Compliments that sound like insults...

I got another one tonight....

"You feel sturdy... like a man."


One of the girls tonight said of all the girls at Fabio's she has the most fun with me because I feel sturdy like a man... As in, she doesn't feel like she can break me.  However, it may be the fact that I am an honest to goodness foot taller that she is...

I laughed, but I did take it as a compliment, just the way I think it was nice when I get told how heavy I feel mid grapple.  Anywhere else I might have to fight back tears, but it is one of my favorite things to hear when I have someone in side control.

...So, thanks Wizzy... You feel sturdy like a man too.  =)

I'm sure everyone else gets them too.... What are your favorite insults outside of BJJ compliments?



....and btw, if you google image search "Sturdy like a man" ... you will get pictures of this very strange pillow.

Apparently it feels sturdy like a man.

1 year!

I passed my adjusted 1 year of training mark!

Wooo!

... Annoyingly 4 of those months are once a week training.

I won't complain too much though... I am just happy I am able to train!

I was 'that guy' tonight.

You know Mr. Injured who only has pain when he is in a bad position?  Yeah, that was me tonight.

Yesterday, like a graceful swan, I fell down a flight of stairs.  I didn't really get any serious injuries.. just some bruising... and one pretty sever bruise on my outer right thigh.

I am pretty sore, but if I didn't go to class, I wouldn't train at all this week, so I went.  We drilled throws.  Ugh.  I wasn't about to be, yeah, let me throw you a bunch of times, and then never give you a chance to throw me.  So I got rag dolled a bit, but was able to mostly land on my good side. Yay there.

Then it came time to grapple... and being that my only genuinely painful bruise is on my outer right thigh... the side I most often hip to, and generally I am only hipping out when I am in some sort of danger... or repositioning... but anyway.  I was grappling, and about to have my guard passed, and ended up on my side, and as she came through, she went over my thigh with all her weight, and it hurt.  Bad. Almost cry out in pain bad.  I had to ask if she could move off my leg.  So, we reset.

I felt like a douche.  I could for the most part grapple like a normal person, except when I was laying on my bad side.  So, I know it looks like I am making it up because the pain is ONLY when I am in a bad position.

And to make matters worse, it doesn't even look that bad, but oh my gosh, does it hurt.

This is right after it happened.  Thankfully I was wearing jeans. 

This is it later that day.

Day Two: (i'm going to edit in pictures until I get bored with it. hehe)

Day Three:

Ugh.

Sorry everyone.

Third Annual Saporito Seminar!

Not surprisingly, it was fantastic.  

Saporito is just simply one of the coolest people alive.  He doesn't even speak the same language I do, yet still manages to make me feel welcome and appreciated.  

For the majority of the seminar he took one position, and showed us what to do with it.. Then what we should do if we can't do that... and then what to do if you can't get that... and so on.  It was awesome.  Behold, the power of transition!

Then he showed us how to counter act and escape 50/50 guard.  Apparently he has seen it used a lot in competitions only to stall, so he showed us how to avoid getting there, and if we do find out selves there, how to get out of it.  No one at Fabio's really uses 50/50 though, so I doubt I will get much practice with it.  Hopefully I will remember this information if I ever find myself needing it in competition.

Allie and Kara drilling

Drilling with Kara

After the official ending time of the seminar, we took pictures because some people had to leave, and then he showed us more stuff!  Basic things, like an armbar from guard.  Rehashing all those tiny details that make all of the difference in the world.

Paul, Ozzy, Fabio's Father-in-Law, Saporito, Fabio

Saporito always rotates Fabio's higher belts (Black/Brown/Purple) as demonstration dummies.  Well, he mostly uses Ozzy who comes from Rio with him, but he also uses Fabio, and Fabio's upper belts.  But for some reason he saw it fit to use me... a lowly white belt to embarrass and humiliate.

It was almost shocking how tight his armbar was even before he was doing the actual barring.  Before he even 'put it on', it was tighter than most arm bars that I've been put in. 

Paul, Fabio, Saporito, Ben, Fabio's Father-in-Law and Ozzy down there in the front.

Joyce very unfortunately had a migraine that morning, but stuck it out, and came to the seminar anyway.  Saporito went all Mr. Miyagi on her forehead and she said it helped a lot.

 Saporito, Me, Allie and Fabio.

Bird in the gym?  No.  I dunno what I am doing other than needing a tan. .. And Allie is apparently about to spit on Kara.  This picture makes me laugh.

Kara being Kara.

Me and Saporito!

Fabio and me

 Fabio, Saporito and me

Kara went and got her gi on.  lol

Ozzy and I.  I think he is the tiniest black belt ever.  =)  And he is as nice as he is small.  

Team Fabio!

Guard passes seem to be highly discussed lately.

Both Allie, and Jennifer have blogged this week about passing guard... and here is yet another one.


The one bonus of having taken a 9 month break is all of my bad habits have been broken.  Slightly less awesome that my good habits have also been broken, but I clearly remember several things I used to do ALL the time out of habit that would instantly land be triangled, or barred in some way.  I don't do those things anymore.  I also don't insta-sweep my favorite sweep anymore the second it is available.  (Obviously, I am talking about on people my own level.)

But as a whole, I think this is a good thing for me.

I used to always, regardless of who I was grappling.... 100 pound woman, or 250 pound man, pull guard, or at the very least go to my back and try to pull guard.  I had myself convinced it was easier to pull guard and sweep to get to a top position.  (Even though, half the time my opposition was just flat unsweepable.)

Now that I don't purely do it out of habit I realize, holy crap, passing is the easier route to the top. But I find that now I am more often the sweep-ee not the sweeper.  I do think that is the nature of the game though... you can't be swept if you are already on the bottom.  That and my general skill level anyway. Having an awesome guard pass is my new goal.  First step toward that is stop sucking at passing guard.

Monday night I was talking to our of out black belts after class (Yes, plural! We have more than one now!  Sorry, I still think that is kind of exciting.) and he asked me what I felt I needed to work on.  I told him guard passes.  He asked me what I currently did, and he tweaked a few things I am doing wrong.  I am leaning backward slightly when I should be sitting straight up, which is the leading cause of my being swept.  Then once I do break the legs open, I am not getting low enough, and not properly trapping the leg closest to the mat, and lastly when I do the double under hook shuck pass thing I am shucking the legs off of me at an angle versus bringing their knees to their face and moving myself around the legs instead of moving the legs around me.

Those are my MAJOR errors.  I had a lot more slightly less mindblowingly wrong ones.

He also showed me a more stable hand placement for when I am breaking the legs, and a better place to grip the hips once I am passing.

I'm trying not to let all this wonderful information fall out of my brain before I get a chance to use it... Curse my once a week grappling!

21 things to do before I turn 30

Today is my birthday... or rather, the 8th anniversary of my 21st birthday.  =)  I have stopped actually aging..

Anyway, about 4 months ago I started a list of things I wanted to accomplish before I make the leap to 30. 

One of the bigger more involved list items was to raise chickens, and eventually butcher and eat one.  I'd like to know how it is done, and I already eat chicken... learning the process is just the next step, and I want to know how to do it.

I highly doubt it will be something I do more than once, as I am not even sure I will be able to do it in the first place...  I blogged about the actual chickary here.   Yes, I make up words all the time... Don't you?  =)

New meat!

There were two new girls tonight at Fabio's.  One is new-new, and the other has about 6 months of training, but new to our gym, Amy.  The new new girl is a young teenager, Amy is an adult, who is bigger than I am.  In shape, just taller and bigger.... and stronger.  It's nice to actually have a bigger-than-me female!  And she is very, very energetic.  I mean, she went with 125% of what she had.  Which is honestly, a little refreshing...at least since it was not a man trying to squash me into oblivion.  Most newer women sit across from me, and kind of sort of try and pull on my gi, and kind of sort of lean toward me a little... and kind of sort of sit there scared for 5 minutes.  But not her.  She did something to me that I have only ever had a man do, and only once.... and it was one of the biggest strongest men in our gym.  I'd gotten her in a triangle, and she sat up.  I mean, just clean sat up with me attached to her head.  I leaned so he would fall onto her back, and then she rolled around some more.  It felt like I was riding a bucking bronco..  So, I figured, I would just hang on to her head until the blood supply to her brain ran out.  So that is what I did.  Then, it happened again.... and then again.

So, I showed her what she was doing that was causing her to get triangled repeatedly, and from there showed her a proper guard pass until time ran out.  I generally shy away from correcting people, or telling them how to do something, but she was swimming an arm into my closed guard...and as far as I know that will accomplish nothing short of getting you traingled.

I am really excited to have her as a new addition.  I am pretty sure she will stick around too.  She trained at an off shoot of Fabio's.  South Shore BJJ, when I went to Summerlin, our school visited their's, and vice versa.  Anyway, sadly South Shore had to close it's doors recently due to their instructors just having too much going on with life, and what not to keep the school open.  She is a prison guard at a male prison, and wants to take BJJ for obvious reasons.  So she makes a 60 mile round trip drive to Fabio's to train.  I really think she will stick with it.  YAY!

Oh, and less than two weeks until the Saporito Seminar!  Double yay!

Tornado! ... No, not tornado guard, an actual tornado.

A tornado came through my neighborhood yesterday!  Thankfully we are all safe, and our house is only missing a few shingles.

Here is the beast!

I have a little more information and pictures over here.