Fox vs Cat

Pain is just weakness leaving the body.

Unpleasant shock waiting in my e-box Sunday morning... Dennis, one of my most reliable longtime Herald minions, has died. He became a coordinator himself a few years ago (bonfire area), but continued to make time to herald. And to flirt. He was a nice guy. He wasn't that old... 50-something. Had a bit of a paunch going, but seemed quite hale- hale enough to herald, and to haul drums around all week. Yet, "natural causes".  Am I starting to get to the age where my friends are dying around me? Already?
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PSG's at Stonehouse again. I have affirmed my continuing staff-ship. No word yet on the Hunt.

Tasara is pressing for a 3-facilitator meeting.... I don't know what to do..... 

Work is kicking my butt. My very first "official" day back on the bench, I wasn't there for a damn hour before my "favorite" (not!) ER doc was all up in my grill. Felt like I'd never left. (She was bitching about something that wasn't my fault, but that's par for the course with her, too.)

The hours have been all over the place, my sleep schedule is all messed up, and the boss is dragging her feet about "letting" me work any shifts over at Central (which might give me slightly more scheduling options). She is dragging her feet even more now that one of her other part-timers is leaving- that person works a few evening or midday shifts per week. Boss is pressuring me to take on her hours. That is my *least* favorite shift. Noon to eight-pm-ish, or 3pm to midnightish. Both have the psychological effect of eating up your *entire* day, and there is no possibility at all of doing any classes on those days. I'm reluctant to officially accept that set of shifts- but the kicker is, that in my current role as scheduling grout, if no one takes them I am going to be stuck with them regardless.
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Monday lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle. Carlos chided me for being gone for so long. I'm happy that he misses me.

Opponent has your back. You place your hands over hir hands, lie back and bridge, push one of hir hooks off, get BOTH feet out (Not just one! Or you end up in half guard! Ask me how I know). Turn to side control. Another nice opportunity to elbow the guy in the face if it's a real attacker; another place where you need to be mindful to avoid clocking your nice training partner.

Opponent has your back. This time, as you perform the escape, s/he tries to go to front mount. You have to grab that knee QUICK and push it back so that you can catch it between your legs. Turn on your side and get the underhook. Use your foot to pull the opponent's foot out. Use your hand to push hir far knee back. Replace full guard.

You are in turtle. Your opponent is hanging off your side with hir near arm wrapped around your body. S/he may be punching you in the head with hir other fist, if this is self defense or MMA. Cover head (make sure elbow is down- I had to be corrected on that). With your other hand, trap the arm that opponent has wrapped around you and roll. Roll over your shoulder, staying nice and tight. (If you just fall onto your side, and the guy is big, this technique will not work.) Opponent rolls over top of you. You get side control. (Another good head-to-elbow opportunity here....)

I drilled with Cat, a tiny blue belt woman I've never seen before. We did well together- whipped out lots of reps.

Rolls with Cat, Gavin, and Coach Dynamo. Then a longer roll with Ian (we closed down the open mat). Cat's got nice open guard- she did a really good job keeping her knees in there. Nothing really of note for me- except that I got that grab-behind-the-heels takedown once on the Coach and two or three times on Ian, yet failed every time to get on top swiftly enough.
 

It's probably a trap.

During the rapid improvement period in skill learning, students are motivated by their rate of improvement. Their desire to learn is created by the success that they achieve. Concentration and commitment are facilitated by the rapid rate of technical development. However, once the rate of learning begins to slow down, it requires much more effort on the part of both the student and coach to maintain the attention and work rate. Eventually the leveling off of improvement begins to have a negative effect on the learning environment, which can bring about a reduction in performance. Tony Gummerson, "Teaching Martial Arts"


Tonight's lesson: If someone who seems pretty good lets you waltz right into side mount, and you're patting yourself on the back and thinking, "Damn, that was easy," IT IS PROBABLY A TRAP.

Evening gi class at Sleeper Athletics. Bottom half guard night. (After a bunch of armbar-from-guard drills, that is.)

You have bottom half guard.  Get the underhook and shrug your shoulder up high. Have your other hand on your temple to defend the crossface. If opponent fails to whizzer, you can squirt right out of the side and take the back. (Note: If opponent is kneeling there like Babe the Big Blue Ox and you need to move hir, you can maneuver your legs so that your knee/upper thigh is against hir buttock and do what Cindy refers to as the "dog humping the leg" move.)

"Old School sweep": You have bottom half guard. Get the underhook and shrug your shoulder up high as you dive into deep half. Have your other hand on your temple to defend the crossface.

With your matward hand, grab opponent's foot. Your other hand goes UNDER hir butt- not over it- and pass the foot to that hand. Your matward hand can now grab opponent's knee.

Change your legs around so that you can drive into the person and plow hir onto hir side while pulling hir leg toward you. DO NOT LET GO OF THE LEGS till you have side control or other good position!

If the opponent is posting so that you can't plow hir over, give a good push and wait for hir to push back, then pull hir into a roll right overtop of you to the other side. Likewise, do not let go of stuff. Make sure you have secured position first.

Rolls with Jalen, Sony, Cindy, Terry and Craig (different Craig... this is the same guy I was paired with for the judo-throwing workshop a really long time ago. Fun-size blue belt guy, very strong, very flexible, good moves). I asked everyone to footlock and leglock me. I was not doing so hot tonight at defending those, but I felt reasonably competitive tonight otherwise. Got a choke tap on Terry, which always feels good, because he ain't givin' me nothin'. He got a few taps on me. Mostly leglocks, although he got one "suffocation tap" while he was trying for a head-and-arm choke and I was so enswathed in both of our jackets that I couldn't get any oxygen.

  Craig was really fun to roll with. I tried so hard to baseball bat choke him. Came really close but couldn't get it. He is the one who baited me into the trap. I managed to avoid that tap, but he was choking me pretty hard. Either we were really evenly matched, or he was dialing it down a bit so that we seemed evenly matched. Fun.