Brazilian buffet

"A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."-- Grace Murray Hopper


Yardwork in the AM. Mowing, pulling blackberries, tearing out old chicken wire.

Thursday gi in Bellevue.

"Brazilian Buffet": ie, rotating spars with no breaks.

Cindy came in about halfway through, which was cool as I have not seen (or rolled with) her in forever.

My performance seemed not particularly terrible nor spectacular today.

I got yelled at by Carlos for setting up a kneebar on John.  Big Mouth exclaimed, laughing, "You can't KNEEBAR me!" and of course that got Carlos' head popping right up. John later admitted that I would have had that kneebar, and the "tattletale defense" was his last resort.  He's got 4 stripes on his purple belt, so he'd better get ready for those kneebars.

More yardwork after class.

I am an out-of-control kneebar ninja. (not)

The next phase of my martial growth would involve turning the large into the small. My understanding of this process is to touch the essence (for example, highly refined and deeply internalized body mechanics or FEELING) of a technique, and then to incrementally condense the external manifestation of the technique while keeping true to its essence. Over time, expansiveness decreases while potency increases. I call this method “Making smaller circles”. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”


Wednesday- an hour of walking.

Thursday BJJ in Bellevue. 5 minute flow rolls, rotating partners- then 5 minute spars, rotating partners.

I started off with Nelson and got so excited that I forgot we were supposed to be flow rolling, so I bow-and-arrow choked the poor guy instantly.

I got reprimanded for setting up kneebars. This frustrates me. I do not know how to do any attacks below the waist. I am certainly not going to finish them... much less slam them.... and especially not during flow rolling. But it's a huge hole in my game and I feel better about myself if I at least try to set one up once in a while. Carlos gets way too excited when he sees me doing this. It offends me that he seems to think he actually has to worry about me injuring someone with a kneebar. I am very careful and controlled, and very conscientious about the safety of my partners. Seriously, I could roll with raw eggs duct taped all over my gi *and* my partner's gi, and not break any. It distresses me that he thinks I'm an unsafe partner. Meanwhile everybody else is telling me that I'm way too gentle and passive.  I remembered too late that Carlos is scheduled for surgery because his knee is all messed up. He was actually on crutches last week. So this is probably not the best time to be pushing my luck in his presence with kneebars.

I had to roll with him next, and I was expecting him to kneebar-slam me all over the place to teach me a lesson.... but he just commented that I should try sweeps more, especially while flow rolling. I was being really careful to stay off his bad knee. It's so hard to remember when certain people are injured, because they WON'T STAY OFF THE MAT.  But I guess I'm enough of a pot that I probably shouldn't be calling out kettles on that score.

No flowers. Really.

Cutting off blood to the brain, whether you call it a “vascular neck restraint”, or a “sleeper hold” or “jime waza” is reliable despite size, strength, psychosis or drugs.  It is also the safest way to shut down a human. –Rory Miller



Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Standup drills- double-leg setups.

Next: Same thing we've been doing lately, with the sprawl-twirl to the side-take the back. I need to pay extra attention to positioning myself so as to shove in that lower hook adequately.  Finish with any choke. I always like the RNC. Simple, reliable. I also did a few bow-and-arrows. John was impressed with my bow-and-arrow for some reason... I'm not sure what was particularly impressive about it, but okay, I'll take a backpat.

Spars with rotating people. I got a kneebar on somebody today.

Straight to Lindsey's studio. Getting tattooed is surprisingly exhausting, due to the fact that you are tensing every muscle in your body for most of a two or three hour period. I don't know how some people sit for half a day. We did about 2.5 hours, that's the longest I've done (I usually draw the line at 2). It was all linework, and on the back- which is not known as one of the more painful spots, although some areas were definitely more painful than others: along the spine, the outer sides (which is technically "ribs", which I already knew was terrible), and along the very bottom edge- like tailbone level. Lindsey had suggested putting a line of flowers down there, which I vetoed, and when he was down there doing Ox Head's boots, I was really glad that we weren't putting a whole freakin' line of goddam flowers down there. In fact, I was beginning to wonder if Ox Head would look okay with just one foot.

It looks incredible so far.... you can really see my Spyderco on his belt, which tickles me no end.

I was going to try to do one 2-hour session per month or so, but several people called in cancellations while I was there and Lindsey was (rightfully) grumbling about them- so I went ahead and took a spot for tomorrow.

The tat doesn't hurt much right now- if it feels and looks all right in the morning, I might go to class before I go back to the studio. I know I'm not really supposed to, but it's just linework!      ;)

Grapplethon

So often I have witnessed things I would never have believed possible that I am more than willing to keep my mind open to the idea that our bodies are home to forces that we don’t fully comprehend. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

Spent 5 hours at the Grapplethon, 11:30pm to 4:30 am. I wasn’t rolling the entire time, but I was rolling a lot. If we ever do another one of these, note that we had plenty of people around midnightish; they started dropping off around 2am. I would have been more use from 2am to 6am. But by 4:30, I needed to have a nap because I was due to spend the entire Saturday at work. At least I was able to watch the live stream at work, because The Big Bad Boss is usually not here on Saturdays.

I got to roll with 4 ladies that I have never worked with before.  They were all asking me lots of questions- technical questions as well as getting-along-as-a-woman-in-the-gym questions. I’m still kind of dumbfounded when people do this; I keep wanting to look over my shoulder for the Gandalf-like figure they must really be seeking advice from.

I deliberately did not wear my belt. A handful of people there knew me, but it was really nice to be anonymous and no-expectations with most of the crowd. Although one of those women asked me (in tones usually reserved for speaking to movie stars and royalty) , “You’re a brown belt, right?”  LOL. See what I get for trying to fly under the radar?

I also rolled with a few guys that I don’t know, and Peter, and Chris, and Griff. I was really happy to roll with Chris, because it’s been a long time. I had to peel him out of his sleeping bag. He had one of those subzero REI cocoon-style sleeping bags set up by the side of the mat along with a grocery bag of food, and he kept disappearing into his little camp at intervals.

I missed Lamont, and also Terry and Chelsea (although I spied the latter two suspects on the live feed later).

Griff not only spent the entire 24 hours on site, he spent most of it actively rolling, and taking the time to roll with almost everybody as well as teaching us stuff. He’s lost about half his weight- I barely recognized him. He tweaked my kneebars (pinch knees together, do not triangle legs), armbar off a failed keylock (turn little finger side of blade hand to floor and lift the propping forearm up a bit) and a few other things that I immediately forgot but I hope will come back to me later.  He actually remembered my 16-min fight in the elevated ring in October (I think he might have been reffing that fight… Gods, I was so spacey) and made specific suggestions about things he observed. That was cool.

It had made over $7000 by the time I left, with over 12 hours to go (and- I assume- the biggest crowds to some Saturday afternoon, as it coincided with the onsite promotions class and BBQ).  Twenty-one black belts on the mat for this (BEFORE promotions). Luiz was apparently promoted to black belt. Robert promoted to purple.

Amanda Loewen has her brown belt. It's a relief. It's kind of ridiculous for a purple belt to be able to fight Tammy Griego for over an hour straight without getting disassembled. I found out she has only been training for just under 4 years. Wonder if she has experience in a different MA.

Toe was mostly okay- I made a little shriek once when I caught it on Griff’s jacket as I was trying to replace guard- it hurt some but was reasonably functional. I did start to hurt more as the night wore on, though. I am going to have to be judicious about training this week. I’m seriously worried about making weight,  especially if I can’t train as regularly as usual.

Ankle locks

A wounded deer leaps the highest.  -Emily Dickinson


Lunchtime BJJ at GB Belle. Hostility Boy! Yay. He will be here through Tuesday. Let's see if I can avoid working with that ripe boil for six days.

Knee seemed okay today. Ribs hurt, but in a different place this time, so that's a plus. I have a minor finger sprain, rt hand. Didn't hamper me.

Standup: Opponent L kicks at you, a pendulum-like redneck-in-a-bar-fight kick. You parry with R arm and turn L, then turn back and strike at face with L elbow.

Now- same kick. You grab leg (on the outside), grab opponent around waist to control hips, step back, kneel and drop. Side control.

Positional training:

Begin lying on your backs side by side. On go- both try to get front mount. (I achieved front mount one time for about .02 seconds before being bucked off; Nelson spent a great deal of time in top half guard.)

Begin in side mount: top person, hold it. You can move only to NS and then back to side mount- nothing else. Bottom person: escape. (Nelson escaped to full guard once, I didn't even get close to getting out. I despise bottom side mount!)

Begin sitting back to back. Spar to first point. Nelson got me two or three times, and I didn't get any, but I made him sweat for it.

Me: (with Nelson in my closed guard and one deep collar grip, the second hovering over his opposite shoulder... his head is tucked in like a turtle in its shell) "Come on, don't you want to pop your head up and see what's going on?"
Nelson: "I *know* what's going on."

Always pleasurable and valuable training to work with Nelson.


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4:30 basics. Ritchie's back! How's this for a day! H.B. came back for study hall, too! Fortunately I didn't have to work with either of them today.

Nelson came back to bring his daughter to class, and stayed just long enough to show us a triangle setup on a turtled opponent. Interesting, but I didn't embed it quite enough to transcribe. Must get a review next time I see him.

 Just rolling. Ben (purple-belted!) and Luiz.

Noted: when you ask Luiz to kneebar and footlock you, Luiz does not mess around. I literally could not spar him for 15 seconds without being tapped out with a kneebar or footlock. A different setup each time, mind you.  I tapped a dozen times in rapid succession. And this was him "taking it easy".

He showed me one from BEING in closed guard- turning and hooking the elbow under the opposite side foot, pulling it *up*... I struggled a bit, but want to revisit this, as it was quite impressive. Likewise cannot transcribe at this time. I really needed to see it demo'ed on a third party.


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Study Hall: okay, way too much valuable information for my tiny brain in one day here. First, Ben was showing us some of his favorite sweeps from bottom half. Since Ben is The King Of Bottom Half, and I can't seem to do a damn thing to stop whatever he wants to do to me from there, this was gold for me. However, my attention was painfully divided by a second pile of gold in the form of Carlos agreeing to play with ankle locks and defense of such.

I didn't get time to play with the sweeps much, but what I recall: you are in bottom half guard, in order to do Ben's favorite sweep, you have you have your body fairly flattened right UNDER the guy. This is terribly counterintuitive to me, but if I can actually LEARN this sweep, maybe I can use it when I'm being INVOLUNTARILY flattened out underneath someone's half guard. Anyway, Ben's using a butterfly hook on the thigh just ABOVE the knee. You have to unwrap your legs from the half guard right as you go to sweep. He's sweeping off to the side as opposed to bringin the person overtop of him.

As soon as I mentioned kneebars, Carlos all like, "***WHO*** is kneebarring you?!!!" and I had to stridently protest Angela's innocence because she's the highest-ranking person I _regularly_  roll with at GB. (I hope he believed me and isn't going to go chew out Angela, as that will result in her rightfully turning around and chewing out *ME*.)

Carlos didn't talk about kneebars a whole lot. We did a couple of them, with the foot-in-the-butt escape. He had me apply one with the leg hugged to my torso and my legs in a triangle-like formation just above the knee. Hip up. He demonstrated how much you are inviting kicks to the face by applying a straight kneebar. He did an escape that is a little beyond my present level, but the gist was that once he got his knee beyond my triangle-hold, all he had to do was stand up and turn around, and suddenly I found myself trapped in a constricting bottom half guard and trying to get away from *him*.

The ankle locks: applying- I need to remember to have the opponent's knee-in-question well-pinned between my own knees/thighs. Applying a pinch here was key. Defending- POST THE OPPOSITE HAND on the mat and fight the pinning knee with the other hand. I kept wanting to grab with the Bad Hand. Once your trapped foot is on the floor, get on top and IMMEDIATELY move your entire body above opponent's chest level. Ummm- do not try to defend by sticking your other foot right into opponent's ankle lock.

Defending both: DO NOT ROLL OUTWARD!!!! Carlos had my leg at one point and asked me what I would instinctively do from here, I went to roll to the outside, he goes, "What ees wrong weeth that?" "Uhh, I'm reaping my own knee." (Even more embarrassing, I was demo'ing reaping the bad knee that is still a little sore from what I suspect was a minor reap injury! Lord! See how hopeless I am?)

There was more, but that's all I'm retaining ATM.