So much squee!

My face and neck feel — and look — like they’ve been rubbed with sandpaper.

My legs and arms have mat- and velcro-burns all over them.

I’ve had “choke cough” for a few hours.

I’ve been grinning for hours: I could drill and even roll tonight!!

Part of it was the technique — it didn’t involve much in the way of knees themselves. Justin had us build a sequence of kimura from guard, to guillotine, to crucifix sweep. My knee only twinged a few times, and that’s because I’d plant the toe to pop my hips. Did not like.

Heh, being choked was… weird. As soon as there was any pressure, I was ready to tap, but I tried to tough it out until my partners could actually do it.

I watched everyone roll once while I kept the knee moving. It seemed to be feeling okay, so after the round I went over to Guillaume to see what I could do. We didn’t roll for long — maybe 5 minutes — and I did have to stop and shift a few times or rescue my leg from a position that was getting uncomfortable, but it was rolling!! I went for the sequence from class because it was there; he stuffed it and teased that he wouldn’t let me get what we just did. But then a minute or so later, from a slightly different setup, I hit that crucifix sweep anyway. (I admit, I did tease him back, lol.)

Also, I have no idea what my brain has been doing over the last 1.5 months, but it was pulling out crazy inverted stuff, passing & pressure, sweeps and transitions. I was kind of nice, almost like I remembered some jiu-jitsu!

We finally had to stop because I tweaked it a bit hard once when my foot forgot that we weren’t supposed to be doing annoying hooky thingies and tried to do something cute that wrenched the knee. And even though I wanted to keep going and ignore the pain, I figured it was probably smarter to have a little today and build on that rather than set myself all the way back to the beginning by being the tough chick. (Hey, I might be growing up. Maybe. Just a little.)

Home to some ice, just in case. I’ll still be out tomorrow — I have a HUGE list of chores that need to be done around the house — and I’ll be out Monday to pick my cousin up from the airport. But I’m thinking I could get back to full-time training pretty soon here…

Pre-choke Choke

No morning class for me. There’s been a storm blowing in since yesterday. The wind is really strong up where my house is, and my bedroom windows face the direction it was coming from. All last night, the wind was making so much noise against the windows and woke me up many, many times. So this morning when my alarm went off, I reset it and crawled back under the (warm, warm) covers.

Snow flurries all day, though they didn’t have the decency to start sticking to anything. Cold, cold, gray day. Extra coffee. Didn’t help much.

Fundamentals (nogi) and Open Mat

Cold academy, too; warmed up in my sweatshirt for a while. Too many rolls in there — forward, backwards, Granby — and my head was a little spinny for the rest of the night. Is no fun.

Drilling: reviewed bump sweep first. Then bump sweep to guillotine to crucifix sweep to guillotine. Then bump sweep to guillotine to crucifix sweep to RNC. Slick stuff.

Rolling. 3-min rounds, 1-min rest. Guillaume, Justin, Tyler, Trey, Andrew, Guillaume, Justin, Tyler. Wipe out…

Notes from rolling: Playing guard/bottom against people with really long legs is a bad idea; go for the top. While it’s fun to be squirmy and get your legs in between, you’re still stuck on the bottom. Would be smarter to get on top. * On the other hand, when deciding to play guard against spazzy guys, stay patient. Yes, the round is boring. Yes, they’re still trying to jab elbows and fists and cause pain. But at least they’re not bashing on your face.

Pass the caffeine IV

Ugh, it was one of those days when I could hardly function. Probably mostly due to the cold, gloomy weather, but still. Goodness.

My left ankle, for no good reason, decided last week that it wanted to start hurting. I noticed as the sheets fell across it while getting in to bed one night. Wait, you don’t hurt during training or for hours afterwards, and you suddenly decide to hurt when touched by a sheet? Goofy thing… My right knee is also suddenly aching. So I’m pretty much limping on both legs right now. 😦

Fundamentals, BJJ, and BJJ

Classes bled in to each other again.

Warmup: pretty much a repeat of this morning’s (though now with extra pushups and burpees). Drilling: Bump sweep. Then added the kimura, guillotine, and triangle off it. Drilled with Buddy and later with Ed, too. Then a quick partner drill where the guy on the bottom goes for the bump sweep, and the partner has to decide which variant to feed them (full sweep, kimura, guillotine, or triangle). Then rounds of rolling started. With Ed, Buddy, Brandon, Ratcliffe, and Trey. Then 20 burpees to make sure we were really dead.

It started sleeting just a little while ago. Do not like. 😦

Sensitive

My skin has apparently gone all soft on me after just one week off. I’ve got torn up knees, gi burn all over my chin and neck, and bruises on my arms. Sadness. Also, pain.

By the way, does anyone know of any jiu-jitsu around Muskegon, Michigan? Aubrey is going home for winter break next month, and she’d like to find somewhere to train. My Google-fu is failing me. I can find a few references, but no real websites with any information. ‘Tis annoying.

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November Homework

Pre-class food:

• 1.5 bananas (would have been 2, but the second was half rotten)
• protein shake

Class notes:

• Better than the last couple of classes. (I also ate a much larger lunch, calorie-wise, than usual. May have figured in. Bratwurst FTW!) But also, short warmup, lots of drilling, and only three rolls.

Fundamentals Class

Aubrey came again. Andrew ran us through a quick warmup and then moved in to drilling. The Heisman, he called it. Something he hit on me repeatedly this morning but did not mention then.

Jimmy came in later, and later we also added a reversal, if they happen to counter the Heisman by pressuring in to you beyond your ability to push/pull.

BJJ

Continued with drilling, since it was only the four of us. Now a counter for the guy on top, if the guy on bottom is halfheartedly throwing that move or if they hang out in No Man’s Land (i.e., middle half guard).

Bobby popped in right near the end of class.

Then rolled with Aubrey for a little bit, and tried to get her in the few positions she knows. But she was enthusiastically grabbing my lapels and trying to steer me around with those, so I moved on to sweeping, mounting, and at times armbarring her straight pushing arms. (And then explaining why that was a bad idea on her part.)

Then rolled with Bobby and then Jimmy.

No class tomorrow or Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. But we do have regular Open Mat on Saturday. Wohoo!

NaNoWriMo Update

Word count: 36,746 / 50,000

I caught up for yesterday today at work. We were given a free pass to go home around 3, but I figured I’d stay and write. Less likely to get distracted. So, still one day behind, but things are starting to move along plot-wise. I think I know where we’re heading; I’m just not sure how long it will take to get there…

Submission Only Richmond, November 2011

This weekend was the Submission Only tournament in Richmond, Va. Quick results:

Nogi, weight class: 1st (of 2)
Nogi, absolute: 1st (of 2)
Gi, weight class: 1st (of 2)
Gi, absolute: 3rd (of 4)

Longest match: 6:10
Shortest match: 0:27

Won with 2 guillotines, an armbar from mount, and a loop choke. Lost to a north/south kimura.

I actually weighed in heavy (thanks, hormones, I love you too), so was bumped up a weight class. But it ended up working out fine.

Nogi, weight class

There were 2 smaller girls in one division, so the other girl, Caitlin, and I made up the other. She was actually one weight class above me (though I, of course, did not realize that this because I just can’t see these things). Our fight went 4:10 and I finished with a guillotine. (The video runs long because I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off!)

Nogi, absolute

Though there were four of us doing nogi, only two of us signed up for the absolute. Candice was from the smaller weight class. That fight ended in 0:27 and also ended with a guillotine. The guy taking the video didn’t get my camera started in time. Boo. (Also, that was the 3rd fastest submission of the day.[Several fights in the blue & white absolutes were also faster. Boo.] Fastest was a 9-second armbar in a purple belt division.)

Gi, weight class

We had a bit of a wait until the gi divisions because one of the local girls, Lo, decided to compete and had to wait for her gi to be delivered.

For weight class, Candice and I were combined, and Caitlin, Michelle Welti, and Lo had a bracket together. I won with armbar from mount in 6:10:

Gi, absolute

For blue belt gi absolute, we had 4 girls. Candice fought Michelle first, and I fought Lo. Lost to a north/south kimura in 2:00. Most of this fight was me thinking in increasing levels of “#@$%!!”:

So the 3rd place match was me and Candice again. Got a little lazy in the beginning and got swept & mounted, but then won this with a loop choke in 3:20:

Sadly, you can’t see the choke on the video, because it was pretty awesome. I just never let go of that lapel grip and kept fighting to get my second hand in the way we were doing a few weeks ago. Also, that sweep when I escaped mount had some technique to it, but even as I was doing it I was thinking, “I’m bigger than you and I’m totally going to use that and just push you over.”

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Don’t even ask me where the guillotines and loop chokes came from. I don’t finish those in class, so I have no clue why they suddenly popped out now. (Although, I was quite glad to see them!)

I’m really rather happy with how I did in my matches. My brain did this thing where it went to work without first checking with me, which was great because it apparently knew how to get to work, keep calm, and make like the grappley, and it really didn’t need my help.

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A couple of my teammates from the Salem affiliate came and competed, too. Daniel had a match that was ended after 1 hour by agreement (it was recorded as a “No Contest”). Jaime had a 1 hr 8 min match. Ez had a couple of long matches, too. This time it wasn’t me with the long matches! They could only stay for nogi because they wanted to get back early today, but between them, they all won some matches, too, and are bringing home some hardware.