Sprawling Drill Video

Courtesy of our dear friend, Lex, you all get to see me and fellow teammates play with a bunch of exercise balls! Yay!

Our instructor John decided we should practice sprawling, and so we the point of the drill was to roll the ball towards your partner so they could sprawl on it. If the ball hit the leading leg, you were technically “taken down”.

We were also told to make it a little difficult and try to fake out our partner, which  is why we keep faking left and right, in some attempt to be sneaky and “take” our opponent down.

And, if nothing else, you get to see us act like a bunch of asses for a little over a minute. Enjoy!

A Post But Not

I have a post all ready to go, however it contains a video that I would like to ask someone’s permission to post before I do.

So, please be patient, a post indeed on its way.

the Post-Thanksgiving Guilty Train-a-thon

I will be training tonight like my life depended on it. Because damn I ate a lot this weekend.

Thanksgiving itself was fine, it was the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after the Turkey day that screwed me over. I did train on Saturday, which was a good positional/training day, but most of the weekend was spent sleeping, eating and studying for a test I have to take for work.

Thrilling, I know.

But now comes the guilt of eating a baked sweet potato with caramel sauce and toasted marshmallows on top, along with 1/2 a rack of ribs (the other 1/2 is in our fridge). The gluttony I so indulged this weekend is now coming around to bite me squarely in the ass, which I will be reflecting on as I go through kettlebells, jiu jitsu and judo, and then maybe in a panic do an extra kettlebell workout tomorrow morning before work. We’ll see.

So, how was everyone else’s weekend? Anyone else making it a point to sweat out all the fat and calories from their Thanksgiving weekend?

Fiddling Around

I’m working, and the only time the gym is having class today is a noon to 3 open mat session which I can’t make, so instead I am going to fiddle with the site: I like and don’t like this new theme, but I like it more than the previous theme…That makes sense, right ?

I like the Serif font, and the layout of the additional pages

I don’t like the spacing in between lines for the headers.

I’m not a huge fan of the white space behind the blog either, but it’s either nothing, or some obnoxious image in the background that eventually just hurts your eyes. I am choosing to err on the side of caution.

So please excuse the changes in the site: I’ll be working on it during lunch.

No-Gi Training

For You, for God, Glory and Gold, I trained in no-gi last night. And apparently practiced my justifications for becoming a conquistador. Actually it was also the only day I could train this week, since I have to do the “Thanksgiving Shuffle”, which as a child of divorced parents I’ve had to do for the past 2+ decades.

We did positional training, in which I was reminded yet again of my worst positions, which oddly enough on top in the mount is one of the the top three; you have no gi (hence, no-gi ::rimshot::) to choke with, so there’s always a couple of seconds where I sit on the person and go “…now what?” before I start messing with the arms in an attempt to get something.

I asked the front desk if they had any pain relievers before I went up, and they happened to have some aspirin, thank goodness. I popped two of those, took a swig of water, and fought the nausea the headache was causing for the hour. I did sit out one training match because my stomach was starting to fight back, but I managed to get it back under control before one more match.

I was the only girl in class, so during positional training when we had to have the same partner, which turned into our first match, I trained with this fellow: Lex. He’s actually a good training partner to have, regardless as a guy or girl; very technical, aggressive in an involved, ready to train way, not an offensive “there’s 30 seconds on the clock during the final match at Worlds” way, and overall a pleasure to train with.  Also, can be bribed with apples.

The rest of training went fine, and all in all it was a good class. I am glad to have made it, because if nothing else it gave me an understanding of what else I need to work on in a no-gi capacity. The next couple of months should be interesting, gaining focus and really ironing out what needs to be done.

Let’s go!

 

 

 

My Headache and “I Want to Train BJJ SO BAD”

I have a headache that rendering me a little ‘special needs’ at the moment, but I’m going to suck it up, do no-gi class and then do some kettlebells…and pray my head doesn’t explode from the pressure.

In the meantime I figure I would post this, just in case you have not watched it for some reason: it’s actually pretty damn funny

Inside the Box Does Not Require Time Management Skills

I had one thing to do, so I pushed off the other thing to get it done. What had been pushed off then had to be done at a later time, which set me off on a thorny road of poor time management, with the only kill switch to end this downward spiral of inefficiency was to not go to capoeira on  Saturday.

That sounds more epic than it truly was, but it looks like I won’t be engaging in any fancy dance-fighting until the weekend of the 11th, which I will probably spend instead scrambling desperately to get people their Christmas presents.

I know, I’m just a whiz at budgeting time

Realistically it will probably be the new year before I can step on the mat in an aggressively rhythmic fashion. I’m sorry, Lobo Mau, aka Martin, I hope you can forgive me and my inability to effectively execute an agenda for the week.

Taking a Peek Outside The Box

Not that Jiu Jitsu is a box, it’s just something I thought of in reference to my father. He has his routines, his habits, and particular preferences in life. When my stepmother and I try to talk him into doing or trying something different, his response is one he made up while talking to a shoe salesman (who was trying to sell him a different brand of sneaker than his usual),

“It’s safe inside the box. Nothing bad ever happens inside the box.” Now my father is actually a very easygoing man with a sense of humor, so it just makes the encounter all the more amusing.

Anyway, back to the point, our gym offers a number of different programs in addition to Jiu Jitsu, Judo and Kettlebells. There’s also Muay Thai, Tae Kwan Do for kids and adults, No-Gi, and Capoeira.

It’s this last one that I am thinking of trying out on Saturday, Capoeira. Who doesn’t love to dance a little bit? Dance FIGHTING? Even better. It’s taught by Lobo Mau *(His name is also Martin, but I think that’s what he prefers in class. Dunno, I’ll find out and report) along with his wife, Jolli. They both seem quite nice and patient, so I think I’ll be in good hands.

The natural sense of rhythm I have  I feel will serve me quite well in this arena: from what I understand they don’t use the standard 2-4 beats, but instead use the 3 beat more common in Latin music (my boyfriend is a piano player, and that is the sole reason I know any of this). It’s the handstands that will mess me up.

Pray I won’t have to do any handstands.

I think it’s something fun to try, a great cardio workout, and may even work to strengthen weak areas (read, upper arm strength) and improve my balance if I continue with it.

Sometimes it’s nice to take a look outside of the box now and again.

The Weight Thing

So, someone mentioned once that it was so counter intuitive that bjj gals just talk about their weight, in a somewhat open fashion when competing.

I think it has to do more with the sport itself, and how easy it is to find out the information. It’s kind of hard to state that you are trying to get to a weight class, but then refuse to state what that weight class is. I usually fight in medio, anyone can go onto the IBJJF website, and figure out that medio is about 150 pounds. So, why don’t I just say I’m trying to get to the 150 weight class and save everyone a couple of extra key strokes? Because then inevitably we all know the next question…

“How much more do you have to go?” well, I trust that people who can read the internets can also perform simple mathematics, so, why not just come clean about it.

I think that’s the case for a lot of girls who train and compete and happen to blog: it sucks, yeah, but it’s kind of a part of the deal, just like training like crazy.

::shrug::

It’s not a very deep or overly thoughtful answer, but it’s the truth. It’s the kind of honesty that I like about the sport. There’s no lying that you are 20 pounds heavier and no one ever questioning it. You either make weight for the tournament or you don’t. I’m not sure about local tournaments, but I know at the very least IBJJF disqualifies you for not making weight. You are that weight, and if you don’t want to fight in that class anymore, usually you have to opportunity to change it.

Again, not the most eloquent explanation, but that’s my reasoning. We can’t exactly hide from it, so we embrace it. Amen.

How People Find Me

I find some of the search terms people use to find me hysterical, so I decided to share them with everyone else (with some pseudo-snarky commentary, of course):

A skirt on the mat–yay! That’s Me!

Women should train jiu jitsu–Also yay! I agree wholeheartedly

Women should not fight in the ring–…I call shenanigans. I think they should fight in the ring for a variety of reasons, but that’s not what this post is about. Moving on!

Do the octagon girls have sex with the fighters?–Well, we all know the answer to this: no, they are sworn Vestal Virgins, and actually wear sacred bikini outfits that have a fine layer of poison painted onto them. Which is why they must walk around on the outside of the ring, and why they have those robes that cover the chairs they sit on during the matches. You don’t want someone to be accidentally poisoned breaking down the venue after the event, do you?

If you don’t understand that is a joke…. I’m terribly sorry, I think you may have stumbled onto the wrong website.

pink vale tudo shorts– I seriously hope a dude was looking for this

Sweaty female fighters-I’m wondering if they were looking for an image of this for a blog, a flyer, or their secret fetish porn-stash.

Well, that’s all I have for now, but trust me, I’m sure I will have some more gems to share with everyone.