I...live...again

I'm back. And I just read the last entry. My god. How the status quo has changed. I am a creature of emotional extremes. Here is the long and short of it:

1. I broke up with G, who will now be called M.
2. I have entered into a relationship with S.
Who is S? S=the blackbelt, the Muy Thai striker.
3. I have acquired my blue belt in Judo
4. I have, finally, and with much effort, gained my blue belt in BJJ

It seems unfair, narratively speaking. For two years life was in a holding pattern of sorts. This blog represented the diary of an emotionally scarred white-belt, struggling to figure out where he stood with his girlfriend. Then when I return, everything has changed....well, I'm still emotionally scarred. I seem to be stuck with that. It's been an exhausting 6 months, and it would have made for great blog fodder! Alas, the record of that is hidden from the world, a flurry of epistolaries, texts, and posts, that is still going on today.

At one point I considered terminating this blog, ending it once and for all. I wasn't updating, and let's face it, I'm not exactly on google's top ten. But I didn't, the epistalaries represent a shared space, but this blog represents an exclusively private one, and I still need that, still want that. And with that in mind, I've come back.

I'm in an odd position, forging a new love as I mourn the loss of another. Yes, I see now that I did love M, but I FEARED not loving her, I feared lying to myself, I never lied to her the way I thought I might. How do I know I love/d her? The tears man, the tears. All the while S fills me with joy and exhiliaration. It's not a bipolar existence, but hot damn, I'm some kinda crazed pin ball machine looking for a little...equilibrium, balance. Damnit, I've got practice in an hour, and I'm fighting a headache, blech. Fear not, this represents a return to regularly scheduled blogging. (I think this helps me stay on task in respect to writing as a whole)

State of the body: dumb luck (?) edition

Monday night. Grapple time. Fun time. Happy time for all. Oh yeah, and I banged up my left leg. The damn thing was a magnet for damage. I didn't have my gi pants for judo. I took a fall. The landing kinda stung, but I got over it. Later, as we did a roll warm up in grappling, I was paired with a tenth grader, a 282 lbs tenth grader. Lots of energy. New. Enthusiastic. Reckless. He is the StayPuft Marshmallow Man of newbies. He's demonstrated a disturbing habit for improv, which is good for artists, but not good for young grapplers playing with LEGLOCKS. He was locking me with...his weight, I don't know how to describe it, reminiscent of the "Brock Lock" Lesnar used during his WWE run. I tapped fast, very fast. I thought I tapped before he did real damage. Truly, Staypuft is the most dangerous guy on the floor.

Despite a nasty bump and a goofy, but unpredictable neophyte, my leg appeared to be a-okay. It was time for someone safer. I was paired with another heavyweight, a guy with several MMA fights to his credit, to work some half-guard escapes. His ankle casually bumped the large nerve running past the knee.

And that was all she wrote. It's Wednesday and I'm still limping. Could take over a week before I'm walkin' right again. By which point I'm supposed to have a large, black eye style, bruise. Thank God I know how to swim.

Anti-Climax 2

The Judo Tournament. I didn't have out sized expectations going in. Having a very small training pool has been a detriment and a reason for competing in the first place.
That being said, there was a lot of bad, some crazy, and a faint glimmer of hope.

The bad: I haven't been to a lot of tournaments, but as far as management and structure are concerned this was clearly the worst. The refs were fine (if maybe a bit too generous with the iponns (sp?)). It was those damn tables. There were a whole lotta kids and plenty of adults. The kids got both rings for the first hour or two. But a disturbing pattern began here and carried right through all the adult divisions. They never announced the brackets by age, weight, or belt, or beginner/advanced. Nope, why do that when you can just shout out names in a noisy hanger crowded with parents and kids? I found this particularly irritating with the adults because no one established any order at all to the adult divisions and when which was going. Fuck that! We don't want to give anyone time to warm up; in fact, it is a time honored tradition in judo to keep you cold AND punish you with the boredom of waiting. I waited around 6 hrs to have my first match...in a two person division. They coulda had us go first or early or ..something, anything. Instead,

The crazy: so I wait 6 hrs and notice my opponent is wearing a black belt. I thought "there's no way he's a black belt, surely, this must be a fatal flaw in the judo game of Different gis/Change belt colors Dance Dance Revolution. (My judo instructor would later say "If he was wearing a black belt, that means he's a black belt). I got SMOKED. As in the match couldn't have been more than 10 seconds SMOKED. Lucky for me this was a double elimination tournament, in which I'd fight the very same black belt all over again. But before I did that, I somehow wound up in an entirely different bracket, the light middleweight bracket (170 lbs). The result was the same: SMOKED. Slap a no smoking sign on my gi before I die of cancer.

I was determined to last more than 10 seconds. When I got my rematch with the black belt I made a crummy attempt at a sacrifice throw and turned it into a grappling contest/ I lasted significantly longer but he still managed to beat me with a throw. Honestly, I think I could have taken him in a straight grappling match. I feel the same way against my other opponent, who I AGAIN lost to by way of double elimination.

the good: Uh...Shallow learning curve? adapted after rough losses and left the building with my ego intact. I know what skills I have to work on. Turns out its astonishingly easy to grab the legs of someone whose 5 ft 4 and a half/135 lbs and slam him. SO yeah, slamming defense will be a biggie in judo.

PS the 170 expressed guilt about our matches, didn't think it was fair. I told him it was ok. I'm used to unfair matches.

Anti-Climax

So the long winding path to this spring's submission grappling tournament seem to be lacking in momentum: no drama or melodrama because I've been busy trying to secure work, coupled with the banality of training, no that it hasn't had its moments (this is also why my return to blogging was short lived.) How anticlimactic is it? The tournament is this Saturday, and I haven't said one thing about it in weeks. I've been much more concerned with

a) Getting the aforementioned job
b) Making actual progress in JKD--we had a yellow sash (1 stripe) "progress check"
c) the judo tournament yesterday (Sunday)
d) behaving like a fickle 12 year old girl (getting its own post)

BJJ itself is going fine, I suppose. We've started implementing the Carlos Machado curriculum, and I know 3 ways to do a basic sweep, and quite frankly, I wouldn't mind knowing two more.

King of the Whitebelts Forever

There was a test, an actual by god test, in JKD last week. New Year, new system, actual monthly tests. I didn't feel any real pressure for most of the test (except when Sifu did the feeding, mostly because it didn't even test up to the yellow belt level, so once again I am a two striped white belt in JKD, but I'm clearly the best boxer of all the white belts. Presumably, I'll be doing a yellow belt test at the end of this month. There is a good chance, I may make green belt by end of the year.

In Judo I'm moving towards my blue belt (white>>green>>blue). I'm in no rush right now to test; I think a lack of randori has hurt my development, and only having one guy who is over 6 ft has given me a few bad habits I have to correct. The good news here is we;re now trying to get in an hour of judo on Mondays and Fridays (I have this dream where one day practice will consists of more than me and the judo brown belt). I'm going to attend a judo camp in the summer, where I should get plenty of randori experience. After that, I'll test for the blue belt (am also hoping to do a judo tournament before that too)

BJJ? Who knows? I like the incorporation of wrestling, but we need more high rep drills, stuff like armbars from the bottom. I did a few in the beginners class and my legs felt like jelly after 10 reps, unacceptable. Are there any solitary drills for practicing those armbars? Would go a long way in developing the strength of my guard too (physically and tactically).

Oh while I'm thinking of it, Monday, the BJJ brown belt had us doing some scramble drills, and really opened up how to approach the mount. If no locks are available or if the person is about to escape, switch to knee to belly, side, back to mount, hell at one point he--how do I describe this?--it was a mount but he monetarily faced the other direction, weight near the chest (not the same as reverse mount in sambo, at least it didn't appear that way)

Smote!

Caught a cold from girlfriend,am supposed to do Judo tonight and go to a birthday party. Will need crystal me--I javascript:void(0)mean Endorush.

Meanwhile, at the dojo...

A brown belt has been coming from upstate to train with us once a week, partially due to a needlessly complicated scuffle with the Fabulous Machados. Regardless of the political landscape, he's a good teacher, and has proven himself quite adept at tailoring criticism and advice to the different needs of his students. He showed us an escape from side control that's perfect for MMA fighters like college boy, while showing me a few tricks to finishing arm bars particularly pertinent because of the size differential I have to cope with. He's mentioned being an english major, and his language is precise and to the point, but descriptive when it needs to be. Perfect for a verbal/visual learner such as yours truly. I look forward to training with him.

Sidenote: due to the holiday season our judo brown belt has been MIA I'm hoping I can officially restart my judo training tonight.

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.

That smarts

I was hit in the ear during judo practice, take note boys and girls, getting hit in the ear causes headaches.

Feeling Fine

I feel good. I feel good about jujitsu. I've done it three nights in a row, and will go again tonight.
As I move back to a heavy schedule I've resolved to do jujitsu 4 nights a week as best I can and two hours of JKD a week, and 1 one hour of Judo throws.


In unrelated news, I'm reading Dracula, prepping for my brit lit class that starting monday. Funny, how the department head thought my 4 classes in brit lit qualified me to teach it, when in truth, I know little, my real knowledge base is horror, but I think everything will be fine as I'm dividing the class thusly: half a session devoted to student presentations on poets, the other half devoted to teaching Dracula. Only problem now is figuring out what do we read when Dracula is finished? I've had a few ideas ranging from Alan Moore's Watchmen to Fowles' The Collector. (The closer I got to modern times, the wider my knowledge base).

And where am I gonna find the time to write and blog? Ugh. It's back to good ole will power and elbow grease.

The Brainfart contiunes

I had a topic, but thought it'd be better to start a new post and pffffffff gone. I don't remember what I was gonna say.

Ahhh, now I remember. Despite the ever frustrating white belt stuff I complain about, yesterday my judo instructor noticed a marked improvement in--ah shit I forgot the Japanese term--well, anyway he said my basic throw form has improved. I like judo, it seems to go well with a lot of styles. I need to start campaigning for a full time judo class--it only meets officially for an hour on Monday, then a BJJ blue belt reviews what we did on wed (or not we might do BJJ groundwork). I like the pedagogical tendency for high rep activity in judo. It helps me tremendously, and fosters my PATHETIC grip strength. I think, especially if we can get a full2.5 hr judo class, that gi throws will become a major strength for me (will not transfer to no-gi throws?), and the additional roll time couldn't hurt either. I'd like to do a judo competition, I think I could wreak some havoc.