"No pants! No pants!"

Self-defense is far more difficult emotionally than physically. The mechanics, in other words, are simpler and for most people easier than the will aspects. –Rory Miller


Saturday no-gi in Kirkland.

Partner drills- hip-ups, armbars from guard, pummelling.

Arm drags from standing, take the back. Partner pushes down your 2nd arm as it comes around, steps out with hip thrust, turn to face you.

You in butterfly guard, partner on knees. You arm drag and scoot under to deep half. KEEP THE ARM (this was my error). Hook the foot and move shin out. This torques the person's knee and makes them unlikely to argue when you pull them into back mount.

Same entry, this time you post and brace forearm across hir collarbone. Scoot butt out a bit. Bring foot (on the opposite side as you have the armbrace) underneath and hook toe on the outside of opponent's knee. Swim your armbrace to underhook as you place your forehead against the collarbone instead. Plow forehead into opponent's chin  (this sucks mightily to be on the recieving end of, and distracts you from protesting the rest of the technique) as you grab hir tricep to keep hir from posting and butterfly sweep her to front mount.

KOTH from back mount. I was sucking so badly here today, badly enough for Cindy to notice and get disgusted with me. I recieved a long lecture on my persistant 1)failure to mount any offense, and 2)insistance on being too nice to my partners to the point that I am not doing the techniques correctly out of reluctance to discomfit them. This discussion was accompanied by tactile learning aids in the form of a brutal elbow to the breastbone that forced some embarrassing sounds from me. I was informed that I do not need to be nice to Pedro or Aussie Dave, who both assured me smilingly that this is true. Aussie Dave is just one of the downright sweetest people I know, and my mind quails from the image of me grinding my forearm into his throat.

One spar with Aussie Dave, then I watched Cindy roll with Jill. I yelled at Jill that this was no-gi and she had to let go of Cindy's pants. For the rest of the roll, she kept grabbing pants and then letting go like she'd been burned, squawking in dismay, "No pants! I forgot! No pants!"

Ankle is a little worse today. It seemed to be doing reasonably okay on Thursday, but it did not like Friday or Saturday training. I can still see visible swelling. Must dig out ankle brace.
 

Guilt-cutting

You can’t truly know your limits- physically or emotionally- until you’ve reached them. Go to your limits often enough, however, and they move. –Rory Miller



Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Standup: Cross-grab opponent's elbow, same-side grab the wrist, PULL hir to you at the same time that you step forward. Step on hir foot to check, go to the clinch on the back (one arm trapped). I couldn't make myself step on John's foot (and I sure as hell didn't want him stepping on mine), so I checked the ankle with the arch.

You are sitting, opponent is standing and grabbing your pants at the knees. Same technique as above, only this time you are standing up, with your inward foot between hir feet and bowing your outward leg...well, outward. Do not place hand on the mat. You can grab the shin just below the knee and use it to help hoist yourself up.

You standing, opponent on hir back with knees up. Go to the side, KOB. Opponent turns on hir side, places hand on your knee, and shrimps. Grab hir wrist, twirl and kimura. Try to keep the person pinched firmly between your shins. John was cheating the turn and shrimp, so I was having to yank him upward by the arm with each rep in order to get him on his side. Which I can do, but that gets exhausting after a while.... and it also requires changing levels again (when Carlos was exhorting us to get and stay low). I was debating asking him to turn more, or just sucking it up... then he complimented me on how I was moving him where I wanted him. So I kept my mouth shut.

Same entry as above, only this time you sink your arm under opponent's arm, hook, twirl and armbar. DON'T FORGET TO GRAB THE PANTS!!!!! Actually, I didn't forget that ONCE this time, to my delight. John was intrigued and impressed by the way I seized him high on the arm (just above the elbow) and (again) yanked him up to make sure he was on his side. I explained that you can always slide back down the arm once you're in position, and grabbing way up there works for no-gi as well as making it less likely that you'll lose the arm (or find yourself holding only empty sleeve) in gi.

Repetitive drills to exhaustion. There was lots of getting up and getting down again today, which is always hard on John and me as the oldsters. 


Found out that Hadley and Amy are both absent from the rolls of the Proving Grounds this weekend. Kind of a bummer. I was asked if I would be willing to do gi as well- there is a blue belt coming from Oregon who has no match. I said okay. She is smaller than me, too. That made me feel guilty. I was 132.5 this morning naked. Every time I went to eact something today, I thought about that blue belt coming all this way and having to fight fat, purple belted me- and I reconsidered. Turns out that guilt is a better motivator to cut than the fear of not making weight.

Tiny package

“Today we goan KEEL each other.” –Professor Carlos


Fri: 131

Congratulate me- today I said the N-word to my boss. Well, I e-mailed it to her. All these extra shifts I've been doing- they are playing hell with my training, but I'm happy to have them- especially in light of the fact that I could possibly get laid off a THIRD time in the next round of hatcheting. She knows I like midnight shifts. *I* know that nobody ELSE likes them, and that it's difficult to fill them. She has one of her midnight techs out on vacation and another one out on FMLA. Someone else just quit. My schedule is already bursting, but generously I told her to feel free to shuffle me around. She actually had the sac to suggest that she "could get" me on more of the midnight shifts, IF I were to "volunteer" to forgo the overtime pay that would be involved in the back-to-back weekends. I informed her that I was happy to work as many graveyards and weekends as her little heart desired, but that I wanted to be paid what I am due for them. Good luck to her trying to fill them with any other employee, even if she DID offer THEM the overtime pay. Nice try, lady.

Sat: 131

EEEEEP!!! I just registered for the submission-only comp next weekend!!!! Gi ("light" 129.1 to 141.0 with gi on) and no-gi (class A, up to 136 lb with no-gi outfit on). I need to not backslide on my weight this week, which may be interesting seeing as SHARK WEEK is coming up!!!!  I'm not worried about the gi weigh-in, but I'll probably have to wear a very brief no-gi getup!  Lord, please don't let Aunt Flo show up the morning of. She has devastating timing. Sigh.

Sun: 130
Mon: 130.5
Tues: 130
Weds: 130 (I can't lose any more weight because I can't get to the gym!!!)

Wednesday lunchtime BJJ at Kirkland. Two tough-looking ladies from Federal Way that I've never seen before. Only one of them trained today. I didn't manage to tap her, but I managed to stay on top quite a bit and set up a keylock and a choke (neither of which quite panned out, but at least I tried). 

Shannon, later on FB: I think I tapped more in one round of rolling with Cindy than I have in all of the months since I've been back training. Much much respect!


First: Standup. Foe throws haymaker at your head. You "brush back your hair" block, change level, go down on one knee, grab behind shins.  Takedown to land in closed guard, control biceps to prevent further punches.

Same entry, only now do a "duck walk" stand back up on one foot and push the opponent over sideways. I was having some trouble getting to side control (kept landing in closed guard, again).
You have closed guard. Grip break, arm drag opponent crossways over your chest (don't forget to use legs to help with this). DO NOT LET GO OF HIR WRIST with the matward arm as you scoot out the side and take the back. Get both hooks in. I need to work on pulling the opponent's near leg out- which HURTS, and makes it more difficult for hir to fight the hook.... and if you can get your foot hooked around the ankle, you can stretch the person out as you roll hir over (which HURTS even MORE, hip flexors all the way up the spine- yay).

Same entry, but now opponent tries to square up again after you arm-drag. Let hir go ahead and yank, because s/he will assist you as you trap hir own arm behind hir head, underhook the thigh and load hir up. If you can join both hands at this point, Cindy calls this the "Tiny Package". If you're mean, you can squeeze (she got an impressive sound out of me in the demo). Now you can sweep and go to mount, armbar or any of a variety of fun places.

One roll with Shannon, one with Lindsey, one with Casey (who had instructions to attack, attack, attack... I was exhausted and laboring uselessly after about twenty seconds).

Note that this training blog is now on Wordpress, if you like that better than Blogspot. However, I can't yet figure out how to do a lot of things on Wordpress, so it'll be a while before that one has all the links and stuff. In addition, the import didn't work very well- a lot of past posts are truncated.