I have a Kindle.

There are things that cannot be caged within the limits of geographic or racial boundaries. They are paths open to anyone whose heart beats for something more than simple inertia. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


There is no jiu jitsu in this.



Thursday:

Form Of the Day: Dance Of Life

The antlered headdress is nearing completion. I enjoy arts and crafts, but this project has been difficult. Many expensive and time-consuming misadventures. I'm not thrilled with the way it turned out- it's not what I'd envisioned. I'm not sure if I should just go with it, scrap it and start over, or scrap it and give up.

One of the ER nurses came down last night to use my glucometer docking station, and saw all my fur and velcro and glue and sewing crapola spread all over. "Oh, what are you making?" "Errr....." I danced around for a while, but she was not letting me off the hook, and kept asking more questions.

If I'm absolutely cornered on such matters, I'll say that I'm "into some Native American stuff"- that doesn't tend to get the sort of recoil (or subsequent gossiping) that the P word often produces. At that point, it came out that she is somewhat familiar with the drum community- she has been to Flute Quest. So I invited her to Turtle Drum. ;)

Since I'm having to sew anyway, am taking this opportunity while my glue dries to detail my tactical scrub pants. What are tactical scrub pants, you ask? People who tend to carry around knives, guns, flashlights, cans of pepper spray, and other such goodies appreciate a nice cargo pant. I found some great cargo scrub pants with about a jillion pockets. I bought them in five different colors. All they need is a few stitches here and there to create a "pocket-within-a-pocket" so that my flashlight (on the left) and my pepper spray (on the right) remain upright and easy to grab. I hate it when the cylindrical paraphernalia in my pockets turn sideways. You have to readjust your pants before you can sit. The flashlight turns itself on, and burns batteries. If I needed to grab one of these items quickly, I'd have to fumble an extra moment to figure out which end was which. I like it when everything is exactly in place.

I'm hungry. And grumpy. But I'm being very good.
-----------------------
Friday:
Cake in the break room. This Little Piggy Had None.
-----------------------
Saturday:

I have a Kindle.

I confess this with mixed emotions. It has always been very important to me to not submit to being on an electronic tether. I only got a cell phone three years ago- and the only reason I succumbed to THAT was because my housemate cancelled the household landline in the middle of my hunt for a new job after being laid off. All of a sudden I figured out why no prospective employers were calling me back- because the phone number on my resume was disconnected. Getting a cell at that point was an emergency measure (after killing the housemate and hiding the body). I got (and still have) one of those no-frills ones that you have to load with minutes from cards bought at the supermarket. I do not carry it. I keep it in the car and check it every few days. I do not have an iphone, ipad, ipod, tablet, or any of those types of objects. I bought a used laptop last year just so that I could work on my book, and get on the internet when I was at the hospital overnight (they have Net Nanny on their wireless (doesn't that suck?), but it's a less restrictive version than is on the work computers).

One of my other housemates has some of the same literary tastes as I, as well as considerably more disposable income than I- thus I have fallen into the habit of letting him buy new releases of the authors we both like, and then I borrow the book from him when he is finished. When he got an e-reader, I was like, "Well, crap. Then you won't even be buying the new Wheel Of Time book, huh?" He- being a huge Geek, now has no fewer than FOUR e-readers. He loaned me one to read the Sanderson book on. I was hesitant but game. I like having a book in my hands, I don't like electronic gadgets, but I don't have twenty seven bucks burning a hole in my pocket for a hardcover new release.

Mixed reaction. Paging back through trying to find a reference from earlier in the story is a pain. Likewise, when I wanted to peek at the final chapter to see if so-and-so was really going to croak, that was a pain. I suspect this type of thing will be easier eventually when I learn how to navigate (I'm a slow learner with electronic gadgets; one of the reasons I don't care for them much). Having to plug it in to recharge was a pain- but the battery did last most of a work shift. (Another reason I don't like gadgets- having to keep track of how much juice everything has and remembering to keep constantly plugging shit in; and having batteries die all the time.) I could fit the device in my scrub top pocket (try that with the newest Wheel Of Time hardback- ha ha). I could also read it in bed. Reading in bed is a luxury that I have forgone in the last two years due to lighting difficulties.

Housemate bought me a Kindle Paperwhite. I would never have bought something like this for myself. (I did, however, use birthday money from my mom to buy a cover for it so that I would be less likely to break it).

I come from an era when dinosaurs roamed the earth and when you wanted something, you had to drive your car from store to store looking for it (and with a decent probability of never finding it for all your effort). We also paid for things with cash or personal checks. There was a visceral component to surrendering your hard-earned money. It took more effort.

Nowadays, you can get on the internet and find ANYTHING you want in minutes- even if it's on the other side of the planet. Internet shopping is great for being able to get exactly what you are looking for, but a Bad Thing for anyone with impulse control issues or an extremely limited budget. We buy with cards- or, in the case of online purchases, you don't even need that much. You can spend a hell of a lot of money in a hell of a short time without feeling like you really did it.

Now I can get a book in my hand (so to speak) in literally under a minute. I was somewhat disquieted to learn that I don't even need to buy the Kindle books on my desktop, and I don't even have to have the Infernal Device plugged into the computer *or* the wall- I can get a book in my hand in less than a minute from almost anywhere, with wireless. Gods help us. I feel like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice, when everything started to get out of control.

A colleague informed me last night that I can borrow some Kindle books from the library.

Also prominent in my mind is my upcoming annual PSG trip- which involves an all-day plane trudge each way, for which I normally purchase and pack half a duffle bag full of books. They take up a lot of room, and are heavy. Not so a Kindle. I also won't need to disturb my seatmates.... I always take a red-eye east, and always feel guilty when I turn the overhead light on to read while everybody else on the plane is trying to sleep.

I'm somewhat worried that a Kindle addiction will cause my already-agonizingly-slow work on my own WIP to grind to an utter halt. I read a little on the Kindle last night (I've bought one book on it so far), and then made myself work on my book for a few hours.

I dreamed about pizza all night.

I really hate dieting.

"There's no sweating in jiu jitsu ."

Fisher had tried to enter the hole in the clouds six or seven times- but kept finding
herself back in her body, the wooden raft pressing impassively against her
shoulderblades.  –The Hole In the Clouds


I'm feeling incredibly frustrated with weight right now. Yesterday I ate nothing but six shrimp, and a turkey sandwich (a little horseradish mustard at 5 cal per teaspoon, no mayo) and did two classes plus sparring after one of them, and still didn't lose anything. How is that even possible? Six shrimp and a turkey sandwich proves to be "TOO MUCH FOOD" on a 2-workout-day. Unbe-freaking-lievable. And that wasn't even horrible food- true it wasn't chicken breast or eggs, but it's not as if I was eating lasagna and Twinkies. It's starting to really piss me off- which is probably good, since being pissed is a good way to amp up the willpower. But I'm looking ahead with horror and dread to a life full of days restricted to two tablespoons of food per 24 hours, since it's starting to look like that's the only way I'm going to see any results. I think there must be hidden calories in my tap water or in my oxygen. This doesn't even make biological sense.

Tuesday lunchtime, Bellevue. Not that I had any lunch.

Two new ladies, one of whom I worked with- Tone. She has potential! I hope she comes back.

Setup to the straight ankle lock. Be mindful of changing level; and of using just the toe on the mat with that outside foot, heel on the hip.

Then finishing straight ankle lock.

Then defense: With the arm that is on the OPPOSITE side as the leg being attacked, grab opponent's cross lapel. Now place your other hand on opponent's ankle (the one s/he has on your hip) and press it to the mat. Post on it and scoot your butt to the outside of it. Now stand up. Shake/pull your leg out.  At first we used the technical lift to stand up, then we used the lapel grip to pull ourselves to standing or into front mount.

Spars with Casey, Ram, and Dave. I told them all to be nice to me because it was my first day.

Kitsune (grabbing Casey's ear): "Is it legal to pull ears?

(Grabbing fingers): "Are we allowed to bend fingers back?"

(Monkey-slap to face, pulled at the last moment): "How about this? Can I do this?"

I tried to Del a Riva him several times but could not control the near foot. Finally I tried grabbing my own lapel to cinch it in place, and that had a bit of success. Need to play with that some more.

I asked Dave to attack my feet and legs. As I had previously learned with Luis, when you ask a brown belt to attack your lower body, they do not mess around. I felt like I was trying to turn back the ocean tide. It just washed right over me no matter how frantically I worked, and left me lying there sodden and drowned... with legs broken in about ten different places.

I got a big laugh out of Ram by asking in exasperation, "How many knees do you HAVE?! about twenty???" Because that's what it seemed like. Here a knee, there a knee, everywhere a knee, knee.

When we lined up to bow out, Carlos made me move from the end of the line. I said, "Wow- I'm getting a huge promotion on my very first day!" Everyone started applauding me. 
--------------------------------------
4:30 basics in Bellevue. I rolled with Casey again for a while to warm up.

Kitsune: "It's my first day. We're not going to get sweaty or anything, are we?"

JP: "No, there's no sweat in jiu jitsu."

Kitsune: "Oh good. I don't want to mess up my hair. Hey, we can do heel hooks in here, right? At my last school, we did heel hooks. This must be a wussy school."

These techniques were a little frustrating.

Opponent is in your closed guard. Grab behind hir elbow and get a pants grip at the knee with your other hand. Use your legs to pull hir forward and load hir up. Sweep. Keep guard closed till you get over- don't open up like a pendulum or scissor sweep.

Besides the fact that I generally suck at sweeps, the only available partners were gigantic- I couldn't even get my guard closed, and the idea of trying to pull them forward with my legs was laughable. They had to be nice to the extent of diving into the sweep.

Same thing, only underhooking the leg and using opponent's knee like a phone. Keep both leg and arm when you mount (I had to go to S mount in order to be able to do this on my larger partners).

 Then, that same setup but transferring to an armbar. I struggled even more with this one. If the guy was loaded onto me at all, I could not swing my leg around because he was crushing me half to death. Once I was tipping him off of me, I could not swing my leg around because his body was now in the way.

Adrian then showed us some nifty grip breaks for when the opponent is resisting the armbar. You thread your own gi tail through hir folded arms and cinch it up nice and tight. Your hand that is nearest opponent's feet needs to be on the bottom of your double grip. Move the elbow to the other side of this arrangement to clamp it up. Now look at the opponent's clasped hands. You want to pull in whatever direction the back of the hand is facing, instead of just cranking randomly when you might be setting yourself up to be resisting hir strongest possible grip.

-------------------------------------------
Advanced class.

I rolled with Crisanne for 10 min to warm up. She remembered my upa lessons, my KOB escape lessons, and my choke defense lessons. I let her triangle me a few times, but I made her work for it.

Straight ankle locks again. This time, when we did the escape, we sat right on the opponent's foot instead of moving our butts to the outside. Added detail- when you shake/pull your foot free, give a hearty yank on the lapel at the same time.It is distracting, at the very least.

Some positional sparring from the straight ankle lock setup. Ron was clumsy at first, and complained that he hasn't worked any attacks/defenses below the waist. I hear ya bro. After a while, though, he figured out how to get his evil little omnipresent knees and muscley little legs jammed in the works, and I could no longer do anything.

Hedge got his purple belt! That was fun to see. He was distinctly glisteny-eyed when he stood for the photo. Lord, but Ron is still running around in a blue belt. I was certain he'd get promoted at the big promotion orgy in Seattle last weekend.

Spars with a few different people, including Hedge- whom I congratulated, teased, and then went hard on.

Kitsune: "Come on- do you want to look back on your very first night wearing a purple belt and say you got choked by a white belt girl?"

  I had to watch the capoeira class for a while- in fact I watched till the teacher stopped and addressed me where I was hanging on the doorframe, and told me to come in and take a chair if I wanted to watch. I've always wanted to try this, but I fear that my weakness at memorizing choreography- as well as my bad knees- would scuttle me.  It sure is pretty, though. And I do such nice kicks.

I had damn well better be a pound down in the morning, or I'm going to just start sawing body parts off.

"Don't hurt me- I'm only a white belt."

Spiritual are those who are not satisfied with surviving, but want to turn daily experiences into sources of ecstasy. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

Monday lunchtime, Seattle.

Standup- Bad Guy roundhouse kicks to your ribs. You move in the same direction as the kick, but stay square with opponent. Catch leg, make sure knee is bent at least a little, and use heel of hand on inside of thigh just above knee to press while you step back and pull for takedown. Bring your foot on the OPPOSITE side as the trapped leg in and stick your toe right under hir butt. Your other foot goes to her hip (on the trapped leg). Drop onto your side (facing away from foe), reach under the calf and grab your own wrist, side bak so that the top of hir foot is right in your armpit, turn your forearm so that the bone is digging into hir leg, and bow your back like a swaybacked pony.

This reaction to the roundhouse kick is contradicting my Kung Fu training, which has me rushing in to press up against the opponent where the kick has no power.

Next: You are in closed guard. Opponent has deep cross lapel grip. You use the arm on the same side as the one s/he is using to cover hir arm, grab hir lapel, and bend your elbow forcefully to your ribs and downward. This should force hir grip downward on your collar at least a bit. Now grab the pants with your other hand, at top thigh. Take a moment to makes sure that 1)your elbows are both inside, and 2)your knee- the one on the side with all the lapel-gripping- is outside opponent's hip so that s/he can't shrimp. Now: Turn body toward pants-grabbing arm and break guard. Slide lapel grip down, slide pants grip down to knee. Keep your knee on the ground UNTIL you bounce to your toes (plank position- now your feet are too far away for opponent to catch half guard), then tiptoe around the pants-gripping side to side control.
-------------------
Somewhere between leaving the mat in Seattle and stepping back on the mat in Bothell, I lost my belt. I think I left it in the locker room at Seattle. Hope to God I didn't drop it in the parking lot or something. Carlos is *NOT* going to be amused. Anyway, I was a virgin white belt in Bothell tonight. I have been rather jealous of Ginger Snaps for getting to start over at white belt. It felt so odd. Less pressure? Even though most of the people in there know what rank I am.

Same techniques as this morning, with the addition of passing top half guard with shoulder pressure, butt in the air, and using free foot to pry yourself loose and go to front mount. Grapevine, hip down, active hands above opponent's head.

Positional training from closed guard. Paper-scissors-rock to decide who's on bottom first. One guy and I did about 10 rounds of ties before my paper finally beat his rock.

I also got a purple belt whom I didn't know. I said, "Don't hurt me- I'm only a white belt." I'm so evil.

A few spars.
---------------------------
Working on the antlered headdress- sewing garnet strings along the edges of the hide scraps (Ooog, I hate sewing so much. And this is painstaking detail-work-type-sewing), and glueing velcro strips to the headgear to better anchor the antlers as well as to secure the hides. I have enough velcro on there that asteroids are getting sucked out of deep space to stick to the back of my head.
 

Cliff Keene to the rescue

From school playgrounds to abusive marriages, from dark streets at night to our very private nightmares, the theaters in which the prospect of physical conflict divides humanity into fearful prey or fighters are more than can be numbered. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


Friday evening, Bothell.

Pendulum sweep from guard, tripod sweep, arm drag from closed guard to squirt out the side and take the back.

Note the detail of grasping your own wrist to help wrench opponent’s grip off.

Although tripod sweep intrigues me, I’ve had difficulty with it in the past due to 1)the number of steps, 2)the grip changes, and 3)the fact that you have to use all 4 limbs at once doing 4 different things. This time it seemed somewhat more manageable. I hope that after it cycles through the curriculum a few more times, I might start to feel comfortable with it!

Worked with the white belt woman again. She is a feisty little thing! I had to remind her to not dig her nails in, to not bend my fingers back, and the difference between positional sparring (resistance) and drills (no resistance).  He h heh. She has a great grasp of some of the basics like shrimping, maneuvering her hips around, and jamming those knees in there. She is going to be very good if she sticks with it.

I was not able to complete the pendulum sweep when she resisted. At first I cranked at it, thinking I could/should simply bull her over…. If she weighs 120, I’m Beyonce. I couldn’t do it. That was a little frustrating, yet one could view it as, “If I can’t bull HER over, I should be able to resist such that other people can’t bull ME over.”

Somebody’s kid fell asleep in the lobby. When Cindy remarked on him, I suggested that maybe Will had sneaked out there and choked him out when none of us were watching.  ;)

I didn’t stay for sparring, as I had a pre-dawn work alarm set for morning.
--------------------------
Turtle Drum. Parking in Ballard at night has become a nightmare in the last few months. I was on time, but had to drive around for 20 min trying to find somewhere to park. Like last month, ended up walking a good ten blocks. Left most of my paraphernalia in the car, since I was already barging in late.

Double guiro, egg shaker, Tiala (doumbek). Bells. Chanting. Everybody wanted to chant tonight, including several men, which was really nice. In most circumstances, the men are more shy about singing- which is a shame. It sounded incredible.

Kung Fu dancing- Black Crane (Black Crane 1) and White Crane (Walking the Path).
------------------------------

The new antlers are here. Less awesome-looking, yet lighter and more manageable. I'm such a moron. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. But after half an afternoon of dorking around with coated wire, headbands and duct tape, it occurred to me to get out my old pair of Cliff Keene "Tornado" headgear. Strapped that baby on, wrapped the throat strap UNDER my hair at the nape of my neck and velcroed it there, wedged the antlers under the head-crown straps. Almost good enough placement- and almost stable enough- to wear just like that. Hallelujia. Needs some additional monkeying around... it would be really nice to completely remove the plastic ear cups, if that is possible... and it's going to take some creativity to camouflage.... but I think this is going to work.

What happens when you both try to pull half guard at the same time?

Okay- commercial’s over. Grab onto my arm now. Hold tight. We are going into a number of dark places, but I think I know the way. Just don’t let go of my arm. And if I should kiss you in the dark, it’s no big deal; it’s only because you are my love. –Stephen King


Thursday evening two-fer at Bellevue: no gi and "black belt".


No-gi: start on feet with pummeling, then pummeling to single-leg setup, then eventually to complete the takedown.

Side control- failed kimura. The arm nearest opponent's feet: Put elbow on mat and grasp opponent's bicep. Other arm- grab your own bicep. Step foot up behind opponent's head. Pull back and up.

I had trouble with both of these. I got "Purple belt, purple belt..." from Carlos again.  He doesn't like it when I turn my body and try to motion my way through the technique along with him. He made me turn around and watch... I don't know how to explain that this has me looking at things essentially backwards and then I have to transcribe everything in my brain before I can perform it, which is one area where I have a major neural disconnect. When I can face the same way as he is and do a little "monkey see monkey do" along with him, I get 1)a mental snapshot that I can copy for the next rep without trying to flip it bass-ackwards first, and 2)a dose of physical experience.

A little positional sparring.

I was feeling pretty inept after this and didn't really want to continue with the next class, which would probably be worse in terms of both higher complexity and lower patience/attention span. But I made myself stay.  Ugh, getting into a gi when you're already all sweaty and overheated is awful!


I got the same guy, which made me feel bad, but I actually turned out to be more competant this time. Not sure why, as these were indeed more complex maneuvers.


Pull half guard from standing. Many reps.

Then, partner pulls half guard while you turn your body to the outside and step back with the other foot, then turn back and "slide into home" with inner knee bent and sliding over opponent's thigh. End in side control. Many reps.

Next technique: Both partners squat waaaaaaaaaaaaay down before opponent pulls half guard. As s/he does this, you scoop your arm in and underhook the far thigh. Sprawl on opponent's matward leg. Turn your hips toward hir feet and dislodge your trapped foot. Side control. Many reps.


Last but not least: Your opponent starts in Del a Riva. You have pantleg grip at knee. Opponent sits up. You grab behind hir collar and put hir back on the floor, while moving in and squaring up. S/he pushes with hir foot on your knee.You donkey-kick your other leg out and place it on the mat outside of hir hip. Dance your other foot out to join it, side control. Do not let go of any grips during this process. Many reps.


Then, eternal reps of all three, until I thought I was gonna keel over. My focus started to go, and my partner seemed to be suffering the same. It got to the point where neither of us could remember whose turn it was to pull half guard. What happens when two people try to pull half guard at the same time? You end up sitting in each other's laps and embracing while clonking your heads together. Double points if your teacher is watching you do it (of course he was). After that, we had to resort to me whispering every time we began, "You pull,"  "Me pull," "You pull," "Me pull,"


When we lined up, I was so tired I could barely lift my arms to retie my belt. Carlos must have seen something on my face, because he asked if I was okay. I replied that I was so tired that I was afraid I would fall on my face when I tried to bow. He got a big laugh out of that. When we went to bow out, he called, "Careful, Keetsune, careful..." and I braced my hands out in front of me, just in case.

Pink Team

From school playgrounds to abusive marriages, from dark streets at night to our very private nightmares, the theaters in which the prospect of physical conflict divides humanity into fearful prey or fighters are more than can be numbered. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path

 

 

Tuesday advanced class, Bellevue:

Began with double-leg setup drills. I tried to do some variations with one or both knees on the floor, but that’s really hard on my knees. I was with Dave, who grabbed me off the wall and was apparently bent on being SuperPartner tonight- not that he isn’t always nice to work with (and it’s VERY nice to have someone grab me instead of feeling like the last kid picked for kickball every night), but tonight he was cheerleading literally every rep.

Back mount and… wait for it… bow and arrow. Couldn’t believe it; my throat still hasn’t recovered from last week. Oh well. Today we were doing it as follows: the leg behind opponent’s shoulderblade, sit right down on your butt and lie back, pulling the opponent back with you.

Then: opponent pulls your choking arm’s elbow down over hir bicep. Use your same-side arm to comb hir arm down, then hoist your leg up so that your knee is hooked OVER your own elbow. This traps hir arm, then you can put your other sole on the mat and scoot your butt out, then scoot further to the side and armbar. This one was a little tricky for me. Arm and leg positions that I had to stop and think about, and I was having difficulty scooting out to the correct angle/distance so that I didn’t find myself lying down too soon.

Carlos also did a little demo wherein he displayed a bunch of other impressive ends from that opening 9all of which are WAAAAAAAAAY over my head for my current level, but fun to watch).

One roll with Daniel. I socked him in the chin twice. I decided to leave after that one roll… when I’m battering my partners like that, it usually means I’m too tired and/or distracted to have proper control.

 

Wednesday “Pink Team” at Bellevue. Usually if I’m free on Wednesdays, I go to Cindy’s. But tonight I had to be to work at 7:30, so I did this and then went straight to work and used my new key to the work shower.

Lindsey always treats me like a visiting celebrity on the rare occasions that I come to these, but I countered her embarrassing speeches about my level of incredibleness by praising her two white belts, who are pretty kick-ass and coming along very nicely.

We started with takedowns (yay!). Two people stood at opposite ends of the mat while a third ran back and forth and repeatedly took them down with anything. I did some double- and single-legs, because I’m not very good at those. Also some shoulder and hip throws, reaps, tomoe nage. Always good to practice my breakfalls more, too.

Then the comb-over escape from front mount to half guard; then the person who started on top counters with the Shoulder Of Justice and pries the legs off to return to front mount. I encouraged the ladies to apply more shoulder. “If I’m not talking funny, you’re not doing it hard enough.”

 Then some positional training, rotating partners, each person getting a chance to pick a starting position. I picked back mount, and am still not having much success holding it. Both white belts got my Knee Ride 101 Tutorial as well as my Defend-The-Choke-As-Soon-As-You-Notice-Second-Hand-Coming-In talk. Lindsey stuck one arm up over her head, so I trapped it there and ground on it for a while. She also stuck her head right into a guillotine, so I cranked on that for a while. Then I apologized, and she thanked me for the lesson. ;)