch backwards into side control (or the back, if s/he fails to roll back, which is difficult for hir due to you trapping hir leg).

Standing pass of DLR guard.

Multiple short spars with the same person (John).

Later............

An hour and a half rolling with Kelly, first gi and then no-gi. We started from standup each time- and she took me down with the same wrestling takedown every time; I was unable to either defend or land in a decent position. Needs more work. I stopped trying to hang onto her neck after I once got a really disquieting set of cracking sounds as I went down on my ass. (Wide-eyed: "Are you okay?!!!??" "Yeah." "If you had closed your eyes and dropped to the mat, I would have had a fuckin' heart attack.")  I tapped her twice, she tapped me about ten times. I won't say it wasn't frustrating- especially the amount of time I spent trapped on the bottom- but she is really good practice for me.
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Georgette feels that women have the right to know that they are learning self defense from an accused rapist, and that they have an accused rapist between their legs in jiu jitsu class. The following Facebook page has been created for the purpose of

1)whining that poor sweet Mat Maldonado is being "stalked" and "harrassed" online, and

2)posting photos of Georgette, her work address, her salary, and pleas for people to call her employer.

Um, yeah.

https://www.facebook.com/justice4matt

Please visit the page and share your feelings.

A bunch of us have already reported the page to Facebook for harassing Georgette, but please add your complaint to the list.

He is still swaggering about saying that he did nothing wrong... my hope is that the next time he has the opportunity to do what he did, he will think about all this "unjust harassment" that resulted, and decide that it just isn't worth it.

I am proud to report that two of my awesome teammates- Griff and Casey- as well as myself and a whole bunch of other people have been banned from posting on the page and had all of our comments censored. Please join our Brotherhood Of the Banned.   :)

I can't help but notice there's a T-rex on your crotch.

I expect the threat to have the advantage in size and strength; or to be crazy (mental instability or on drugs). Because almost all of them were one or the other.  I think it makes sense, since you’d have to be crazy to routinely attack bigger and stronger people. –Rory Miller



126

Hallelujua! This is gratifying, in light of the fact that I wanted some carbs so badly yesterday that I was on the verge of tears. I went to Safeway (hungry and grumpy) and I stood there in front of the freezer case and stared at the creamy white cheddar baked mac and cheese for some time, while people streamed past and gave me odd looks. Then I bought eggs and mushrooms and went home and cooked a scramble.

I'm wondering if I should register for no-gi only at the next Proving Grounds (sub only) in Dec.
It feels very pressure-y to me to fight blue belts in tournaments. If I blow through them, they will (rightfully) resent that they had to deal with me in their bracket- and if they blow through *ME*, that's embarrassing in front of all those people and all my teachers. (Go ahead, call me insecure, I know.)  Also, at that small tournament, there was just not enough time to recover from the gi fights before having to go back in the ring for no-gi. You have worry about those looooooooooooong matches when it's sub-only. It can get hairy.

Lunchtime BJJ in Seattle.

I can't believe I waited till the frackin' morning before the comp to twist my ankle. I haven't had any injuries of note for months, and I've been training a lot lately. Well, I twisted my ankle this morning doing drills. To be perfectly honest, I twisted it while trotting around to my partner's feet end between guard pass reps. It doesn't seem very bad ATM, but I wonder what it will be like in the morning. If nothing else, it's distracting and I'm going to worry that it might collapse on me- in particular during no-gi standup. I doubt it will be an issue once we're on the ground- especially since I won't be doing any spider guard or DLR. Argh. At least I was able to locate my brace.

Stealing Julia's idea, I painted my toenails and fingernails with the five belt colors. The Prof was the only one who noticed... but he got a huge kick out of it.

As often happens on Friday, we did mutitudes of fast drills.  Spinning armbar from side control. "Slide into home" guard pass. Del a Riva pass.  I was having a lot of trouble with the DLR pass, trying to clear my partner's foot off my knee. He had long legs, and to keep ahold of the lapel as instructed, I had to bend far over and strain.

My partner was a nice white belt fellow named Luis. My very first rep of my very first drill (the spinning armbar), I kicked the poor lad in the head. God, sometimes you just want to slouch off the mat and call it a wrap when the very first thing you do goes like that.

Because all three of today's drills involve to some extent zooming your crotch toward your drilling partner's face, it wasn't long before I spied something a little peculiar. Several reps later I was able to confirm that it was indeed a Sharpie petroglyph of a dinosaur- complete with a talking-balloon that said "Raaaawwr!" on the bottom edge of Luis' gi tail where- when the gi was tied- it would lay right over his groin.

During the water break, I said to him, "By the way.... I can't help but notice that you have a T-rex on your crotch. Is there a story behind this?" Apparently if there was one, he didn't want to share, because all he would say is that his roommate graffiti'ed his gi. I had to tease him about that a few more times, though. I mean, you have to be ready to take a little ribbing when you come into a dojo with a rampant T-rex on your groin.

Kirkland Open Mat

Five senses working together give birth to the sixth. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Fri: 129

Open mat in Kirkland. Got to roll with Cindy (no gi), Shannon, a big blue belt guy who was sublime at not using strength, a new white belt guy and a less-new but out-of-practice white belt girl who were fun,  and Anh- a blue belt lady from Edmonds that I've never met before. Anh is exactly my weight and size. We rolled no-gi as well. Ron was also there, and he was the only one I didn't get to play with tonight. Oh well, we get to work a lot at Bellevue.

I tried a little of the DLR that we worked on yesterday. Trickier without the gi grips, of course- but Anh (unlike most of my training partners) is small enough that I can actually grab her wrist and keep hold of it. I noticed, though, that when you sweep someone into a face plant with DLR while in gi, the person can turn hir body a bit before hitting the foor. When you have someone's wrist in no-gi, they don't have that bit of wiggle room- it seems more likely to present a shoulder injury danger. I certainly didn't want to break my fun new toy the very first time I got to play with her! I tried sweeping her backward instead, but her balance was too good for that. Something else to work on.

I saw it on YouTube.

Ninety times out of a hundred it will work. If not, then you may have to give them the universal hand signal for LIE DOWN! (Holds handgun in firing position and repeatedly pulls trigger.) -Greg Hamilton



Sun: 129
Mon: 129.5
Tues: 130.5    ankle weights today
Wed: 130.5   ankle weights again
Thurs: 129.5
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 Today is the first class I've made since the comp. I am at work all the freakin' time, and I'm really noticing the ambient hospital stress getting to me more when I don't have that regular gym time. Had to apologize to one of my assistants yesterday for being snippy with her on the phone. (She was the fifth person who had phoned me in rapid succession to ask me the same question, while I was running around alone in the lab like an overcaffeinated squirrel, trying to do forty life-and-death tasks at once and unable to get any of them done because the fucking phone wouldn't stop ringing with people asking me if ___ was done yet, and how much longer was it going to be?)
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Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

As we went to pair up for drills, Hostility Boy and I ended up standing alone at the wall, regarding each other in a perfect harmony of dismay. With an aggrieved expression, he impatiently motioned me over. I heroically restrained myself from flipping him the bird, and complied gloomily. Fortunately, Carlos switched up some of the pairs and put me with (white belt) Peter instead. I have been able to avoid working with Hostility Boy for a long time, and hope to continue the trend. The fact that WB Peter thinks I'm Kyra Gracie is embarrassing- he does everything but get down on his knees and salaam. But he's a good training partner, and a nice guy.

You are standing, opponent lying before you and attempting to grab DLR on your left leg. You grab pants at the knee with your left hand and ANKLE (not pants!!!) with your right. donkey-kick your trapped leg back, step to the side (throwing legs away) and take KOB.

I was having trouble keeping the ankle- in fact I did not want to grab the ankle at all, and when urged to do so, I realized that my instinct was correct- I can't really keep hold with my small hand even on WB Peter (small-to-medium-sized).

Positional sparring from DLR, several partners in succession. 

One roll with Prof Doug; noticing that I am overbalancing my own self into sweeps. *After* I took note of that, I corrected somewhat and then found myself being deliberately baited into doing it yet again.

One longish roll with Daniel, who missed the actual class and was thus fresh as a daisy while I was puffing and dripping. He got me in several things (including something that he confessed shame-facedly having seen on YouTube this morning.... I hate getting caught in YouTube experiments!).

Straight to another stressful night at work- a bad bleeder this time, in contrast to the crazy chick off her meds from yesterday- so it was good to get that workout in first.

"There's no sweating in jiu jitsu ."

Fisher had tried to enter the hole in the clouds six or seven times- but kept finding
herself back in her body, the wooden raft pressing impassively against her
shoulderblades.  –The Hole In the Clouds


I'm feeling incredibly frustrated with weight right now. Yesterday I ate nothing but six shrimp, and a turkey sandwich (a little horseradish mustard at 5 cal per teaspoon, no mayo) and did two classes plus sparring after one of them, and still didn't lose anything. How is that even possible? Six shrimp and a turkey sandwich proves to be "TOO MUCH FOOD" on a 2-workout-day. Unbe-freaking-lievable. And that wasn't even horrible food- true it wasn't chicken breast or eggs, but it's not as if I was eating lasagna and Twinkies. It's starting to really piss me off- which is probably good, since being pissed is a good way to amp up the willpower. But I'm looking ahead with horror and dread to a life full of days restricted to two tablespoons of food per 24 hours, since it's starting to look like that's the only way I'm going to see any results. I think there must be hidden calories in my tap water or in my oxygen. This doesn't even make biological sense.

Tuesday lunchtime, Bellevue. Not that I had any lunch.

Two new ladies, one of whom I worked with- Tone. She has potential! I hope she comes back.

Setup to the straight ankle lock. Be mindful of changing level; and of using just the toe on the mat with that outside foot, heel on the hip.

Then finishing straight ankle lock.

Then defense: With the arm that is on the OPPOSITE side as the leg being attacked, grab opponent's cross lapel. Now place your other hand on opponent's ankle (the one s/he has on your hip) and press it to the mat. Post on it and scoot your butt to the outside of it. Now stand up. Shake/pull your leg out.  At first we used the technical lift to stand up, then we used the lapel grip to pull ourselves to standing or into front mount.

Spars with Casey, Ram, and Dave. I told them all to be nice to me because it was my first day.

Kitsune (grabbing Casey's ear): "Is it legal to pull ears?

(Grabbing fingers): "Are we allowed to bend fingers back?"

(Monkey-slap to face, pulled at the last moment): "How about this? Can I do this?"

I tried to Del a Riva him several times but could not control the near foot. Finally I tried grabbing my own lapel to cinch it in place, and that had a bit of success. Need to play with that some more.

I asked Dave to attack my feet and legs. As I had previously learned with Luis, when you ask a brown belt to attack your lower body, they do not mess around. I felt like I was trying to turn back the ocean tide. It just washed right over me no matter how frantically I worked, and left me lying there sodden and drowned... with legs broken in about ten different places.

I got a big laugh out of Ram by asking in exasperation, "How many knees do you HAVE?! about twenty???" Because that's what it seemed like. Here a knee, there a knee, everywhere a knee, knee.

When we lined up to bow out, Carlos made me move from the end of the line. I said, "Wow- I'm getting a huge promotion on my very first day!" Everyone started applauding me. 
--------------------------------------
4:30 basics in Bellevue. I rolled with Casey again for a while to warm up.

Kitsune: "It's my first day. We're not going to get sweaty or anything, are we?"

JP: "No, there's no sweat in jiu jitsu."

Kitsune: "Oh good. I don't want to mess up my hair. Hey, we can do heel hooks in here, right? At my last school, we did heel hooks. This must be a wussy school."

These techniques were a little frustrating.

Opponent is in your closed guard. Grab behind hir elbow and get a pants grip at the knee with your other hand. Use your legs to pull hir forward and load hir up. Sweep. Keep guard closed till you get over- don't open up like a pendulum or scissor sweep.

Besides the fact that I generally suck at sweeps, the only available partners were gigantic- I couldn't even get my guard closed, and the idea of trying to pull them forward with my legs was laughable. They had to be nice to the extent of diving into the sweep.

Same thing, only underhooking the leg and using opponent's knee like a phone. Keep both leg and arm when you mount (I had to go to S mount in order to be able to do this on my larger partners).

 Then, that same setup but transferring to an armbar. I struggled even more with this one. If the guy was loaded onto me at all, I could not swing my leg around because he was crushing me half to death. Once I was tipping him off of me, I could not swing my leg around because his body was now in the way.

Adrian then showed us some nifty grip breaks for when the opponent is resisting the armbar. You thread your own gi tail through hir folded arms and cinch it up nice and tight. Your hand that is nearest opponent's feet needs to be on the bottom of your double grip. Move the elbow to the other side of this arrangement to clamp it up. Now look at the opponent's clasped hands. You want to pull in whatever direction the back of the hand is facing, instead of just cranking randomly when you might be setting yourself up to be resisting hir strongest possible grip.

-------------------------------------------
Advanced class.

I rolled with Crisanne for 10 min to warm up. She remembered my upa lessons, my KOB escape lessons, and my choke defense lessons. I let her triangle me a few times, but I made her work for it.

Straight ankle locks again. This time, when we did the escape, we sat right on the opponent's foot instead of moving our butts to the outside. Added detail- when you shake/pull your foot free, give a hearty yank on the lapel at the same time.It is distracting, at the very least.

Some positional sparring from the straight ankle lock setup. Ron was clumsy at first, and complained that he hasn't worked any attacks/defenses below the waist. I hear ya bro. After a while, though, he figured out how to get his evil little omnipresent knees and muscley little legs jammed in the works, and I could no longer do anything.

Hedge got his purple belt! That was fun to see. He was distinctly glisteny-eyed when he stood for the photo. Lord, but Ron is still running around in a blue belt. I was certain he'd get promoted at the big promotion orgy in Seattle last weekend.

Spars with a few different people, including Hedge- whom I congratulated, teased, and then went hard on.

Kitsune: "Come on- do you want to look back on your very first night wearing a purple belt and say you got choked by a white belt girl?"

  I had to watch the capoeira class for a while- in fact I watched till the teacher stopped and addressed me where I was hanging on the doorframe, and told me to come in and take a chair if I wanted to watch. I've always wanted to try this, but I fear that my weakness at memorizing choreography- as well as my bad knees- would scuttle me.  It sure is pretty, though. And I do such nice kicks.

I had damn well better be a pound down in the morning, or I'm going to just start sawing body parts off.

What happens when you both try to pull half guard at the same time?

Okay- commercial’s over. Grab onto my arm now. Hold tight. We are going into a number of dark places, but I think I know the way. Just don’t let go of my arm. And if I should kiss you in the dark, it’s no big deal; it’s only because you are my love. –Stephen King


Thursday evening two-fer at Bellevue: no gi and "black belt".


No-gi: start on feet with pummeling, then pummeling to single-leg setup, then eventually to complete the takedown.

Side control- failed kimura. The arm nearest opponent's feet: Put elbow on mat and grasp opponent's bicep. Other arm- grab your own bicep. Step foot up behind opponent's head. Pull back and up.

I had trouble with both of these. I got "Purple belt, purple belt..." from Carlos again.  He doesn't like it when I turn my body and try to motion my way through the technique along with him. He made me turn around and watch... I don't know how to explain that this has me looking at things essentially backwards and then I have to transcribe everything in my brain before I can perform it, which is one area where I have a major neural disconnect. When I can face the same way as he is and do a little "monkey see monkey do" along with him, I get 1)a mental snapshot that I can copy for the next rep without trying to flip it bass-ackwards first, and 2)a dose of physical experience.

A little positional sparring.

I was feeling pretty inept after this and didn't really want to continue with the next class, which would probably be worse in terms of both higher complexity and lower patience/attention span. But I made myself stay.  Ugh, getting into a gi when you're already all sweaty and overheated is awful!


I got the same guy, which made me feel bad, but I actually turned out to be more competant this time. Not sure why, as these were indeed more complex maneuvers.


Pull half guard from standing. Many reps.

Then, partner pulls half guard while you turn your body to the outside and step back with the other foot, then turn back and "slide into home" with inner knee bent and sliding over opponent's thigh. End in side control. Many reps.

Next technique: Both partners squat waaaaaaaaaaaaay down before opponent pulls half guard. As s/he does this, you scoop your arm in and underhook the far thigh. Sprawl on opponent's matward leg. Turn your hips toward hir feet and dislodge your trapped foot. Side control. Many reps.


Last but not least: Your opponent starts in Del a Riva. You have pantleg grip at knee. Opponent sits up. You grab behind hir collar and put hir back on the floor, while moving in and squaring up. S/he pushes with hir foot on your knee.You donkey-kick your other leg out and place it on the mat outside of hir hip. Dance your other foot out to join it, side control. Do not let go of any grips during this process. Many reps.


Then, eternal reps of all three, until I thought I was gonna keel over. My focus started to go, and my partner seemed to be suffering the same. It got to the point where neither of us could remember whose turn it was to pull half guard. What happens when two people try to pull half guard at the same time? You end up sitting in each other's laps and embracing while clonking your heads together. Double points if your teacher is watching you do it (of course he was). After that, we had to resort to me whispering every time we began, "You pull,"  "Me pull," "You pull," "Me pull,"


When we lined up, I was so tired I could barely lift my arms to retie my belt. Carlos must have seen something on my face, because he asked if I was okay. I replied that I was so tired that I was afraid I would fall on my face when I tried to bow. He got a big laugh out of that. When we went to bow out, he called, "Careful, Keetsune, careful..." and I braced my hands out in front of me, just in case.

Sorry, Ed

Learn to take a beating.  Learn to take it personally; just personally enough for it to drive your desire for improvement.  –Leaahh




I'm making an antlered headdress for the Hunt. Real whitetail sheds, fake ivy, garnets. I tend to heavily favor citrine when it comes to working with stones, but for some reason I'm all over the garnet for this particular venture. It looks like little glittery drops of blood- yet the purplish cast gives it a subtlety that appeals to me, and I expect it will work out to great effect by firelight. I looked up the properties- it's known as the "warrior stone". Heh.

If you ever go to the Puget Sound area, and you have any interest in such things, here's your Mecca- Earthlight Rocks and Minerals. I try to not go in there very often. My credit card begins to whimper in pain as soon as I step over the threshold. Their prices are actually pretty good... I'm enough of a rockhound to know.... I just can't control myself!
---------
No-gi, GB Belle. Single leg takedowns. Single leg takedowns with guard pass. Takedown spars. Then positional training with rotating partners: from front mount, back mount, Del a Riva, more takedowns.

It was quite an aerobic class, and pick-on-Kitsune-day continued through this class and into the next one. He did the "purple belt, purple belt." thing again. Well, I'd rather have him riding me than giving up and walking away, which he will do on very rare occasions when you're just too inept to bother with any more.

My ribs were doing okay (takedowns notwithstanding), but by the end of warmups for the following
"black belt" class, the room took on the appearance of rotating slowly- and I was beginning to wonder if I was too tired to continue. If we'd done more positional training for the next hour, I think I might have had to bail. However, the next bit turned out to be more brain-straining than body-straining (altho there was some of that too).

Del a Riva guard. Do not sit up- remain on your back. Take your hooking foot and stick the leg out straight so that you are scissoring opponent's far leg. At the same time, switch your grips. Now, take the other foot (the one you thrust against the knee) and bring the leg around in a big circle over your own arm and behind the opponent. Let go of hir ankle and grab the back of the belt. Kick both legs forward. Your hook feet are inside both of hir thighs. Now you have back mount. Don't forget to complete it by getting both hooks situated correctly.  (Carlos: "Keetsune- how many points?" Kitsune: "Uh, four." Carlos: "NONE, because you only have one hook een.")

Next: Del a Riva guard. Same scissoring variation. This time, keep both of the sleeve cuff gips that you already have, and cross the opponent's arms. Use your legs to load hir. Now you have 4 different options on which way to unload. Thrust opponent's X'ed arms the opposite way that you are thrusting hir body. Dumping hir over your head allows you to coninue the roll and finish in front mount. Dumping hir between you legs- if you tip hir body to one side and make sure you have the arms situated correctly- puts you in back mount.

I was a terrible partner to Ed tonight. I needed some help with the techniques, I kicked him in the forehead once while doing that big leg-circle, and then I hurt him by dumping him clumsily over my head. I realized a moment too late that I was rolling right over his face, and scrambled to move my weight, and didn't even notice that I was doing something worse to his ankle at the same time. I apologized all over the place, but I still felt reeeeeeeeeeeeeally bad. I definitely get clumsier when I'm tired- I think I was edging over the line of exhaustion that was beginning to make me an unsafe partner.

Sore and exceedingly exhausted now.