Two in a day?!

Heh. Apparently my brain and body only need 1 week to fall completely out of rhythm. We’d hardly started the warmup tonight when I was out of breath and overheating. (Although later, Tim mentioned that it felt hot in there, so at least it wasn’t entirely me being a wimp.)

This month’s theme is The Guard, so we started with standing in guard, then standing guard passes. The poor widdle legs that did box jumps and Romanian dead lifts this morning! They were not fans.

Since I competed without my knee braces, I’ve decided to start training without them, too. But I need to remember that taking them off temporarily backs up my progress until I get used to moving and defending without them. And that I still need to tell people that I may tap when they don’t expect it. Case in point: rolled with a kid I haven’t rolled with yet, though he’s been here for a few months, and I had this impression that he was controlled. Um… not so much. But I hadn’t said anything at the start of the round. Then he did a rolling back take and wrenched my knee. I verbally tapped in the middle of the roll, but he didn’t expect it and so didn’t hear me and didn’t stop and I had to say, “Tap! Tap! Tap!” before he finally heard me. It seemed to be okay and I continued rolling; just got a little bit too twisted. (With the braces on, it wouldn’t have turned that much and so there wouldn’t have been as much pressure. I guess I got too used to having the braces to limit the lateral motion.)

So I need to remember to still be vigilant on protecting my knee, although it does seem to be able to stand up to training without the braces. I also managed the entire warmup without the braces and even practiced bridging after class, and there was no twinging or anything. !!! (Now if I could just remember to bridge when rolling…) Getting there.

Jalopy

Today’s temperature was around 86 degrees and humid. It was overcast, so it looked like it might be cool. I took a walk at lunch but had to turn around because it was just miserable out there. After lunch, though, for some reason the heat came on in our office! It’s usually freezing in there — I have been known to wear a sweater during the summer (or even put a sweater on over another sweater in the winter) — but suddenly I started getting warm and feeling as if I was out in that stuff again. Ugh. Thankfully the HVAC company has an office actually in our building, so they were able to fix the problem quickly.

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I feel like a jalopy crawling down the road, black smoke streaming from the hood, sputtering coming from the engine, random parts falling off, a bumper hanging halfway off and dragging. My knee was uncooperative with everything tonight, my neck is stiff, there’s a knot just under one shoulder blade — and then during Open Mat, I twisted the knee again and then later somehow strained the hip on that same side so badly that I can hardly bend it now. Also, sometime tonight I got a giant bruise on the top of one foot.

Also, why is it that when people say, “Let’s go light,” what they really mean is, “You go light, and I’ll go hard”?

BJJ Fundamentals

Warmup. Knee did not like. Then drilled side control escape back to guard for the rest of class.

BJJ

Rolling to warmup. I drew Giant White Belt then Steve, and then was the odd one out.

Drilling was an Ezekiel from top half guard. Drilled for the rest of class.

Open Mat

Tim called out that we all needed at least 3 five-minute rounds before we could leave. Buddy first and we both played around. Then Guillaume, and it was here that I injured my knee while trying some spinning rolly twisty thing to take his back while he was rolling and spinning away. Then I tried to finish the round with one leg, and that’s still no fun. I sucked it up for one more round, though, and somewhere in there strained the same-side hip (hip flexor, maybe?) something terrible. No idea how. Too bad no one makes full-body ice packs yet…

Friday, July 6, 2012

Ended up being no class on Wednesday (July 4th) evening. But that was okay, as I was at my parents’ for a cookout anyway.

Meh, I need to get more sleep. I started a new video game this week — Kingdoms of Amalur (kind of Skyrim meets Twilight Princess) — and so have been staying up far too late. So by today, I was dragging.

At least work was interesting. In fact, I’m not sure that took many breaks today because I was actually diving in really deep and loving it. (Editing + formatting = love.) Neck was all sorts of stiffness.

Nogi Fundamentals

Started with a rather longer warmup than usual. Evident very quickly that my “get up and go” has done got up and went. Doh. Then partnered up for armbars from mount, for time. Seems easy, but then you die.

Drilling was basic guard break and knee cut-through pass. I like basics. Then a couple rounds of rolling. (So much for the “no rolling in the Fundamentals class,” lol.) Guillaume, a while belt boy, and Jamie. Mostly let the white belt thrash around under mount (though did grab one armbar from mount — hey, we just drilled it, might as well). Then Jamie tied my head and arms up into several pretzels and also footlocked me while I was on his back. Wait a minute… that’s supposed to be a good position for me!

Short break before the next class, but I had to leave. I’ve taken on some freelance writing jobs recently (big huge squeeee!!), and I need functioning brain cells and energy in order to work on them. I worked last night, and then left early tonight in order to get more work in. First draft is nearly done!

“All the advantages, none of the crap”

Delays

The new location is having a lot of delays. The building wasn’t up to the current code (and possibly the previous tenant left things and/or did things that were not allowed, but which we now have to fix), and it seems as if there’s always something new that pops up. So as of right now, we don’t know when we’ll be in the new place; classes are still at the current location and on the same schedule.

Women’s Self Defense Seminar

On Wednesday night, Tim again helped out a women’s self-defense seminar. He also brought several of us in to help. The same lady from last time spoke about her sister’s domestic violence murder. (The story can be seen in the Dateline “Beauty and the Beast” episode.)

Justin showed two techniques, both against wrist-grabbing scenarios. He asked after the first one if anyone had any questions. A lady asked if it would work with a large height difference (since Justin was demonstrating on Tim, and they’re about the same height). So he had Andrew stand up — Andrew is quite a bit taller — and then, to really make the point, Justin knelt down. And still did it, lol.

Most of the women did not seem terribly interested in practicing the techniques many times. Two, three, four times — yeah, we got it. But they were very curious about jiu-jitsu and “what do you do if–?”

Vitamin D

There was an article on Mark’s Daily Apple last week about the benefits of working outside. Then this week’s post was “How to Work Outside Even if You’re a Desk Jockey”, and I was so tired of looking at beautiful summer days through the plate glass that I packed up my laptop and went to sit outside on the grass yesterday. When I came back in (because my battery was dying), my manager asked if I’d done that because of Mark’s post; when I said yes, he said he may start trying it, too. Heh.

Nogi

Went in tonight. Short warmup. Still no side-to-sides for me while pushing off that leg, but I did do a trip on the alligators (just very slowly and carefully, just in case).

Drilling was a reverse kimura off Shawn Williams’ guard, or, as Justin introduced it, “All of the advantages, none of the crap” of rubber guard. (And the reason for SW over RG is that in RG, yeah, sure, they can’t move… but neither can you; you lock your hips in place in order to lock them down. But in SW guard, because your hips have moved out first, you get the same control and yet keep your mobility. Also, no twisting of the knees. Huzzah!)

Then the class moved on to rolling. I was prepared to sit out, but Justin decided to sit out and keep time, so then there was an odd number, so I jumped in. Yeah, booooy! Got a couple of good rolls. (Also, Holy Cats! I don’t have any cardio, lol!) Still no bridging. Having people on my back sucks because I can’t really use my legs to get out. No butterfly guard, either. But, hey, it’s rolling. It’s moving. It’s almost jiu-jitsu. I’ll take it. 🙂

Moving Day

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but Aubrey will be moving in to my spare bedroom tomorrow.

It’s here!!!

It Starts With Food.

My weekend is spoken for. 🙂

“So what do you play? Racquetball? Tennis?”

Tonight I stopped to pick up a new knee brace that Andrew had recommended at Dick’s Sporting Goods before class. I had to ask for help because I didn’t know where they were.

The guy who helped me asked why I needed it; when I said for an MCL injury, he asked me, “So what do you play? Racquetball? Tennis?”

I said, “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu.”

He jumped (!) and turned to look at me. “Do you know a guy named Tim Mannon?”

I said, “Yes, he’s my coach.”

He said, “Tim’s a good fellow. I went to school with him.” And then he was so nice and helpful (I’m sure he would have been even if I played tennis). He kept telling me that I ought to rest it more, but that he knew Tim and knew what Tim’s students are like, so he knew I wouldn’t listen. To which I said that no, no I wouldn’t.

When I got to class and told Tim about the guy, he said, “‘Went to school with him’?! He’s ten years older than me!”

The new brace is very nice, though. It lets me bend my knee all the way if I want to, but still keeps it from going side-to-side, which is the bad direction. It still has metal hinges like the first one I got, but these are a part of the brace and are padded (unlike the first one, where the hinges come out and aren’t padded, so they would dig in my MCL area even when doing normal things). The only drawback is that it has to be pulled on and off; going on isn’t so bad, but coming off after class is not the easiest thing….

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I’ve been sore all day! All the little muscles in my inner thighs and chest and shoulders — all twingey and unhappy with me. Sore!!

Giant class tonight. I walked in and the mat had a solid ring of joggers.

I missed most of the warmup because the guy in the store wanted to keep talking to me, then there was a huge long line to checkout, and then I hit every single red light between the store and class. Did not get loose at all.

Jen, the new blue belt, brought her friend Desiree in tonight. Deziree is tiny; she makes me feel like a big hulking giant. She’s also shorter than me, which I don’t often encounter, lol.

Rolling to warmup. I’m not used to wearing my mouthpiece anymore, either; need to start remembering that for all rolls. Felt the effects of missing most of the warmup; so stiff and awkward. My body is still naturally turning to use the left leg as the dominant leg, while my brain is fighting to turn the opposite way, so I’m stalling out a lot as they argue.

I did get to roll the 2nd round with Jen. We had a good back-and-forth thing going on. I think she said she has never trained nogi before, so a lot of the slipping and sliding stuff was new to her.

Drilling was basic guard break because we had so many new people.

Two more rounds rolling. Then I showed Jen the pendulum swing side control escape that I’d astonished her with earlier. The knee was still feeling okay by then, so I pounced on Buddy for a short roll; he obliged by letting me try out lots of things. Yeah, so mount of all things is the most painful position for me to be in. For serious? For serious.