Almost broke my arm tonight.

One we learn how to use adversity to our advantage, we can manufacture the helpful growth opportunity without actual danger or injury.  -Josh Waitzkin, The Art Of Learning


Today I turned my ankle on some rocks and fell flat on my back on the hiking trail- but it was a fabulous breakfall, and didn't hurt a bit. I bounced right back up. Then I had to chase down my dog..... who, completely unperturbed, just kept going and left me lying there.   :(

Friday evening BJJ in Bellevue.

You are lying under side control. Use left arm to hug around opponent's shoulders and hook your fingers in hir armpit. Scootch your legs to your right, scootching opponent's legs along with them, until you can thread your right arm over hir near leg and under the far one. Plant your left sole on the mat and sweep. Keep all your grips, and your own body will loft over the opponent's and settle into a much better side control- one with YOU on top. Don't let go of that leg.

Same thing, only when you go to do the sweep, opponent moves hir arms to get away from your hug, and is now sort of Supermanning on top of you. Thread that arm OVER hir arms and under hir chin, and roll hir over your face. Likewise, your body will naturally follow. Note that this time, you roll overtop the foe in the OPPOSITE direction that you did previously (ie, toward hir head).

Both of these techniques were fun, but very abs-intensive! I was feeling the burn right above my belly button after just a few reps.

My first several reps of this second technique went fine, aside from the fact that I was rolling Christy right over my face, which was mildly annoying. I almost let it go, but then Doug walked by- so I decided to go ahead and ask him what simple adjustment would prevent this issue, because I knew there would be one. He had me pause and tip my head closer to Christy's just before I rolled her, like I was telling her a secret. Unfortunately, I was focusing so hard on that detail that I went the wrong direction when it came time to flip my body over her, and *****OF COURSE******* that would be the moment Carlos walks by.  (Why does that always happen????!????? Does that happen to everybody or just me?????!!!!! ARGH!)

Then he made me do it on the Stupid Side, and I looked like even more of a moron because I blanked and couldn't remember the steps on that side.  I said, "I have to stop and think about it." and he said that he wanted me to think, because I still had to be here for an hour.

Then we did King Of the Hill from side control, and Carlos yelled at me and Sean because we kept going when I got half guard, and we weren't supposed to.

Next- just for a trifecta of looking like a wingnut in front of the prof tonight- I got in side control on top of him, and he reversed me in about .0000000002 of a millisecond. I knew it would be quick, but not THAT quick. I was so surprised that I exclaimed, "SHIT!!!" quite loudly. Carlos does not like cussing on his mat. I slapped both hands over my mouth, but it was too late!

I was KOTH'ing with another guy when he executed a *very* nice technique that I was not familiar with. It was one of those ones where you have to sweep your own self in order to avoid getting your arm broken. One of the ones where they are already in the middle of an unstoppable motion, so you can't just yell TAP and freeze the action. Unfortunately, I didn't parse what was happening until *almost* too late, and then it was like

OHJESUSGODIHAVEHALFAMILLISECONDTOGETFROMTHERETOHEREBEFOREMYELBOWGOESSNAP

....and I had to really utilize all my experience with analyzing and executing just how to change the angle, and exactly when to relax the arm and shift my weight. In a flash. Ironically- even though I was tapping a moment later- it made me feel masterful. I figured it out and I handled it, instinctively and instantaneously. If he would have done that to a white belt- or maybe even a blue- it would have broken the arm.

"Just let it happen." Uh, no.

(Being in a) Hard Zone demands a cooperative world for you to function. - Josh Waitzkin, “The Art Of Learning”


Thurs lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue. We were professorless today, so Nelson was kind enough to work with us on a couple of judo throws, and then we sparred.

I continue to have great difficulty getting out from under side control (I continue to request that people put me there and just sit on me). Chrisanne likes to trap my near arm so that I can't get my elbow down, which makes it even harder.

Also, I need more options for attacking Chrisanne's Teflon Turtle. She doesn't let me get any hands or feet in anywhere. Next time I get some private moments with an upper belt, I will ask for suggestions for that.

Currently arguing with some asshat on Georgette's wall who feels that women should not carry guns and should simply submit to rapes in the hope of keeping their lives (because if you "escalate" , that'll just make things worse for you). I don't know why I argue with these people. It just gives me indigestion and makes me hate humanity even more. I should just find a forum to publish my eloquent wisdom as articles instead. 

The meanest one of all

The only thing easier than the physical part (of self defense) is the intellectual understanding of the physical part. And that is sometimes a trap. Knowing the words is not the same as knowing the music. Knowing something with your head alone is almost useless when it comes time to apply those skills with your body under stress. But people often believe that knowing is the same as understanding, and that the ability to talk about things or answer questions is in some way correlated with the ability to do those things. It is not.
–Rory Miller


Thursday evening BJJ in Bellevue.

Short warm-up roll with Casey.

Standup, judo grips. With your sleeve-grip hand, slide fingers down opponent's sleeve to your own lapel and briskly snap lapel out of hir hand while you turn out slightly. Kneel between hir feet, turned slightly out toward your lapel-grip hand (which grip you have retained) and use that lapel grip hand to yank opponent into your fireman's carry. Carlos stresses that you must not curl into a "c" shape when you kneel- body should remain upright. Don't dump to the back or front- dump hir right on hir head.

Same, only opponent sprawls. Transition to single-leg. Peter was praising my single-leg effusively, which was weird since I've struggled so much with it and continue to do so.

You are under side control, opponent has both arms on hir own side. Buck up slightly and place hand nearest opponent on your ear. Now push and shrimp; shove your other arm under opponent's armpit as far as you can. As soon as you have room to do so roll on your belly. (Note that if you fail to control opponent's other arm, s/he will crossface you and force you back down.) I have always resisted rolling onto my belly in this technique. I feel very vulnerable. Carlos demo'ed how it is actually pretty impossible for the opponent to prevent you from moving from belly-down to turtle no matter how much s/he sprawls.

Next, tuck right up beside opponent, shove the knee nearest hir in there and force hir over into side control. As you slide on, switch to scarf.

KOTH starting from side control: escape vs mount. I was on top of (huge, brown belt) Jim- whom I rarely work with- at one point. He commented afterward (admiringly, not critically(!)) that I was "the meanest one of all" because as soon as I took side control, I shoved my forearm bone against his jaw and made him turn his head. Good thing Cindy was not there to hear that comment. YES, this is the same technique that I did to E-man some three years ago which causes her to STILL TODAY run around telling everyone that I "neck crank little kids".  It is not the least bit mean- and I have such a low bar for "mean"... it's not painful at all, it's just pushing the face away in order to make it more awkward to see what I'm setting up. When I came through the line and got Jim a second time, he looked up from the floor, saw me looming over him, and whimpered, "Oh my God!" It was pretty funny.  He also had good things to say about my sprawl.

A long, pleasant roll with Chris.

I have been putting a lot of thought into the defeatism issue that I discussed after Proving Grounds. It has become impossible to avoid the reality check that I routinely surrender every single roll before it even starts. Anything I might get, I assume it's because my opponent was being nice and gave it to me. If they praise me- as two people independently did tonight- I can't accept that. I assume they are just saying it to be nice (probably because I suck so horribly that they feel sorry for me). I have mentioned this before... it's not like I wasn't aware of this all along... but I didn't really see that I am doing it EVERY.....SINGLE.......TIME.  Tournaments are disturbing because it somehow feels less acceptable to meekly resolve to lose every roll in a comp than it does to meekly resolve to lose every roll on the practice mat. I think that terror of "escalation" is a factor as well in comp- it feels like the situation is dangerously and intimidatingly "escalated" right from the get-go, so instead of rising to meet the challenge, I am simply "struggling" (as opposed to "fighting"), being defensive, and trying to "de-escalate". 

Also a factor, of course, is the fear of failure. If you don't try, you can't really fail- because you can still tell yourself, "Well, I *could* do it, if I was really trying." How unthinkably awful it would be to REALLY try and find that you STILL couldn't do it. That's just the endpoint of it all. There ain't noplace to go from there.

I have not yet come up with any constructive ideas for trying to work on this.

It does occur to me that blowing off positive feeback from my training partners is actually a form of disrespect to them. Feedback from your training partners is a gift. Presumably they are trying to help you, and not just coddling you and blowing smoke up your ass. If you respect that person as a martial artist, one should respect their viewpoint and advice, and assume that they know what they are talking about.

"Do you do yoga?"

If you get injured- shot or otherwise- while running, keep running. Most people survive wounds. Most wounds are psychologically, not physically, incapacitating. You may be killed. You may bleed out. DO NOT give up. Not even if you are shot. –Rory Miller



Friday evening BJJ, Bellevue.

Side control  to scarf, throw your leg over opponent's head  and grab your own lapel, trapping opponent's arm. Place your other hand on the mat, then knee, then turn and armbar (the foot closest to opponent's feet is under hir back). Little Prof Herbert stays amazingly tight throughout- he's so close to the guy that he's practically scootching underneath him.

Same, but opponent defends armbar by joining hands. Pull your feet out one at a time and cross them over top of hir arm. Bicep slicer(!)

Then switch to a grab-your-own-wrist grip and roll towards opponent's head to break the grip. That one I learned from Carlos some time ago and have actually effectively used, along with a foot on the bicep to pry at the arm.

Next: I know there's a name for the keylock when the opponent's palm is on the mat by hir hip, but I don't know the name (no one ever names techniques here). Anyhow, you're in side control going for that, and the opponent grabs hir own belt or gi tail to defend. The arm closest to hir feet, place that elbow on the mat and your palm on your ear. thread your other hand through and grab the bicep of THAT arm (this took some wiggling, for me). Now move to NS and kick your trainling leg under in a sit-out. KEEP elbow on the mat (this is counterintuitive, but the prof corrected me on this specifically and it changed EVERYTHING). Once in position, you barely have to lift in order to finish a shoulder lock.

Positional sparring from side control. Then one roll with Kevin and one with a good blue belt guy I've worked with a couple times. As we slapped hands to start- him drenched in sweat and puffing like a locomotive- he commented wonderingly that I wasn't even out of breath. Kevin and I had just had a long, lively, competitive, technical roll. I asked blue belt guy if he did yoga. He was that flexible, esp for a guy. He said no, but that he'd done lots of MA and always worked on his flexibility.

I seem to be moving more and setting up- or at least threatening- more subs lately. It seems like a slow, meandering improvement. I'll take it.

I put on some music last night while making the cat food. Found out that my CD player has bought the farm. Tape player still works, although will not rewind. Sigh. Last week I organized most of my art supply boxes, and I have my tables set up now... so I can start working on projects any time. I also churned out three pages on my book today- which I haven't worked on in a long time. Frustratingly, as I make a few tentative moves to break out of creative deep-freeze, my mind immediately starts hamster-wheeling on past trauma events (Autumn '11). I really hope those thought processes are not mentally associated with the book (although I started serious concrete work on that right after the trauma, to try to divert myself- I'm going to be really vexed if that's the case). The alternative theory, of course, is that *ANY* venture out of robotic day to day "enduring life" and into a creative "LIVING life" mode causes my subconscious to lunge up reflexively like Pavlov's Demon Dog to sabotage me with toxic thought processes. I am my own worst enemy. It kinda makes me want to put the art away and just go back into zombie zone. Seriously, it's like I can't allow myself to feel pleasure and enjoyment (in art) without serving up a load of emotional garbage to make sure it's tainted. Either feel nothing at all, or open the door that lets acute pain back into the space.  I mean, just look at this paragraph. This happened because I sang along with 2 cassette tapes and wrote three pages of fiction. This is how I get. I don't know if it's worth it.

Problem is, my MA, my artistry, and my spirituality are all fused together. I can make some progress on MA while in endurance mode... you just have to keep going through the motions... but it is slow and crippled.

I am going to get all my hair cut off tomorrow. Looking forward to being able to get on the mat without that sweaty swim cap wrapped around my noggin for a while. I'm thinking about getting a Marine cut next month right before PSG. If I got a Marine cut and dropped ten pounds, I don't think my Evil Twin and I would be able to tell OURSELVES apart.

Thank you for showing up.

Absence is the most efficient survival strategy. –Rory Miller



Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Taking nearly a month off class does not appear to have had any effect on my injured elbow. It was a bit worse after the tournament. I'm frustrated with it, but I guess it's time to just suck it up and keep going, working around it as best as possible.

Drilled with a new woman- Christy. She's already got some really good basics. She informed me that she had "HEARD of me". Geez. Cindy was present today, and immediately proceeded to tell Christy all about how I like to neck-crank little kids.

Butterfly guard. You grab opponent's ankles. Place left foot in hir rt hip. Turn on your right hip and pull hir left leg crossways across your lap. Your right knee should be under this leg. Curl up and scoot in terribly close, low, as if you are trying to crawl right up hir butt. Do not let go of the ankle. Once you are tucked right up in there, you can let go of the ankle and grab the back of hir belt. Technical lift to get your leg in position to take the back.

You standing, opponent on hir back with feet up. You swipe hir left foot to the side and step your right foot to hir left hip. Hike up on one leg and paste your bent left leg against hir left leg, right under the knee. Fall onto your right hip. Pinch knees together, opponent's leg between them. Grab the pantleg. Tripod up, in a sort of KOB position, only you are KOT (knee on thigh). Keep the shin, and pressure down on the thigh to keep them there. Grab the near lapel. When s/he pushes back, pull the leg, turn your hip and go to side control.

I was at first grabbing the far lapel, as I generally like to do, and Prof. Carlos came over to correct me.

Kitsune: "Why don't I want to hold the far lapel?"
Carlos: "You want to try eet on me?"
Kitsune: "NO."

Christy was kind enough to rescue me at that point by setting up an armbar to demo why you don't want to hold that lapel, and I'm sure she did it much gentler than Carlos would have. I thanked her humbly.

Christy had a brace on her ankle, so I was being extra careful, but Carlos still came over to warn me to fall on my HIP and not my back, so as not to injure her. He even started to suggest that I switch to the other side, but she demurred. Now, I'm very happy that he is diligent about looking out for everyone's safety, especially the women. But it irritates me and hurts my feelings when he acts like he thinks I'm going to injure people by being careless. I know Cindy's just giving me crap when she does this- she knows that I'm very careful and I am extremely safe for anyone to work with. I can't help thinking that that *ONE* time that I accidentally extended Kelly's elbow a bit too much and she yelped during drills has burned into his mind that I'm unsafe. That was a very, very, VERY isolated incident in a long history of safe martial arts partnering, and she was *FINE*.  I wish we could put that in the past. I don't like feeling that Carlos regards me as an unsafe partner.

Several rounds of positional sparring from butterfly guard. Then one round with Christy and one with Nelson. Nice to see him again. He has cracked his floating ribs. He actually went to the doctor, so you know it hurts pretty damn bad.

When we lined up to bow out, Carlos thanked a number of people for a number of different things, and then added, "Thank you Keetsune, for showing up."  Blush.

Chrisanne! And Will!

If you are attacked, every second of hesitation is a second of damage. The longer the hesitation lasts, the more damage you take- the less able you become to do anything effective when and if you do act. –Rory Miller


Lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue. Chrisanne!!!  :)   There were actually *FOUR* women on the mat. Wow.

I attacked Chrisanne and rolled a little with her to warm up.

I didn't like the grin on Carlos' face. Sure enough, he was in a really drilly mood.

100 takedown setups. Fast. Then guard passing- eight or ten different guard passes, twenty times each, fast.

Three five-minute spars. Chrisanne, Justin, Alex (the blue belt one, not the humongo almost-brown-belt one).
----------------

Evening BJJ in Kirkland. Will!!! I love working with Will.

Side control. Basic replacement of closed guard.

Side control, top opponent is blocking your hip. Shrimp out, brace matward shin against opponent's arm. Kick your other foot over hir head. Control the arm. (You may be able to armbar from here.) Square up, foot on hip. Other foot on bicep. (You may be able to triangle from here). This was kind of a complicated sequence... but as always, Will is a sublime partner, and we were able to kick out a bazillion reps, and I even found an omoplata opening.

Dave was a little too enthusiastic with his demo, and almost popped my elbow (the left, of course- the elbow and the shoulder on that side have been intermittantly troublesome for a long time). I managed to bite my tongue on the yelp. I am still finding it very restimulating when I get passed over for more junior students as demo dummy, so it makes me really reluctant to be a baby when I am in the role.

One five-minute spar with Dave. I was pretty tired (and a little headachy) by then, but he seemed impressed with my work- and did not appear to be handing me a bunch of stuff.
 

Saturday though Thursday

Kaia appeared on tributary bank and swooped into the grouping of lanterns without a sound, like a grim spectre. –The Hole In the Clouds



Saturday comp class in Seattle. All spars. Meg, Coach Dynamo, Ian, John... I think there were one or two more in there but I can't recall. I felt competant. Meg is very technical and eager. I hope she sticks around. It was great to roll with John. It's been a really long time. He's gotten so much better. It seemed like a really good competitive roll.

Turtle Drum went well. Not a huge crowd, but enthusiastic. Bryan did everything except call/dismiss quarters. I used the Spiral Rhythm chant again. They love that. I had been planning to cast the circle with my red light saber, but at the last minute I asked my housemate if I could borrow her smaller rainbow strobe shortsword. As it turned out, Thekla set up the altar with a branch growing out of a pot and strung with illuminated rainbow stars. It was perfectly coordinated. I walked up there and stuck the short sword in the pot as if I was lighting it from the branch.

Registered for Proving Grounds on (IIRC) March 1 or thereabouts. No-gi only.  Weight will be okay as long as it doesn't go up this month.
-------------------------------
Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Begin in closed guard. Grip lapels, step left foot up by opponent's hip, straighten right leg out behind you as you stand up and turn to break guard. (Brace your knee against the hip.)

Press opponent's left knee to ground, slide your rt knee through, backsit, take side control.

Next technique: you are standing, opponent lying on hir back with feet on your hips. You grip pantlegs at insides of knees. Underhook one leg and press the other knee to the floor. Slide rt knee through, then left knee. Take side control.

Multiple repeats of these, to exhaustion. Both John (this is a different John) and I kept mixing up whether we were supposed to do the backsit or the double-slide. I had to ask him to be careful on my ribs- his weight on top is amazing. Because I had already asked for that, I refrained from asking him to go easier on my knees- although it hurt like hell every time he slid over one.

Kirkland

’Feeling’ other people’s intentions when there is no time  to comprehend is not a special talent reserved for enlightened masters.  Only a bad relationship with our perceptions and a poor regard for our intuition can take this fundamental weapon away from us. Centuries of strict rationalism and skeptical philosophies have contributed to undermine our natural sensitivity. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Evening class in Kirkland, under (purple) Dave.

Opponent standing, you on your back with feet on hips. Opponent pushes your leg to the side and steps to the side, you cross far leg over top and replace the open guard. Over and over.

From closed guard: spider guard to triangle to armbar to omoplata to triangle.

From side control: near arm under opponent's head, sit back on your hip, grab pantleg. Mount, grapevine, arm under head, dismount in "kickstand" position. Then side control. Rinse, repeat.

Basic back mount escape. Don't forget to grab the pantleg and push it away. Also, noting that tilting the head to the side and then pressing it back against opponent before rolling onto the side makes a big difference.

Same, only this time opponent grabs half guard. Sit back on hip, clear the arm, CROSSFACE (very important), shoulder pressure. Now scoot butt back as you use free arm (and your other foot, if necessary) to clear the half guard.

You are in turtle, Opponent is sprawled on you N/S. Hug one thigh, pop head out on that side side and press it against  opponent's shoulder blade. Step the outside foot out. Pop your body out and lie back on opponent. Twirl around to hang off hir side, as s/he is now turtled.  My biggest challenge here is remembering to circle the elbow back as I pop out.

Same beginning pose. This time grab both thighs and scoot in close. Pop head out, step out on that same side, use OUTSIDE hand to grab the near ankle. Push with shoulder (be very upright) and lift to spill opponent over. Take side control. There is a good opportunity here to also trap both legs on top of your thighs.

Sparring: Twice with a white belt I don't know, once with Dave. With Dave, my amazing skills from this afternoon continued to reign. I did worse against the white belt, go figure- even though he wasn't being smashy or ridiculously heavy. He had good basics, good guard passes and really good top pressure. In our first spar, I did loop choke him in about twenty seconds, which inspired much hilarity (him included). 

Overwrap, underwrap

Shootouts with handguns generally follow the “Rules Of Threes”. They take place at three yards (or less),  are over in about three seconds (or less), and you will fire about three rounds. – Lovette and Spaulding



Fri: Dreamed about guns all night.

Today my right foot does not hurt. This is momentous. I woke up one day in April with random and severe plantar's fasciitis, and every single day since then, putting my right foot on the ground has felt like stepping on razor blades. Today- just as randomly- it is gone. For good????? Please?????

Sat: 128.5

Saturday all-levels at Seattle. It was very nice to see (and hug) Rodrigo and Lindsey (black belt Lindsey, not blue belt Lindsay).

Standup: Touch foe's right wrist with your left- don't grab, just cup. Step in with left foot and seize bicep with right hand as you bring right foot INSIDE and wrap it around opponent's right shin. Sink your level. Your belly should be right against opponent. At the last second, turn so that you are starting to go around the corner as you take down.  This is gnarly- you could easily pop someone's knee.  Angus has really good balance/grounding, but I wonder how this would work against someone my size.

Top side control: As opponent turns into you and puts arm up, overwrap it with the arm closest to opponent's feet. Go all the way around till hand is on opponent's back. Pop up the knee closest to opponent's head. Spin around to back and replace side control. This was a complex arm-braiding exercise, but once I got it, it was nice and smooth.

Then, just to throw us into total confusion, a slightly different version wherein you UNDER wrap the use your other hand to press the head to the mat.

Cancellation.... and some TMI

I don’t think conflict is a physical problem most of the time, and even when it is a physical problem, there are minds and social rules and the world involved. The more of those elements you can manipulate skillfully, the better off you are. Sometimes you play the cards, sometimes you play the person and sometimes you play the table. –Rory Miller


Well shazbot- Amanda's a no-show. There are no other female purple belts registered. My gi bracket is cancelled.

Evening BJJ in Kirkland. I'm giving myself points for effort, but it really just does not work to try to do MA classes the day after working a graveyard shift. I took a Nyquil and did get a few hours of sleep, but it was just not enough. I felt like something on the bottom of someone's shoe.

Unfortunate timing of hormonal cycles means that this week- today in particular- I have felt as if I had two gigantic, swollen, painful pumpkins sitting on my chest. It seems as if they are taking up the entire room. It hurts just standing still, nevermind being squooshed beneath Izzy's excellent top pressure. (Sorry for the TMI, men... but you should take this moment to thank the patriarchal deity of your choice that you don't have this crap to deal with, because it's terrible.) I really hope I make weight, because another unlovely aspect of this time interval is randomly gaining a few extra pounds of water retention overnight.

Same keylock/armbar/kimura sequence as Monday. For some reason I had the idea that the kimura wants a 90 degree elbow. When you're doing it flat on the mat, the arm actually can/does go almost straight by the time you start pulling up on the elbow. Cindy notes that I am being sloppy about making sure the opponent's wrist is pasted to the mat throughout. Also, she recommends "monkey grip" (ie, no thumb).  I feel insecure with this grip, but I can't get a decent grip on 99% of people with the normal grip (their wrists are too big around) so I guess I have nothing to lose.

Flow drill: side control, keylock, backsit with good "kickstand", front mount, dismount with backsit (mind your kickstand again), side control, keylock, wash, rinse, repeat.

This was cool: From side control, isolate the near arm with your elbow and thigh. Sneak your own gi tail into the hand nearest opponent's feet. Feed it over opponent's chest and beside hir neck and grab it with the hand behind hir head. Palm down. Bonus points if you can keep the tail hidden under your cupped hand and/or dig into your opponent's face to obscure the fact that you're sneaking it in there.

Now: Give a little tug to snug it up. Mind that your arm around opponent's head is snug enough that s/he can't pop hir head out. Now lean away, toward hir feet, making an X shape. Don't worry about that near arm now, it doesn't matter. Place forehead to mat beside hir hip (if you even get that far).

A little positional sparring from side control. I was not doing well against Izzy, and feeling more and more exhausted. I had really, really wanted to ask her and Dave to roll with me afterward (no-gi), but I was just limp.

More asymmetrical than ever

Martial arts are one among the many means to come in contact with our perceptive potential. During the practice of martial arts, we go back to a primordial simplicity. No need of drugs, objects, or external substances to help us. We are left alone with our bodies. We don’t have to wait for things to happen, we make them happen. It is like Zen archery or like climbing mountains: we use the body as a takeoff runway for inner skies.   -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

127

Tuesday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.  It was pretty amusing to see all the tape and Advil getting passed around before class, among those who are doing the evening training camps.

Standup: opponent throws cross jab. You throw up "Black Crane" type elbow shield and change level. Scoot in and try to get an elbow strike to opponent's ribs. Then grab for double-leg takedown. Opponent defends by spinning out and grabbing headlock. You grab behind knee and around waist and take down. Now: same headlock escape and armbar as yesterday. Today we grabbed the pants as we sat back for the armbar.

I had some issues with the way that this differed from what we did yesterday. I didn't like the reaction to the headlock not involving fighting the neck hold at all. I can see that if you take the guy down, most of the danger is past- but if that headlock is on well and good, I'm concerned that he might break my neck or choke me out or otherwise put the screws to me before I can take him down.

Asymmetrical choke, again. I actually got praise for this by Carlos.

King Of The Hill from top side control and then bottom side control. I got really destroyed by everybody today in KOTH. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to get destroyed by Otavio Sousa. Maybe another morning.

Asymmetrical chokes

What’s your opponent’s strength? What will he be relying on? Deny him that. While remembering that, if he’s good, he knows you’re going to try to deny him that, and will be devising ways to prevent you from denying him that- while trying to deny you your strengths too. -Campfire Tales From Hell



129

Lunchtime BJJ Kirkland.

Standing headlock. Fight the arm at your throat while turning your face into enemy's ribs. Do not turn face toward crook of elbow.

Place free arm about hir waist. Swing your leg back and go to one knee to put the party on the ground. Side control. If s/he clings to the headlock, grab your own wrist and post on hir face while you posture up to pry it off. Note that to use the full strength of both arms, you want to use the hand on top to clasp the wrist on bottom.  Note also that if you are a tiny Kitsune, this may not be sufficient against a behemoth and you may have to resort to some squirming and twisting to pop your head out.

Side control flow drills. SC with gable grip, backsit, front mount, dismount, SC. Rinse, repeat.

Same, only no gable grip- elbow in the ear and opposite hand controlling the hip nearest you.

Asymmetrical choke. Side control with your arm under opponent's head. Grip gi at far shoulder. I found an ouside grip better- ie, I tended to get too bound up if I tried to grip in the lapel. But you have to be able to keep hir down, so do what you need to do. The arm nearest opponent's feet, push that under and across your own chest until you can grip behind the collar. Now flip your first forearm over hir face and choke with forearm. You need to make sure you dig in well under that jawbone, because s/he is going to be straining hir chin down as soon as s/he realizes what you're doing.
Some positional sparring from side control.

A roll with the new guy (I think he's another "John"- I need to retain his name, because he's a really nice guy. He uses a lot of muscle, but he is aware of it and chagrined by it. He's very polite. He seems to be having a lot of fun. I hope he stays.) and one with Cindy (no-gi, with copious standup). Almost got a tomoe nage on the new guy- it wasn't very clean and I couldn't get on top after, but I did manage to loft him over. Too bad- it only works on each new person once, so I blew it!

It was much fun to watch Cindy rolling with the new guy, while I heckled from the sidelines.

The tangled web we weave

Stacking: a skilled fighter will use many things in combination. Strikes and gouges can both set up a throw and do damage during the execution. You can lock a limb while sweeping a leg. You can use a lock to slam the threat into a corner or over a coffee table. It’s all good. –Rory Miller





Fri: 128.   Okay, so maybe it's a LITTLE funny.


Friday evening BJJ in Bellevue.

Standup: Judo grips. Push and pull back and forth a few times to make foe step back and forth. Then as s/he is stepping forward with the foot on your elbow-grip side, pull DOWN with the elbow grip and UP with the lapel grip as you use your same-side foot to sweep opponent's ankle between the two of you. You want to do this very suddenly, after s/he has committed hir weight to the step but before hir foot is down.  (Note: stupid side is phenomenally stupid.)

Now: Top side control. Use knee to isolate the arm. Go for KOB, but it's a trap!!!!!! As opponent puts hand on your knee, you pin it to hir belt. That knee you have on hir belly, stretch it all the way behind you and then sweep it in a huge glorious circle around to stick your foot behind opponent's neck. You are going OVER TOP of hir arm. As you put your foot behind the neck, grab your own ankle with the other hand.

(Note: as you do this sweeping circular motion, you can also yank the opponent's head and shoulders up a bit to make it easier to stuff your foot in there. If s/he has turned toward you a little in order to try to shrimp out from under your KOB, this will also make your life easier. Thank you very much.)

Now roll. DO NOT LET GO OF YOUR ANKLE!!!! Place your other foot on opponent's hip. Opponent is probably helping you at this juncture because s/he has now realized your dastardly plot, and is trying to get postured to defend the triangle.

As long as you have kept that ankle, you ought to be able to complete your adjustments in a leisurely fashion. 

You can also finish the triangle without rolling if you wish.

Opponent is in turtle, you sprawled on top N/S. Place left arm against the left side of hir head and scoot to that side. As you are sinking the crossface, go ahead and secure a grip on hir OPPOSITE bicep.

Now reach under hir with your free arm and hug both hir biceps. Pull hir arms towards you and dump hir on the mat on hir back. If you stay nice and tight, and focus on placing your kneeling thigh under hir biceps, you can keep those arms trapped- which is a great position from which to do all sorts of mischief to bring about a finish.

Finally: gi choke from closed guard. Break opponent's posture and grips and lock hir right bicep under your left armpit. Linger there at smooching distance while you get the fingers of that same hand into hir opposite lapel (you can use your other hand to feed it if you need to). Don't tighten it up to the point that you don't have enough slack for the next step: stick the thumb of your right hand into the back of the collar right at the tag. Now whip your forearm over hir head and choke.

One roll with Daniel, one with Ron, one with the visiting black belt.

Ron seemed to be doing some catch and release, to the point where I was like, "Come on, finish your subs. Tap me, dammit. I'm competing next week." He replied, "I'm ALWAYS trying to tap you, Kitsune."  He was also doing a lot of inverted guard. I sprawled heavy on his face (sorry Ron) and used his gi tails to wrap up his shoulders and neck. I did not have a cohesive plan with that- my brain isn't that geometrically clever- but I did manage to get him so tied up that he found himself unable to transition into any of the nasty little tricks that he likes to set up from inverted guard. As we panted there with our faces about two millimeters apart, and I watched him try to move one way and then the other while dismay began to creep into his eyes, I whispered, "Oh, the tangled webs we weave."

So after two ten-minute rolls with Daniel and Ron that were tons of fun, Doug goes to put Mario with the visiting black belt, and Carlos stops him. "He's been training hard all day. Geef heem a break. Let heem go weeth Keetsune."

I couldn't decide whether to be insulted or not. On the one hand: Sparring me is apparently considered a "break" or at least markedly less work than sparring Mario, who is the same rank (taller and heavier, but it's not like he's a grizzly or anything). On the other hand, since Carlos is the one who is ranking me, one would think he wouldn't want me to roll with his buddy if he thinks said buddy will pull him aside after class and ask him, "Dude, what kind of bad acid trip were you on when you gave that chick a purple belt????"

So anyway, I fight the visiting black belt- who is a smaller-size guy and turned out to be great fun. He was letting me work some- even let me have a choke tap. I seemed to be rolling pretty well, and I got the sense that he didn't think I sucked. He also gave me a split lip, but it was well worth it.

It was a fun night of training.

Public service message: Paul Thomas Jiu Jitsu and Kickboxing MMA school (Katy, Texas) has indicated that Nick Schultz (the guy who raped a teammate at TLI and left her semiconscious on a cement parking lot in the middle of a winter night) is welcome to come back and train there (he has trained at Paul Thomas before). Please help spread the word that Paul Thomas Jiu Jitsu Kickboxing MMA welcomes dangerous and immoral asswipes onto its mats to troll for their next victims among its students and their families.  Please also indulge me as I will be using this blog on an ongoing basis to publicize schools and sponsors who support rapists. We need to get this out into the light where everyone can see.

Slide into home

 A melodic tinkling sound suddenly drew her attention downstream. If she'd been in fox shape, her ears would have pricked up.  –The Hole In the Clouds



Evening advanced class in Bellevue. I almost didn't go in... my forearms felt very achey and weak. Achey I can ignore, but the functional grip impairment was more problematic. Then it occurred to me that this was the same thing I had been dealing with in the no-gi portion of the last comp, and I could do worse than to just run with it and try to cope.

I was also pretty drugged up on allergy meds.

So of course we began with RUNNING and SPRAWLS and BURPEES, and within three minutes I was heartily regretting my folly.

Standup: single-leg setups (using judo grips, pull down on collar and yank up on elbow, grab leg on the elbow side).

Then, break lapel grip and shoulder throw.

Next: you are standing, opponent lying on hir back before you. Underhook one thigh and hike it onto your shoulder while pushing other knee to mat. "Slide into home" with NEAR knee cutting across opponent's thigh. Move to side control. Make sure you do not leave your trailing arm between hir legs (I did this once, and Ross helpfully slammed me into a backward triangle to show me my mistake).

Rotating spars. I know there are plenty of subs you can do without hand grips, but I just was not in the game tonight. The only positive thing I can really say about tonight's spars is that they burned calories.

Hopefully arms will be better in the morning, or I may need to give the bod a break.

Right before class, I watched Carlos devour an enormous submarine sandwich and make a huge shake disappear. Then- to my envious horror- he produced a stuffed pita sandwich every bit as large and wolfed that as well. I don't know how he can eat like that five minutes before getting on the mat. We razzed him. I said, "You're not going to puke on us, right?" We concluded that the food is being transformed directly into muscle even before it reaches the stomach. 

"What martial art you are doing?"

 The usual winner in a ground fight is NOT the best grappler, but whoever has friends who show up first and start kicking. –Rory Miller



Tues: 127.5

Tuesday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue. We had a visiting black belt today- which always means a lot more work! I'm not sure if the prof is trying to show us UP or show us OFF in those cases.

Same standing thrust kick defense that we did yesterday.

Carlos: What martial art you are doing?
Kitsune: (hands over face in shame)
Carlos: I don't know what you doing, but ees not zchoo-zchitsu.

Okay, so it's NOT functionally identical to Black Crane. We are supposed to stand with one foot well forward. I honestly want to know how we can plan to have the correct foot forward when we are not dealing with a compliant uke who can be relied upon to kick with the "correct" foot. But I can't think of a way to ask the question without having it sound like the dreaded "my MA is better than your MA" challenge, which place I DO NOT want to go with Carlos. It's an honest question. I wonder who else I might be able to approach to straighten out that bit of confusion for me.

In addition, the copious errors of my ways included elbow striking with the "wrong" elbow. It appears to me that the technique will work with either elbow, but it seems to be better supported by the full weight of my body (as well as utilizing more of the torque from the turn) to use the "wrong" elbow. Oh well.

Despite my show of contrition and lack of argument, I wonder if he thinks I'm copping attitude when I inadvertantly bleed Kung Fu into my Zchoo-zchitsu; as it then turned into Pick On Kitsune Day- even though the room was packed, he was all up in my grill the whole hour pointing out errors in all of my techniques. Of course, many instances of POKD have no discernable trigger at all.... so who knows.

Foe is in your closed guard. Use right hand to pin hir left hand to hir belt. Secure left hand cross grip on hir left lapel OVER TOP of that trapped forearm. Knee up on the trapped side. Shin turn out on the OTHER side, toe posted. Stand. Switch sleeve cuff grip to opposite hand and grab pants. Break guard and squat, quickly moving to double inside-the-knee grips as you make sure your legs are out of DLR guard range.

Now: Step left foot out to the left as you yank opponent's near leg straight and far knee to the mat on the other side. Sprawl and lay your face on hir belt, shoulder on the side of hir ribs. Dance to the side on toetips to pass.

If s/he pushes your face toward hir legs, go with the spin and do a breakdancing 3/4 turn on top of hir using your shoulder as the pivot. Now you are in side control, ideally with opponent's arms trapped as well.


Today's "Fun with English as a second language" moment:  "Poo foot".... Gordon was just as confused as I was by this instruction, and it was no clearer to either of us on the second or third repetition. Turns out "Poo foot" = "Pull foot" 

No-gi evening

Despair is an indulgence.   –Karani


No-gi in Bellevue. Fortunately Kelly and I had coordinated to both be there. Apparently she has gotten stuck with some rough partners in the no-gi class to the point where she is going less often. It was good that she was there for me to work with, because the only other people there were Luis and Tagir. Both are on my "safe partner" list, but the size/strength disparity is considerable.

Pummeling. Then Single-leg setup drills.

You have side control. Foe turns into you and sticks lower knee in. You move the arm closest to hir head OVER, then turn your hips toward hir feet and use your hip to move the knee. Grab hir far knee/thigh and pull it toward you as you mount.

Same entry, but when you turn toward the feet, your opponent brings hir elbow to the mat. Turn BACK toward hir head, grab the bicep and yank that puppy outta there. Close your arm over it so that you are in a modified scarf. Take a moment to make sure 1) the inside of opponent's elbow is toward the ceiling, and 2)shove hir head so that it is lying on your thigh. Now step your other leg over hir head and armbar.

A roll with Tagir and one with Kelly.

Spent quite a bit of time on my butt while Tagir tried to come in on me. Normally I'd get up and work standup as soon as we detangled enough; but I wasn't feeling up to getting thrown by Tagir tonight. As we handfought, oddly enough I found myself falling into Snake hand guard positions. That hasn't happened in a long time.

Note that Tagir is working on guillotines. He tried one on me and I managed to squirt out, but he got one on Kelly and kept it clamped on her for a few minutes before she finally had to tap.

I seem to be doing better against Kelly than I have done in the past. A year ago, she dominated me every roll and tapped me sometimes. Then there was a several-months-long period where I didn't work with her, and now- while I'm not tapping her very often, she's not tapping me hardly at all and she's not on top of me the entire time. I'm starting to wonder if she's coming up against that wall- the one that people tend to hit when they are gifted and start out doing very very well in their first couple of years.

Thursday advanced class

In martial arts, everything begins with the body. First, one gets acquainted with it, and slowly becomes intimate with it. The body is transformed into the best ally of the spirit. Then spirit and body become one. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path




Look what I found by the side of the road on my way home from work last night. Its name is "Notstaying". Anyone want a bunny?


Evening advanced BJJ at Bellevue.

Drills: side control to KOB to side control on the other side. Sit on your hip and use the FAR knee to slide over opponent, then fall onto hip on other side.

Opponent is in your closed guard, holding your belt. Break hir grip by bracing with your hand on your own wrist (Carlos does it by gripping with the outside hand and running the INSIDE wrist under). As you break grip, pull opponent's arm crossways over your chest and use your legs to help hir along. Hug around hir head and arm. Take a moment to make sure you have this seated correctly on the neck... this is the time to do it, as your opponent is occupied with trying to avoid the face-plant. Later, s/he is going to figure out what you are doing, and tuck hir chin- then it will be too late to adjust your choke. Now: Slide your legs down a bit,  and use them to pinch hir thighs together, then roll. (If this isn't working, you can also use a butterfly hook toe here.) Front mount. Hop off on the same side you have the trapped arm. Choke.

More drills: this time we began with the wrist release and cross-yank, then shrimped out and took the back. Note that getting a hook or a good lapel grip (ideally both) and then pulling opponent into your lap is much less work and less dangerous than  trying to get all the way out and then climb on hir back.

A few spars- two blue belts and a purple. I felt in control with both of the blues (got a few taps on each) and competitive with the purple tonight. Dave and I traded some good choke tips.
Got the new Miller book- "Force Decisions"- I'm about ten pages in, and already have about a billion good quotes marked.

You will be cleaning up your own puke.

Having a perfect body is not nearly as important as learning to listen to its voice.
-Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path



Plantar fasciitis continues unabated. Mostly the right foot. Drat it, I don't have the time or patience to massage my damn foot for 10 min every morning before getting out of bed!!! Plus my cats would get together and lynch me. Their expectation is that at the first ding of the alarm, I am catapulting out of bed to start getting their breakfasts ready.

Lunchtime at Seattle.

Another day of feeling pretty tired- and it was hot again. Not quite as hot as last night, but very hot.

Positional training from side control- pass vs sweep only. I was shocked to complete a sweep. Only one, but that's one more than I've ever been able to get before.

Carlos dressed me down for "not being fair" when he saw me hunker down to hug my opponent as we got started. He wanted the top person to begin in an upright position. Understandable. Yet the concept still boggled my brain. My partner was an adult male blue belt. A smallish one, true- but still- an "AMO" if you will (Since we were not going full bore, it didn't qualify for Georgette's awesome "FRAMO" classification: Fully Resisting Adult Male Opponent). I have the mindset that I am perpetually so far in the hole that the idea of me starting with any type of "unfair advantage" is laughable. If the guy started out hogtied, I'd still be at the disadvantage. That's why everyone is (still) getting such a hoot out of ragging on me for "grinding" on that little kid's throat- the idea that I would even have enough power to be *able* to be a bully is humorous. I've never even had to consider trying to be "fair". It's never fair- to me. Do I actually need to start worrying about being "fair" to AMO's? That sounds so ridiculous and pretentious.

I got a turn with a four stripe white belt girl that I've never worked with before- and after about 2 minutes, she had to excuse herself for dizziness. (Like I said, it was damn hot in there.) Carlos sent me into the bathroom to chase her down and caretake for her. She lay down on the changing room floor and I gave her a cold wet paper towel to put on her forehead. Then when I tried to return to the mat, Carlos sent me back in there AGAIN to tell her to come out and lie on the floor in the main room so that he could see she wasn't dead.  
---------------

Evening in Bothell.

Review of the front mount escapes we have been working on this week. Upa, upa with opponent trying to collar choke you (trap hir forearm against your chest), my favorite leg combover escape).

Some positional training from front mount.

A couple of spars with really big guys. I just tried to survive- and because they don't know very many subs yet, I succeeded.

Burpees *AFTER* the spars. Ugh! I tried to negotiate taking my jacket off, at least- there was another guy in there dressed in no-gi clothes (whom I had just finished fighting, IN GI)... no luck!

Fortunately I have not as of yet had need of this knowledge, but I was informed today that if you puke on Cindy's mat, you will be cleaning up YOUR OWN puke. Even the kids? Yup. So try to make it to the back door.