Neckless

…Violence… is the most international and oldest language there is. It is common to all societies. It is attached to the very fabric of life. Depending on their fighting ability, every animal on earth ends up taking on the role of predator or prey. Not only nearly all animals fight, but even the cells inside our bodies fight against germs and bacteria. No one who lives in a physical body can completely ignore the language of violence. Whether by choice or not, anyone may have to deal with it. -Daniele Bolelli, On The Warrior’s Path


Four black belts in the mat for Friday evening in Bellevue. Prof. Herbert is back. Not only that, he remembered my name. Happy to have him and his bag of little-guy tricks in the house again.  Also fun- as always- to watch the Brazilians learning English. Today he learned "calf".

Armbar from guard. Herbert used a cross tricep grip and a deep lapel grip. He observed that I fail to get my leg into the armpit firmly enough and also fail to bear down on the opponent with my shins (which second persistant problem of mine Cindy has oft commented on as well).

Failed armbar from guard, reach across opponent's throat to grab your own ankle. This can end up as a choke, a crank, or a crushing of the bones around the eye socket, depending on how well you can get into position (or not). My drill partner had no neck (when I pointed this out to him, he cheerfully agreed that other classmates had complained of the same), so this fact combined with the extreme shortitude of my legs made this one a real problem. It was barely possible- on the stupid side only- by using my pants cuff (Doug informed me that I am allowed to put my fingers in my own pants cuff, which I was not aware was legal).

Same entry, but opponent defends by pulling the arm out. You paste hir OTHER arm to your chest, hip out and turn on your side, making sure to hook your toe behind hir neck. Bring the other foot over hir head and gogoplata. I loved this, although I'm probably not going to be able to retain it until it comes around another few times. I am inexperienced with the gogoplata. Prof. Herbert has shown another couple of gogoplata moves in the past. I think they will be great for me, they seem made for my shape and flexibility.

Positional sparring from closed guard. Then a roll with Doug and one with a blue belt guy whom I have worked with once before, but his name escapes me at the moment.

Right elbow continues to be painful and weak. It has been over two months. Left shoulder is even worse (just over a month on that one). I have been very careful on the mat and have asked all partners to be careful as well. Left shoulder is actually causing me a considerable amount of pain while trying to sleep. I wish these damn things would heal up already.

Ugly

It's ugly. Really ugly.

The head instructor at GB Yakima has been arrested for having sex with an underage student. I don't really know the guy... he came to class at the Seattle pod sometimes on weekends, so of course I saw him around and even shook his hand from time to time in line and at comps. Don't think I ever rolled with him. As soon as I saw who it was, though, I had an immediate strong suspicion of who the student was. Someone I don't know well enough and didn't have enough contact with to be beating myself up about not having seen something, certainly.... and yet...... what does it say that I instantly thought, "OMG, it's got to be ____"? I seriously have met her glancingly like two or three times in the space of five years. What does it say about the people who DID train regularly with these two? Why the fuck didn't they see something? Say something? *DO* something? (I know, I'm pissed off and looking for targets to blame.)

GB put out a statement saying the instructor has been suspended, and that our hearts all go out to the survivor. I was relieved. I am aware that GB Pacific Northwest has a very lively drama department and gossip mill, but I tend to stay strictly out of that sort of thing, and open discussions about problem issues seem to be rare. I would have been really disturbed if there had been silence on the topic.  Will be watching to see how this is handled. Going to be a painful, difficult mess for everyone, at any rate. None more so than the young lady. (Were there more???)

This is really awful. Sick to my stomach.  Probably going to be ranting on this some more later.

Maybe not "everybody", but at least one person....

An assertive examination of the threat- not glaring in his eyes, but scanning and noting his stance, possible weapons and where his hands are- will help to discourage the threat. He must see you scanning and evaluating. It sends a signal. Simultaneously, check yourself. Make sure your hands are free and any weapons you have are accessible. Scan for the threat’s possible confederates and keep the threat in your peripheral vision. An experienced threat will notice you doing this and will have to move you into a different class of potential victim, preferably out of the victim category altogether.   –Rory Miller


Friday evening BJJ in Bellevue under Prof. Doug.

Outside reap setups. Remembering that collar grip needs to be higher. Also, pushing with that fist against the jaw or neck makes a big difference. After not-gonna-admit-how-many years, it feels a little like I'm starting to coordinate the whole push/pull  thing. A little.

Triangles from closed guard, transitioning through butterfly and a half-spider to get there.

Rolls with Christie, Prof Sean, Kevin, and a white belt guy that I know from Kirkland but his name escapes me.

Christie got two stripes on her belt tonight. She's been working really hard, coming to a lot of classes, and doing great.

She also told me- after drilling- "I'm so happy when you come!"  which gave me a warm fuzzie.

"Everybody"????

Murder, rape and robbery are planned actions, and they will occur in a place that benefits the attacker. That is part of his job, and an experienced predator is good at his job. –Rory Miller


Thursday BJJ at Bellevue.

I got snipped at by Prof Carlos today for not pairing up with Christie first... which was not a planned action; it's just that I had John sorta cornered because he was at the head of the line and I was 2nd, so it was easy to head him off. Carlos asked me to remember what it was like when I was a girl white belt and nobody wanted to work with me, which speech I would have totally related to if not for the fact that he was contrasting it with nowadays when (according to him) "everybody" wants to roll with me.

????????????? He just snipped at me last Thursday for being the last person standing alone four or five times in a row while we were doing short rotating spars. In what alternate reality am I not still struggling with this issue too much to be worrying excessively about the person on the other side of the room struggling with this issue? There have been times that I've gone to the other side of the room to roll with the white belt girls only to find them paired up by the time I got over there.

I did manage to stammer that that was not really my assessment of the situation, but I could tell where he was going with the conversation, so I just said Yes Sir and zipped my lip. 

Positional sparring from closed guard, rotating partners. Then a roll with Christie, who is doing very very well. 

Z got his purple belt! :)

Savor the rend.   -SavageKitsune


Saturday BJJ in Seattle. I came in just for "comp class", but Prof. Carlos misses nothing- I crept behind several dozen people to sit on the wall, and the next thing I know they're all turning around to stare at me because he's waving me onto the mat.

Promotions. At some point before today, Reuben was promoted to black. Today, Steven and Jimmy Lee were promoted to black. A few browns, purples (including Z!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), blues, lots of white stripes.

Comp class today was not positional sparring nor KOTH, but all 8-min spars. Well worth coming into today, as I got three black belts in a row. Also a 4 stripe white belt woman, and Pat (no-gi).

I got a couple of sweeps on the white belt, which was very nice.

I came home and posted Barney pics on Z's Facebook wall.

Hike!

It is better to avoid than to run, better to run than to de-escalate, better to de-escalate than to fight, better to fight than to die. –Rory Miller


Lunchtime BJJ in Bellevue.

Back-and-forth single-leg setups, judo grips. We all got reprimanded for not having the collar grip hand high enough. If you let it slide down to opponent's chest (and this is easy to do after a Brazilian reps, even if you started out with a nice high grip), they can wristlock you.

Standing spider guard pass drills

Standing guard pass to KOB to spinning armbar

I grabbed John to drill with, but Carlos took him away from me and gave me Danny (which was fine), then took HIM away from me and gave me Pedro, which was less fine. Pedro is about 13, and has been here long enough to learn good pressure and some wicked subs but not long enough to learn the concept of drilling (ie, let your partner execute the drill), or that you need to be careful how hard you thump down on the ribcage of a classmate old enough to be your mother.

King of the Hill from standing up in opponent's guard

Rotating short spars with many people, starting from butterfly guard.

After class, a two hour hike up a mountain and back down again. Including the copious stairs of a very tall fire lookout tower at the top. I did fine on the way up, but coming down is hell on my patello-femoral sydrome knees. They are gonna be screaming in the morning.  But holy cow there is a lot of gorgeous scenery up here. And hiking is such good exercise. Especially when you take along a trash bag and pick up the garbage that utter and complete assholes insist on throwing all over a beautiful piece of nature when they come to visit.
    
When I got home, there was additional heart-racing cardio in store when I saw a sheriff parked in my driveway. Turns out the alarm in my garage had gone off- but we found no signs of an intruder, so it appears to have been a false alarm.

Friday Open Mat

’This is my way; where is yours?’ – thus I answered those who asked me “the way.’ For the way- that does not exist. –Nietzsche



Friday night open mat in Kirkland.

Rolled gi with Chelsea, then no-gi with Chelsea, Cord, Terry, Wei, Mike, what's-his-name (Cindy always calls him "Harry Potter"). Tried to move more, but got tired quickly and fell into old habits- especially when trapped on the bottom.
Chelsea's shoulder pressure is murderous. Almost had to tap a couple times just from that.

I got a paper cutter on Cord, and came really close to finishing a few assorted chokes on other people, but mostly I was the one tapping. This is a skilled batch of people.

Sore this morning. Bad elbow, OTHER shoulder (at least I'm in symmetrical pain), grips, knees.