Maybe I should have been offended instead of relieved?

My crystal ball has never been very good. I've noticed that bad things generally happen to me when I'm not expecting it rather than when I am expecting it. For example, I've never been in a _planned_ car accident. I've never had a flat tire I was expecting to get. And the day my middle son was struck by lightning, we sure weren't expecting that to happen!
 That's why my default setting is to carry the gun, even at times and in places where I "feel safe."
-Kathy Jackson, Cornered Cat



Thursday no-gi and Friday evening gi in Bellevue.

More double-leg setups from standing.

Double-leg attempt to be met with sprawl.

Opponent bearhugs you from behind. You drop down to clear the forearms, lift them in front of your chest, turn body to the side, and step one foot behind opponent's foot. Takedown. If they defend, we lifted them off the ground and sort of contact-improv'ed them across our lower backs to drop them on the other side. I've never done anything like that in BJJ. It was unexpected to be picked up like that. It's something I don't usually think to do to an opponent (in BJJ). Judging by everyone else's response to the concept, it might be worth experimenting with live. Particularly as I have lately had the recurring thought that I ought to be working harder to formulate my nonexistant bottom game and should stop always leaping for the top.

Opponent is turtled. You do a "sash grip" over one shoulder and under the other. Switch legs and stick your far knee under hir belly, pull hir into back mount. At this point it was essential to be sure you had a grip with your fingertips digging into the palm of your opposite cupped hand. I do not like this grip and had to readjust it every rep. It was also essential that the arm OVER opponent's shoulder had the palm toward the ceiling (another thing I had to pause and check, and usually adjust). After getting your back mount points, move into S mount. Scoot the front leg way up on hir chest and sit down, bringing other leg around and over hir floorward shoulder. Now, if you dig your forearm bone into the side of hir neck (this is why the palm of this arm had to be facing up) and pinch your knees together, it was a nasty choke. Usable in no-gi. If you do it wrong it becomes a crank, so be careful. I like S mount, and I found that my usual positioning needed a very conscious adjust to move that front leg from belly to chest. If it wasn't far up enough on the chest, the move did not work. If everything was positioned correctly, we didn't even have to lean back or knee-squeeze, it already hurt bad enough to tap.

Spider guard sweeps- pull opponent's arm across your chest before sweeping. Neglecting to control the arm and neglecting to be aggressive enough about breaking down the opponent's posture are two persistant problems with my sweep game. I got WAAAAAAAAAAAY under my partner and manhandled her balance around.

Same entry, only instead of sweeping, place foot on opponent's shoulder blade and use a turned-in knee to elbow-lock. This was beautifully nasty- I love it. It is very Cindy-esque. Ha ha. I can't wait to try this on someone live. Preferrably Chrisanne, who missed this class. (Insert evil chuckle)

King of the hill- back mount vs escaping back mount. I am fairly good at escaping back mount, but I am hopeless as a backpack- and since that's where I was for this entire cycle, things did not go very well for me.

Carlos cautioned me TWICE this week for what he saw as me doing a technique too fast/rough- in both cases, I had my usual perfect exquisite control and there was absolutely no danger. This frustrates and offends me. I accidentally made Kelly yelp *ONCE* about three years ago (on a technique that I had done to numerous kung fu classmates about 3x as hard and they didn't react), and I think that one unfortunate occurance has really stuck in Carlos's mind and he has me irrevocably pegged as someone dangerously careless. I'm about the most careful and controlled MA'ist on the WHOLE PLANET, so it winds me up when he does this. (Maybe THAT is why he didn't put me with his girlfriend! He put her with a WHITE BELT! Hmmm, maybe I should be offended!)

I've got all the answers. Well, THIS one, anyway.

”We either make ourselves miserable,
or we make ourselves strong.
The amount of work is the same.”
- Carlos Castaneda


Thursday lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Man, I wish I could get to class more often. I was so happy to be in class. Carlos even remarked on the fact that I was laughing a lot today.

We did a bunch of spider guard sweeps that had about 862 steps with 5 critical little details in each step, and I have just tried and failed to transcribe any of them... although with Camille's help, I did okay performing them. She is better than I am at regurgitating long sequences of choreography, which is a persistent struggle for me.

I had one delicious moment of triumph today. Carlos demo'ed to the middle of one of these sequences, and said, "Now what if your opponent does THEES right now?" The front half of the line shouted several suggestions, all of which Carlos tried and demonstrated the wrongness of.  Then he told us to experiment with our partners and see if we could figure out something that would work. I immediately hipped out and transitioned to an armbar- AND I WAS RIGHT(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I was the only one who figured it out!!!!!!!!! To be fair, this was partly because we had been doing sweeps all day and everyone else was searching for a way to salvage the failed sweep. Whereas I- either because I still retain a ridiculous amount of always-attacking Tiger attitude, or just because my sweeps suck- went for a sub instead.

Related and funny: at one point, the prof noted that during the sequence of one of these sweeps, we must pause and remove our opponent's arm from the place where it naturally ends up, because if we fail to do so, it turns into a bicep slicer and we will get DQ'ed. He demo'ed the bicep slicer, and obviously noted my eyes lighting up (as they do whenever a choice bit of "bonus violence" presents itself).  He looked at me sternly and said, "Keetsune. You do thees in competition?" "No sir."

One spar with Camille, one with the tattooed purple belt whose name I can never remember, one with Jason. All fun rolls. Tattoed purple belt keeps pulling guard on me, and I tried to tell him that I'd like to work standup and that it's okay for him to take me down, as long as he doesn't slam me. He's one of those people who insists on being a little *too* careful with me.

Had to skip the structured dog walk tonight.... even January would have been disenchanted with the freezing rain. We have been hearing all week about this monster storm that's supposed to be coming in, and apparently the world is supposed to end and everything, but it has yet to materialize (except for some freezing rain). Rilla and I took dogs out in the rain yesterday (on her urging... we decided even 20 min was better than nothing.... if it had just been me I would have bailed, which is why I want walking partners to push me... I thanked her), and the sun ended up coming out and we walked for 2 hours. Particularly glad to get that in, in case we are stuck inside for the next week.