Fantasies

Here I am at the keyboard with two packs of frozen vegetables on my knees listening to Alice in Chains (Lane Staley: the only rocker who well and truly HAD to die of a drug overdose? His voice is like a sea of weeping blisters covered in salt? Of all the grunge artists and heroin romantics he is one of the few who was truly suffering, not charmed by the charisma of suffering)

Have you ever fantasized without realizing it? I don't mean caught in a daydream, I'm speaking to the issue of recognition--a pattern, a method to your wish fulfillment. Well, I've been having a lot of fantasies about saving people. Stopping robbers, saving a nerd from a vicious high school beat-down, finding THEM, crushing THEM, sending THEM to dreamland before I throw 'em in jail. This isn't just about reimagining the rape with a positive outcome; my imagination has expanded. I'm the guy in the local paper who foils the bank robbery, who saves the clerk in a Circle K, the human shield for a toddler trapped in a burning building.

For a large chunk of my life, I've fantasized about death. My death, the death of those I love, melodramatic stuff. "How will I go on without them? Blah blah" It has been my way of fetishizing death, of taming it, of living it's reality on a day to day basis.

Lately, that has largely been replaced by these savior fantasies (Things don't always end in a rosy frame of mind. I might die saving the day or I might save three kids, but fail to save the fourth from the burning building). Seems there's more to this superhero thing, doesn't it? ...

Shit, I just had one right now! Another recurring one. A gunman, this time two, have stormed the gym, and it's up to me to take 'em down. Hmm, something I should expand upon.

I'll come back to that later, right now my knees have me paranoid. Ice or no ice, sitting in this chair aggravates the tendinitis, so I'm gonna lay down for a bit, maybe read a bit of Tomcat In Love.

State of the Body: My knees my knees my knees

There is a malformed eidolon, a shadow tinged meme, a pulpy grease stain of bravado whispering with wet lips against my ear lobe "work through it, just pull back a little." It never works. Never. I "pull back" for a few days, convinced I've done my time. My return to full throttle never works, only fucks things up: ears, toes, skin, skin, and oh god more skin left on a mat or scarred over, a new window into my obsession, an impressionist viewfinder into the emerald green trauma of the bathtub, the semen, the guns.

Ears. Toes. Skin. Guns.

Add my knees to my list of mistakes. I've got tendonitis in both knees, (technically it's the quads), the tear drops of my quads have tears of their own because the pain is speaking in a plain language we can all easily understand: the catch as catch can game of neural energy.

Sitting in this chair? Even that aggrivates it. I reduced lower body exercise to swimming, as there is no pressure on the joints (but aren't I still using the muscles??).

I have a problem. I'm afraid to stop training. I can make myself stop training, but it requires tremendous mental effort and a Mac truck full of misery. I need to establish a new rule. A way to determine when to stop training before I let it go to far, I can't keep doing this to myself. Whatever guilt or shame I may feel about the rape, *I do not train to punish myself, and I can't allow it to turn into that. I'm gonna...I'm gonna have to trust someone to help me. Girlfriend doesn't live here, so I guess that means a Sifu. Wonderful. I'm gonna love having this conversation--no, wait there is someone else.

I've decided I need supervision. I need someone to look at me and say stop training. You have to take time off. I don't think I can make the decision for myself anymore. Martial Art training has become part of my identity, I'm at a point right now where I don't know if I can function without it--and yes, I realize that may not be a good thing. It is something I may work through, but I feel scared and helpless without it, that's irrational, but so is rape and assault, and that blow job your mom gave me**.


*Also, training gives me the luxury of a kicked up metabolism, and allows me to pig out on the weekend, without training, I'm afraid of getting fat.

**I'm sorry, your mother is a wonderful person, I would never speak ill of her. She's very giving in the bedroom;)

Yoga and the violent imagination

Downward facing dog. Downward. Facing. Dog. The pose is supposed to be fluid, but my body never quite gets it. Each time a new adjustment, a different tweak in the pain-without-pain-just relax-just-breath sphere of iconic poses. There are five ways to do downward facing dog correctly, give or take a million; and five ways to do it incorrectly, give or take a million. Downward. Facing. Dog.
"Push your hips back, straighten your legs. The elbows should be tucked underneath the arms. Extend the fingers wide," Down--ward, "the index fingers should be pointed to the front of the room," face--ing, "your hands are rays of sunlight reaching, reaching outward beyond the self,"
rays of sunlight. I like it. I imagine an assault, I blind the bad guy with rays of sunlight. This makes me smile, and smiling kills the pose.

Trying not to start WW III

I am taking deep breaths, big fat yoga breaths. I am the king of yoga. I am the oxygen man; my blood cells are just bursting with the stuff; my veins are coursing with love and peace and pituli (sp?) and hugs, Fozzy the bear wocka wocka wocka hugs; they are not frantic with a million savage fire ants; my brain is not a Heavy Metal spectacular.

I am not going to misuse my martial training.

Only one "person" is capable of setting me off in a berserker rage, the girl who put the kicker in babykicker, my sister.

Her boyfriend, will call here--looking for her---incessantly. Once he gets started, he can't seem to stop. I kid you know he will call here 10 times in the course of two hours. This might be cute if he was a fifteen year old stricken with puppy love (the slobbering stupid love that gives you fleas), and if he didn't drive around our col-de-sac (sigh, sp?) when she didn't answer, AND IF the babykicker got her lazy ass up just long enough to answer the fucking phone.

If I see his name on the caller ID I don't answer it; I want as little to do with him as I do her.

Most of the time I don't say anything about it, but today it was just too much. There had been more phone calls than usual, a few of them even, were sane people. I didn't check the caller ID, as he had called the last three times. "Babykicker, answer the phone, bitch, it's your boyfriend"
Now I admit, I cursed, which is a no-no in the rhetoric of argument in this house, as it allows the other person to claim the pseudo-moral high ground. It was off the cuff, both babykicker and myself are prone to tarantino-esque tirades.

She answers. She talks. She clicks. She shouts "That wasn't my boyfriend, it was mom, blah blah angry blah don't call me bitch angry blah-blah" I shouted back he was 90% of the calls in the morning, she said something about males thinking they are entitled, and I tried to let it die at that. I bit my tongue, astounded by her hypocrisy. (Project much? No one behaves as if they are entitled more than you), but it just wasn't worth it.

I thought the issue was dead, when mom came home from work though, Babykicker complains, assuming a posture of false outrage. How dare I call her a bitch blah blah blah angry blah. You couldn't wash her mouth out with two magic erasers, a swiffer, a pound of soap, and a olympic pool of shock treated chlorinated water. I told mom "the real reason she's pissed is I dared to wake her for a phone call, when it turned out to be you instead of the psycho boyfriend she was mad" Babykicker started to say something but I just added, calmly to mom, "sometimes, he will drive by the house when she doesn't answer, it's fucking creepy" I removed myself from the conversation , deciding to take Captain Charisma (one of Radar's many nicknames) outside. She went to tell my mother about how she could speak ghetto, using as much motherfucking profantity as motherfucking possible to motherfuck the point.

It was wet, and Radar surveyed the pool for turtles. She was trying to start a fight with me, looking for a way to push my buttons. I thought about why doing anything would be wrong; if I hold out long enough, maybe her nutjob boyfriend will do it for me...as long as he doesn't come here to do it.

Tentacle PS

This is a summary of rolling with The Tentacle: triangle-triangle-armbar-triangle-triangle-armbar.


I’m coping one day at a time.

Tentacle PS

This is a summary of rolling with The Tentacle: triangle-triangle-armbar-triangle-triangle-armbar.


I’m coping one day at a time.

Day of The Tentacle

He trained two days a week for about 8 months. He’s a blue belt. He been kicking my ass since he moseyed on in the dojo. He’s reason numero uno, I started writing about little victories on my blog.

Getting crushed by super heavy weights I can handle. Outmaneuvered by college boy and his wrestling toolbox, is frustrating but I could cope with it intellectually, but the Tentacle? I couldn’t handle it. He’s a prodigy, forged from hot southern days of laying stucko. His grip is aquatic, you might as well be staring at a giant squid—and his guard?—inner thighs like iron…and then he’s stretchy again.

He’s a lanky guy, but his lank is low key, southern like his drawl, stretching his vowels through his lips. Hell, even his workman’s tan seems stretched out thinly over his skin. It has a mustard bbq quality you could only find in the bible belt. They just don’t make tans like this in Texas.

Most of the time when you think lanky, you think tall, b-baller height, since I started bjj I’ve been paying closer attention to bone structure—not merely physique I’ve always done that—analyzing bodies for functionality in the fighting arts, a habit inspired by The Tentacle.

Victory is mine

Last night I earned my green belt in Judo. It's the first belt above white. I'm very happy with the results. Although, I had this weird head ache at the end. I passed the test by doing the following:

1. Demonstrating basic competency of breakfalls and forward rolls.

2. Demonstrated competency in four throwing techniques:

a. O-soto-gari>>>>> major outer reaping throw (a sweep)
b.O-goshi>>>>>>>>major hip throw
c. Koshi Goruma>>>>hip wheel
d. Sote Tsiri Komi Goshi>>>> sleeve driven hip throw

Believe it or not the spelling should be correct for all 'dose things (I'm reading from a sheet).
I also had to demonstrate a basic competency in two pinning combinations and escape from those pins.

a. Kesa-gatame>>cross chest hold
b. Kata-gatame>>shoulder hold

For the throws I had to breakdown the technique then perform a line take-down (keep throwing people with the same throw). One of my ukis (sp?) is easily 300 lbs. He worker for WCW as a jobber. I was surprised I was able to throw him at all (even if he was offering minimal resistance)

This makes me a Gokyu in the Judo world. What comes next? As far as the throws are concerned I want to further develop my technique, perform them left sided, and learn what ever variations I can absorb. But what about new techniques? I know I want to develop a sacrifice throw, an inside reap (basically a Judo style strip), a throw whose name I don't remember but requires me to balance on one leg, and another hip throw or trip--haven't decided yet.

As far as the pins are concerned, they work within a jujitsu environment, and I'll have to continue to work on them. When I can lock down a blue belt, I'll know I've made genuine progress on Kesa-gatame (most pins are really a variation of this).

I want to keep these techniques with MMA in mind as well as grappling, so any changes I make will largely be driven by those factors. As far as self defense is concerned, competency with a large variety of throws (to fit the context) strikes me as best so this won't be a major determinate for now.

PS
Sote Tsiri Komi Goshi is not a beginners technique. I chose it for the test because I demonstrated apptitude for it, and I believe I can use it in an Attack By Draw strategy for jittery BJJers in a takedown phase.

State of the body: ow my knees hurt remix

I think I have tendonitis in my knees or, more specifically, the teardrop heads of my quads. Fun times in misery land. I've been taking Naproxen (generic Alleve) and using a script strength Ibuprofen cream (great for by passing all that nasty liver damage).

I've done a couple of swimming and yoga workouts to manage the pain (and calibrate the muscles around the knees) I SHOULD be icing them; I'll make sure to do that tonight.

Sowwy

Blech, I've been a bad bad blogger. Busy work for my classes has been a distraction. I've been doing this Accreditation goo-goo ga-ga for my classes. Surveys on what I think competency of my students are. (that sentence can't be grammatically correct). I don't remember the exact name but is something to the effect of Assessment of Skills Survey...ASS. That's right someone in acadamia hates their job soooooooooooo much they consciously (or subconsciously) named a survey--one that deals specifically with accreditation of a junior college--ASS. I love it. Long live subversives

Seminar PS

Even though 50% roll training has done right by me; I still need to throw in a few full speed rolls for fitness and adaptive purposes (tournaments, working under stress and time constraints, etc)

Seminar

It was a relaxed affair. Carlos had us do a light warm up, push ups, squats, crunches, and then we reviewed a few escapes from side control and applying the Kimora from sidecontrol and mount. He tried to structure the lesson in terms of strategy as much as technique. I can't really say how much I remembered, as my brain tends to max out around three techniques, but I think I remember the basic escapes and their moral: when in doubt use your hips and your knees. Since I tend to focus on kimora and kimora variations as my primary submission attack, it'll be interesting to see what happens at tonight's open mat.

I spent most of the session working with a child and teen from our dojo. We didn't get a lot of reps in, but really, no one did. Five reps is not a lot for anything, and I hope the four day seminar is more focused.

The dojo we trained at was huge, easily dwarfing ours. Two full sized mats, a heavy bag array, offices, and a full sized ring. Oh, and the man has his own buses, not bus, but buses, plural. Suffice to say, this is one sensai whose doing quite well for himself, economy be damned, thank you very much.

Back to the mats. At first glance I feared those mats. One set was new and shiny, the other looked positively jurassic. Big fat stegosaurus vs T-Rex old, but you know what? Despite the wrinkles and peeled patches (that reminded me of a week old sunburn) rolling on the mats was smooth.

Ah, and the rolling. I didn't get much of a workout, was a bit disappointed. I rolled with the kids, a couple of times, but they don't do much for me cardiovascularly. This was followed, by a couple of CWBs of the no gui variety. How did I know number 1 was a CWB if I didn't know him at all, and he wasn't wearing a belt? One, the excited way he ran to the mat, all legs and arms in his MMA get up (If it sounds like I'm being condescending, I'm not, the outfit was spiffy, truthfully, I liked it, the kid had spunk), and as soon as as we locked up he was stiff as a board. He went full tilt--the only way you can go when you're that stiff--and I kept it close to my habitual 50% as possible. He was looking for the kill; I was looking for position and control. I got sidecontrol, and tried to hold it as long as I could content to let my partner gas out, even though he did gas, he tapped me by way of my arch enemy the triangle (a CWB, but one who knew a few locks). I tapped him with a guillotine a little later. The second guy was larger, working on a spare tire, and since I caught him with a simple sweep, I didn't mind tapping to him; in fact, hitting the sweep felt like a bigger victory than tapping someone out. Those rolls didn't last particularly long, and my partners weren't particularly well conditioned. After spending so much time grappling behemoths, college wrestlers, and prodigies, it would appear raw physical ability just doesn't intimidate me.

A sweep is a game changer. You want to build a game around control and movement, then damn sweeps are where its at. How do you get to top from bottom? Sweep. How do you catch an MMA fighter off guard when he's committed to pounding you? Sweep. You're in a life or death scenario you're on the ground and on the bottom with one yahoo, while his buddies from the The Good Sam Club are comin' your way with glass and bad intentions? Sweep----and then run!

Tigr's definition of privacy (adendum)

definition 2: the ability to pee in the house with the bathroom door open.

Cash Money

Endorsed THE check a few hours ago, fed ex-ing it back to my lawyer. I'm hoping to have the money by next week so I can invest it and stop worrying about the damn thing.

I'm pretty sure my uneasiness disqualifies me from the high risk tolerance category of investor. My politics are all left, but this may very well be the one issue where the words "Tigr" and "conservative" exist harmoniously.

I know what my problem is, it isn't that I don't trust someone to manage my money for me, it's that I don't trust the corporate sector to be honest about its books. I've seen Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room one too many times (they just made their profits up! how scary is that?).

August Surprise

Carlos Machado is holding a one day seminar tomorrow (BJJ) about an hour from where I love this. This was announced five days ago. It's only 50 bucks, so a few guys from the dojo are going up. Carlos is one of the Fabulous Machado Brothers! family of bjj champions. I may have mentioned that all 5 brothers are holding a four day seminar in October (600 dollars!!! ack!). Since I'm saving money to go to that one, I figured this one day thing would be a good way to preview what's in store for me in October.

I expect a lot of basic drills, some roll time, and I hope to god no one is in the "crazy white belt" stage of development. I hate trying to go 50 percent and the other guy goes nuts. It forces me to work harder than I should, rather than focus on technique, and since I'm the little guy, I always end up on the short end of the bruise stick. (But I have learned a neat little armbar from the bottom for when the CWB tries to neck crank you--this is a good self defense armbar, as the neck crank looks very much like a choke, 'cept the hands go behind the neck instead of around it)

Hope to post thoughts on the seminar tomorrow evening--now that I'm awake and all.

"now that I'm awake and all"
(half a Joss Whedon)

Phew!

Well, that was a nasty 6 weeks I hope never to revisit again. Taught my last 8 am class wed; I gave them thursday as a research day for their papers. Will they take advantage of that? One or two will, but I bet most of them slept in like I did.

I still don't know what "light and wacky" means. Hmm, "light n' wacky" the new salad dressing bottled in a giant pezz dispenser. There's something just a little bit sinister about that phrase, like Kraft branded a tiny piece of my imagination and is using me, unknowingly, to churn out exciting new flavor adventures--another phrase that sounds off. This line of verbiage is givin' me the willies!

I wonder though, in our corporatized democracy--the one that gives corporations all the benefits of bein' an individual--has a certain syntax been staked out? Shakespeare is known for enjambment, blank verse, etc. Tarantino is known for rhythmic profanity. Their style of writing is a finger print (if not them exactly then a contemporary, etc).

Light n' wacky.
flavor adventure.

Phrasing lacking in any substance, nonthreatening, ludicrous.