Mostly because you were all right... I was being a big fat pouty baby, and even going a few times a month to keep my foot in the door is totally worth it.
On top of that, I got a really, really nice compliment from one of our purple belts. I feel like my biggest failure since I've been back on the mat is that I'm super slow, and stiff. After our grapple he told me I was moving really well, and that I felt good. I almost cried. Seriously. It felt like he was being genuinely honest, and not giving me a polite pat on the head.
I also grappled someone I had not grappled in a long time, so I had forgotten just how redonkulous he is. He is a blue belt and very technical. On top of that he is a beast. As in, he has super human strength and speed, and is enormous. He won gold in blue belt absolute last year at Abu Dhabi. Anyway, I think I annoyed him. If you has switched him mid grapple with a boulder I wouldn't have noticed. (He was letting me work, if he was on the offence, I'd have been pretzeled 1200 times over in five minutes.) It was really frustrating, and to keep from getting angry, I laughed every time I got aggravated. Just so I am clear, he wasn't being a jerk in any way, his defense was just so impenetrable I couldn't have done anything to him even if I had a crowbar.
Imagine grappling this guy:
Or this:
And even when he let me get a hook in here, or there I still couldn't do a thing to him .... at all. I spent the entire grapple laughing at my failures instead of getting upset about them... to the point my constant laughter seemed to annoy him. He is so strong btw, that I can sprawl my entire body on one of his legs and he can still sweep me with that one leg, easily. So, my brain knows that I am not only technically way out matched but the size/strength differential is so vast that I don't think I could move him unless I had 15 years of BJJ under my belt... but alas, I do not, and I get frustrated.
So, Jimmy, I'm sorry I laughed our entire grapple, it wasn't that I didn't take our grapple seriously, because I did, it was that I didn't want to get upset. ... not that you had done anything other than be awesome, or that you would ever read this, but it makes me feel better now that I've apologized... and I will probably do it again to your face on Monday.
LOL I do that too! I try really hard to deflect my personal pissedoffedness into something more acceptable and pleasant like "laughter" or "smiling" and yet somehow it doesn't make it any better :|
ReplyDeleteNormally I don't spend the entire grapple laughing unless both of us are being silly. He was not being silly, but I was almost laughing non-stop due to my frustration. lol I do think it annoyed him, however, it was probably the less annoying option between annoyed stanky grappling and laughing. Or at least I know I hate to grapple people who are clearly annoyed.
ReplyDeleteYou guys do better than me. If I get pissed off during a grapple, it shows all over my face. Like a douche. But Steph, I am sure he was not offended. I saw a lot of that grapple and A) You did better than you thought and B) He did not appear to be put off by your laughter. In fact, as I recall, he was laughing too. :)
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