Day one of one-a-day

 What you do instead of your work is your REAL work. –Roger Ebert



Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Standup: opponent has both hands laced behind your neck. You lace your hands over hir elbow, chicken-wing your arm out and step to that side. This twists hir spine uncomfortably and makes it easier for you to move your hands inside and grab behind hir neck instead.

Next, we went from the chicken--wing-and-sidestep to a double-leg. Note that you must plaster yourself right against the opponent and slide down hir body, otherwise you will not be close enough. Hug just above the knees.

Opponent is turtled in front of you. Sprawl, crossface, sash grip around chest, switch far knee in, pull opponent into your back mount. Three notes: 1)don't forget to grab the wrist at the end. 2)You must make sure your shin is pressing against opponent before you start to pull hir over, and kick that baby under *as* you are pulling. If you wait till after you have hir capsized, it's too late to shove that foot under.  3)Try to dive in a diagonal direction over the shoulder instead of pulling opponent sideways. I continue to find myself subconsciously resistant to this, as I keep feeling like I am just going to slither my tiny self over hir shoulder and plop onto the mat while s/he continues to turtle there like a rock. This doesn't make logical sense, because if THAT is how it is, I am not going to be able to haul this person sideways either. I have nothing to lose and a slightly better chance of succeeding if I go on the diagonal. I found it slightly more palatable if I made a point of shoving the shoulder aggressively to the mat as I went.

King Of The Hill, sweep versus pass (any guard, choice of the "king"). I didn't do all that great, but I was overmatched by everyone (they all outranked me except for one big muscley white belt).


I'm doing it. I am going- not quite cold turkey, but- one pop per day (first thing in the morning). This is day one. I am jonesing badly, but it helps that I have no Dr Pepper left in the house (just A&W root beer, which is great, but not quite as bad of a trigger). I also took the A&W out of the fridge- it is not so tempting when it is warm, and I have no ice.

I want to do this experiment to try to figure out if it will help my crappy sleep any. Also, I am wondering if the sugar-induced glucose roller coaster is contributing to the fact that I feel exhausted all the time. This latter question involves ALSO cutting down on solid junk food. That's going to be extra-challenging. Usually when I'm trying to reduce my pop, I console myself with extra junk food, and vice versa. I don't like being at this weight. I don't like being exhausted all the time. I don't like not being able to get to sleep, and I don't like waking up every couple of hours when I *do* manage to get to sleep. I don't like getting up feeling even more exhausted than when I went to bed. I don't like the idea of going to the doc and getting on some drug to try to get some sleep.

Why yes... an ear-ectomy would indeed eliminate the need for headgear.

Use of force is a “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” issue. “This one is too little. This one is too  much. This one is just right.” Campfire Tales From Hell



Thursday:

2 mile walk.

I went to the optometrist and got a different contact lens prescription. I have gotten slightly blinder. I still hate contacts, and tend to put them in right before class and pop them out immediately after. It is a constant source of irritation to me that I have to wear glasses- I am painfully aware that if a real defense situation occurs, all the Bad Guy has to do is hit me in the glasses and break them, knock them off, or even just bend them- and I will be fairly hamstrung in both a practical sense and in the realm of self-confidence. I told the doctor that I would really like to find a type of contact that is actually comfortable enough to wear all day, and will not make my head hurt when I try to do tasks that involve intense focus. I have now been wearing the brand that I am currently test-driving for two days- all day. They are better than the old ones, but I can still feel them in there and am still experiencing some amount of drying, itching and irritation. I am going to try to make myself keep wearing them as much as possible until my recheck appointment (although I'm not sure if that's going to be practical at work, with the microscope).

No-gi in Bellevue.

I think I mentioned in my last posting that I left my headgear at the school YET AGAIN. Tonight, I walked in and saw Carlos hanging around talking to some people. I didn't want him to see me searching for the headgear, so I went away and did something else for a while. Then I came back to peek in, and he was on the mat busy with some kids. But as soon as I crept across the floor and stuck my head into the office to see if my headgear was in there, he's yelling "KEEEEEEEEETSUNE!" across the mat. I turn around, and he's glaring at me and pointing to the corner of the room by the water cooler. I had to do the Walk Of Shame across the room while he glared at me. I apologized for about the five hundredth time. Then he suggested that if he amputated my ears, I wouldn't have to worry about it any more.

Pummelling, double-leg setups. Carlos is fixated on these two drills lately. Chrisanne's double-leg setups look and feel so incredible. I wish mine were half that good. I asked her if she ever tries them live, and she said no. I told her that she should.

 I was too lazy to blog this class last night, and now I can't remember everything we did.    :P   I do remember doing more double-leg setups with the other person sprawling, and then with a guillotine. We also spent a decent amount of time doing timed flow rolling with rotating partners.

I do remember that at the end, I had a great roll with Chrisanne. It was very very hot, but we resolved to spar at least a bit. She did a double leg takedown on me, and it worked beautifully.

When we were both lying on the mat dying, she said, "Dude. We rolled for forty minutes." It felt like fifteen. I could have kept going, but she was done.

I remembered to take my headgear home with me tonight. Nor did I forget my water bottle or my belt.

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Friday:

Another two mile walk.

I went to Lindsey's studio and got my hair cut. It was so nice to see her. I really miss her on the mat. And while I looked like a real sex kitten with my shaggy curls tumbling over my eyes, it was driving me crazy. So nice tonight to not have hair in my face.

BJJ in Bellevue. Hotter than hell in the gi.

After the ubiquitous pummelling and double-leg setups... 

Standing reverse DLR guard passes. Press against the thigh, then when opponent pushes back, donkey kick, pass, and go to KOB.

Same, but opponent turns in to you and pushes your knee. Add a spinning armbar.

Same, but you don't sink all the way into a good KOB- and opponent tries to single-leg you. Spinning armbar the OPPOSITE way. Note that this version does not involve stepping one foot backwards over the opponent. Your butt is the only thing that goes over. I struggled a bit with that.

Lots of drill reps, lots of getting up and down (which always exhausts the hell out of us old ladies), very very hot. But we both held up pretty well. Much mutual cheerleading. I wish I could better communicate to Chrisanne about the Dragon-ish recycling of energy. I tried to explain how to swing your leg and use centrifugal force to get yourself back up off the floor easier. I have several times tried to explain the paddleball analogy of bouncing the energy back into the next movement- and the next rep- instead of letting it go "splat" and expended/wasted. I don't feel like I'm getting through- but focusing on trying to be a good example of these at least helps me do more reps faster, and keep my mind (to some degree) off of how hot and exhausted I am.

Again, it was far too hot to roll after class.

I remembered to take my headgear home with me again. I also walked right past the barbeque for the second Friday in a row. I've been eating a lot of chicken and eggs, but am still struggling mightily with my soda addiction. I did two per day for about two weeks, then backslid a bit. I'm down to one can when I get up, one at work, and a third when I get home from work. I am much weaker on my days off. If I'm home for any length of time, it's very difficult to stay away from the fridge pack. If I'm out doing classes and other things away from the house, I'm fine most of the day but then I tend to binge with a couple of cans when I get home. I substitute juice or water at work (I know juice is full of sugar, but it's better than pop... and I can kick the juice easy once I have the pop thing under control). I'd really like to eliminate that third morning soda. By the time I get home from work, I am tired and grouchy and jonesing for it. I often struggle similarly with eating bad things in the morning when I get home from work, so this is a destructive pattern for me. I've been good for the last few weeks about just not having trigger foods in the house. Man, this Dr Pepper, though. What do they put in this stuff, heroin?? I'm so glad I stayed the hell away from alcohol and drugs. If I'm this weak with caffeine and sugar, I have no business messing with anything more addictive than that. So glad I was wise enough to know this from the beginning.