Can't be Batman

I sometimes ponder things that have no clear answer. One of these is; why do so few women do Jiu-Jitsu?

Not many walk in the door to even give it a try, and even less stick with it.

I never really had a good answer. The best I could come up with is that women must not like the idea rolling around on the floor with a bunch of men. Either that, or that women don't want to roll around with anybody, regardless of gender.

Right now at our school we have perhaps 20 active members. Of these, exactly two are female, which means the place is 90% male.

In martial arts like Karate, which doesn't have any sort of wrestling component, the ratio is usually about 70% male. They have three times as many females.

But then that raises the question; why does Karate also have so few?

We have a self-defence class for women that is always well attended. It is all based on grappling techniques, or escaping from them. The women who take this class seem quite willing to roll around with one another.

Why are so many attending those sessions, but not the main class which teaches a more comprehensive curriculum?

I recently read a blog post by a women who grew up over the last 30 years in a world with no rough-and-tumble female action heroes. She was profoundly moved by a scene in the recent Ghostbusters remake where one of the female heroes goes all Rambo and seriously kicks ass. This blogger said it was the first time that she'd ever seen a non-sexualized and non-trivialized hero of her gender do this.

That made me try and think of all the female action heroes I could come up with. I pretty soon gave up on my list. Wonder Woman; revealing costume with heels. Supergirl; a perky hair-do and a cute short skirt. Xena warrior princess; same kind of thing. If you can think of someone who isn't treated in this fashion, try seeing if she exists as subordinate to male characters. Is she the one on the team who needs rescue, or is a love interest?

Anyhow, it must be hard to grow up in a culture full of fictional heroes, and to not be reflected in that at all, or at least very rarely.

A woman can't be Batman.

Then look at most of the men in martial arts. The idea of being able to train, and then to be a potential hero of sorts is no issue. They know they can be truly kick-ass if they put in the time.

Most women do not have that kind of validation. Even the ones who attend the self-defence class might be there in part due to the phenomenon. They are learning how to defeat male attackers with a number of “tricks” that will allow them to survive very specific attacks. Few join the main class in order to become well-rounded, tough, fighting machines. They are not trying to become Batman, as our culture says that such a thing just isn't going to happen.

If my theory is correct, it helps explain why so few women train in any martial art. Most likely there are other factors as well, but it still sucks.

If any one group needs Jiu-Jitsu more than any other, it is that of the smaller and less physically powerful members of society, regardless of gender.

Ghostbusters

The first thing you need to know about me is that I'm pretty stunned; always have been.

I suppose it also matters that I'm male, and that I'm 60 years old.

When I as a kid, there was some kind of question that came up at one of the schools that I attended where there was no girls' team for some sport or other, but there was for boys. I didn't understand why that would be, and nobody could explain it to my satisfaction.

You see, my family never insisted that there were any particular gender differences to the world. My sister helped around the house, and liked to cook, and I did neither of those things. I never assumed that it was any form of male privilege, but rather that I was a lazy bastard.

So, anyhow, being stunned, I never noticed how one-sided the world actually was. When women struggled to get the concept of equal-pay for equal-work, I was probably the most surprised person in the world that such a movement was necessary. My assumption was that equal-work meant equal-pay, and was shocked to discover that it was untrue, and even more shocked that there were people who thought otherwise.

Fast forward a large number of decades.

There is a movie out this summer that is a re-make of the 1984 movie Ghost Busters. I generally hate remakes of good movies, and had no intention of seeing this one until it would eventually show up on Netflix or on TV.

There is a controversy about it. In the original had 4 guys in the roles of the Ghostbusters, and they were great. The remake has all of the Ghostbuster roles played by women. Somehow, many fans of the original take this as some form of sacrilege. Personally, I don't care at all about that, but hadn't heard anything particularly wonderful about the film.

Turns out, most of the world is missing the point.

I just read a great summation of a woman who is currently 30 years of age about just why this movie is important. Although the world is far from gender-equal, you'd think a woman born in 1986, in North America, would have been spared the worst of it. Perhaps in some ways this is true.

But not in all ways. She explains it all very clearly;

https://medium.com/@deer.erin/why-should-i-go-see-it-8a3e552a540b#.tvd3js5zg

The short version is that there is a scene, where the new-Ghostbusters are about to be annihilated by a horde of evil spirits; their weapons all spent. One of the characters pulls two big-ass handguns out of nowhere, and proceeds to go all action-hero on the villains. She does so wearing baggy coveralls, with no visible cleavage, and her hair bundled up and away. It is both irrelevant that she is female, and vitally important. No concession to her gender is made in any way. She is neither sexualized, nor feminized, but neither is she male.

Our 30-year-old female blogger found it a cathartic experience. This was the first time she had ever experienced such a thing, and its impact on her was profound.

I have not yet seen this movie, but suppose now I shall.

Already it reminds me of the recent Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. In it, the lead protagonist is also female. She is also not sexualized at all. Her gender is not particularly important to the role she is playing. In fact, the movie is a form of remake as well, and the place she plays in it is that of Luke Skywalker from the original. I haven't heard many make this connection, perhaps as Luke Skywalker is actually a character in this movie, but I digress.

This character, Rey, is played as an action-hero, just as the leads of the Ghostbusters remake are.

These characters are true leads. They are not there to be somebody else's romantic interest, or to titillate the audience, or to be the person to be rescued. The are definitely NOT supporting cast.

This is important, and it can be seen in the negative reaction of many original-version Ghostbusters fans to the all-female cast. Somehow, the gender of the Ghostbusters matters to them just as much.

I loved the original movie, but wasn't really interested in the re-make as it is, well, a re-make. I loved the original Italian Job, but haven't seen the new version. My only notice of the big gender swap was the thought that it was mildly interesting. See; stunned.

But getting back to the premise; how many female action-star roles have there been in the last couple of years? Now remove all that involve sexy outfits; tight, low-cut, etc. Now remove any where the female hero is in-fact playing a subordinate role to a male hero.

Hunger Games isn't one, and Twilight isn't either. Try reversing the genders of the actors in those. They don't work at all then, do they? Why are these pouty, and relatively passive characters spontaneously being loved and followed by everybody they encounter? These are not action heroes, but rather some strange type of romantic/fantasy/dramas with monster/revolution backdrops.

I liked the Rey character in Star Wars, and hope that Ghostbusters works for me, too.

Touch

It is important to touch other human beings. It could be the easiest thing in the entire world, but it isn't.

A friend posted an article recently that explained how hard such a simple thing can be for men in our society. It doesn't refer to any sort of sexual need, but rather just being touched as an expression of simple humanity.

How about me for an example. I really like being touched, but it's tricky. At home, there is no issue. My wife both returns my touches, and equally initiates her own. It's great, and always makes me smile. At Jiu-Jitsu, hands and legs and backs and chest are forever pressing on me. The goal isn't touch, per se, but it sure happens a lot.

Leaving out those two areas, I don't get touched. I don't mean exactly never, but it's pretty rare. Let's see how much it has happened in the last year or so.

There have been a number of handshakes, which barely count at being touched. There have also been a number of hugs when meeting old friends, or saying goodbye.

Besides that, there has been one visit to the dentist.

That's it, in a year.

How many seconds per month does that work out to being? Not many. The only sustained contact was in the dentist's chair, and that involved a lot of pokey things, and power-tools, and rubber gloves.

This is a problem. What about all those folks without a partner, or without an activity ripe with touching? Who touches them?

And, like many things in our society, it is an asymmetrical problem, in that it effects men the most.


        ...it has become every man's job to prove they can be trusted, in each and every interaction, day
        by day and case by case. In part, because so many men have behaved poorly. And so, we prove
        our trustworthiness by foregoing physical touch completely in any context in which even
        the slightest doubt about our intentions might arise. Which, sadly, is pretty much every
        context we encounter.
                                                          -Mark Greene


The reverse is not true. If some female acquaintance offers me a hug, I never, ever suspect her of having ulterior motives; of trying to cop a feel.

At Jiu-Jitsu, if a woman wants to partner with me to learn a technique, or to spar, there isn't the slightest possibility that she is sexually motivated. I sometimes hesitate to offer to partner, or to roll with a woman, in case I might be creeping her out.

If you think I'm being silly in the sports context, I am not. I have witnessed males who clearly were absolutely being creeps; thank goodness that has never been at our school.

I am very careful about offering a hug. With relatives, it is easy, or with long-time friends.

It is all too easy to be creepy, and the fear of being creepy is a big deal. The normal procedure is to never attempt to touch anybody else, ever, unless they initiate the action.

So why do I go on about rules for hugging, when there are many other forms of human physical contact? I contend that there really are not.

In the last year, outside of my long-term relationship and Jiu-Jitsu and my dentist. Every single one of my interpersonal physical contacts has come in the form of either a hug or a handshake.

Nobody ever seems to worry about a handshake participant being "up to something," but hugs are very different.

Why no other kinds of contact? Think about it. Anything other than that is clearly off the table.

Let's take somebody with whom I sometimes exchange hugs, and with whom I wrestle with a lot on the mat. Koko is forever going away to University, or coming back, and this involves hugs. Whenever she is in town, we end up rolling around for hours together in a Jiu-Jitsu context. So far, no slightest hint of creepiness. Suppose I attempted to hold her hand, or to massage her shoulders? I bet things would seriously change between us. No more meeting to train, and no more hugs on departure or return. Wouldn't blame her at all.

Nobody should have to put up with any sort of creepy contact fears.

To that end, when I used to teach high school, I let it be known that I didn't like being touched. A lot of kids are pretty open and sweet, and like to hug people. Equally, many don't want touch from a teacher. I wanted my room to be one where there was no pattern or expectation that students should hug the teacher, or that he wanted them to. To protect them as best I could from the creepy-adult syndrome, I used a little white lie. I actually love hugs and such.

Somehow, knowledge about my "aversion to being touched," spread to the staff. Therefore, I got far less than my share of hugs in the staff room, too. I didn't mind, as there is also lots of creepy co-worker stuff out there in the world, and this helped keep me from being mislabelled here as well.

At Jiu-Jitsu, I like to make myself avoidable. For a while it used to work that I would not usually pick a partner at pairing time, and wait to be grabbed by somebody else. Somebody always did, usually very, very quickly. I was a popular partner. Somehow this changed when my belt went from Blue to Purple. Sometimes I get picked, but not like before, and now I often end up as odd man out. Going to have to re-think my strategy, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I like the type of contact that exists in Jiu-Jitsu. Imagine a room full of white, martial arts uniforms being worn by robots. These machines proceed to try and defeat one another across the floor using grappling combat movements. Zero sexual motivation. Now imagine a real mat, with an equal number of uniforms, this time worn by human beings of assorted sizes, genders, and sexual orientations. They try and defeat one another across the floor using grappling combat movements. Again, zero sexual motivation. This time you'll notice a lot of sweat, and cooperation, and learning, and occasional laughter. It's great.

Kinda like a basket of puppies.

Be tougher and live longer

If you follow this blog at all, I've probably bored you to tears with nonsense about class totals, and promotion dates. This one isn't about that stuff at all.

It is about motivations for figuring out stuff like that in such ridiculous detail.

Here's the boring part. My current figgering has me reaching Brown Belt rank at age 64, or if I intervene with a number of interesting strategies, it can be reduced to 63.

It's actually even a better improvement than one year. The original outcome age of 64 is based on absolutely perfect attendance, with no system in place to handle illnesses or injuries, nor even with an understanding that such absences needed to be corrected. The corrected plan tells me know that I would have to make up missed classes.

Missing a single class per month would add on 4 months to the whole thing, missing two increases that to 8, and so on. A more realistic completion age would have it ending with me aged 65, or more.

But why bother knowing this at all?

My challenge is really pretty trivial; to get as far along as I can, as fast as I can.

I bring creativity to this little challenge; determination, optimism, and a willingness to reach out to others for help.

Did you know that there are traits that make you better at handling the hardships of life? These are physical resilience, mental (which includes willpower), emotional, and social. There are studies that show that people who regularly stimulate these resiliences not only handle life's challenges better, but that boosting these four traits significantly increases lifespan. They can all be improved with use, and the more you do it, the better the improvement.

What does my plan have to do will all that?

I will be physically training significantly more in a shorter time than I would have without it. This will greatly boost my physical resilience. Doing the calculations, and then following through over a period best measured in years will boost my mental resilience. Will I enjoy having goals, and then experiencing the positive feelings of reward at every milestone and thus boosting my emotional resilience? You betcha. I will even be working more with friends and instructors to accomplish those milestones, thus boosting my social resilience.

So let's just say I get to my Brown Belt at the earlier date. I will also be more durable in all four resilience categories, and will have statistically added a little bit to my life span.

Let's also say that I didn't calculate any of this at all, and yet still manage to get a Brown Belt at the later date. I will not have done less to increase my resilience in any category, and will have had no chance to add to my life span.

Which route would you pick?

Republican Gun Control Lovers

It seems there is an issue with the upcoming Republican National Convention.

It will be held in good, old Cleveland. It just so happens that Ohio is an Open-Carry state. It is perfectly legal to walk around almost everywhere openly packing a gun.

This should be a very welcome thing to the attending Republican delegates and candidates. They are the right-wing party. Many of them have suggested that the solution to school shootings is that all teachers be issued guns.

They say that the solution to mass shootings that occur with disturbing regularity is not to ban or to regulate firearms, but that there should be more firearms out in the general population. Nobody would dare try anything evil if there were a fully armed citizenry ready to take them on everywhere, and anytime.

So it is almost time for their convention; and shockingly, security experts have banned weapons not only from the convention floor, but also in a buffer zone around the venue. Shouldn't the candidates all be up-in-arms about this blatant attempt to subvert the constitutional rights of the citizenry? Shouldn't they want their own security to be better assured by a convention where everybody is walking around packing heat?

Strangely, none of them have been complaining about guns not being allowed in the convention.

Recently, Cleveland police have been petitioning the governor to suspend the right of open carry throughout the city for the duration of the convention. When it was pointed out that such a thing would be a violation of both the federal and state constitutions, the police agreed, and said they wanted it anyhow.

Was the Republican party shocked and dismayed about this clear attempt to subvert the right to own and carry firearms? Strangely, none of them said a thing. Imagine their reaction if President Obama attempted to ban all firearms in some other city, other than Cleveland, and other than Republican Convention time.

It seems that the Republicans prefer having their convention gun-free, but would be even happier if firearms were temporarily banned throughout the entire city, even if doing so violated all sorts of local and federal laws.

How come they get to be as gun-free as possible, but they want to arm school teachers to fight off possible attackers? Shouldn't they want to be treated exactly the same as they have insisted would be better for others.

They lie, while others die.

Anthony Bourdain

"I will never be young again, or any younger than I am today.
 I will never be faster or more flexible.
 I will never win competitions against 22-year-old wrestlers in my weight class.
 I will never be a Black Belt.
 None of those things will happen, but none of that matters anymore."
-Anthony Bourdain



He is a big-deal chef, and writer, and television personality, who also does Jiu-Jitsu. He gets it.

His training started when he was 59. He recently earned a Blue Belt, and is now the ripe old age of 60. I am the same age as him, having starting back when I was a mere 55, and am now a Purple Belt. I get it, too.

The younger people do not get it. They have no sense of their own mortality.

My parents and grand parents all passed away at around the age of 90, so I might just have as much as 30 more years on this earth. They will not, however, all be Jiu-Jitsu years of the sort needed to progress.

Older people certainly can "do" Jiu-Jitsu at advanced age, but trying to grow through the ranks is a different kettle of fish. It isn't enough to just be there, gently practicing technique, and carefully rolling with a few trusted partners.

The question for any old student of Jiu-Jitsu must be, "how long will I last?"

I read somewhere that Anthony Bourdain trains daily. That's the kind of thing instructors value. Being a celebrity certainly doesn't hurt either. How long will it be between his belts? No way to know.

My version of Jiu-Jitsu has very specific rules for that sort of thing, so my progress can be more easily charted. I am lucky in that I started a few years earlier than Mister Bourdain.

How many years of progress do I have in me? I'm pretty able right now. I feel like this will continue for the immediate future. Let's say that continues until I'm 65. There would also be a period of significantly slowed progress, but still having progress in the right direction. Let's say that I'm be able to pull that off until age 70. Beyond that, not so much.

With that type of training future, Brown Belt rank is a strong possibility, as would the four stripes that can be earned with it. No way a Black Belt rank will get squeezed in.

For Anthony Bourdain, assuming similar rules, and having started later, the situation is harsher. He has an excellent chance of earning a Purple Belt, but even Brown Belt rank will likely be out of his grasp.

He speaks on his victories being survival, not "winning." He is working to get better at that; at being as dangerous as possible to the person trying to submit him. He is fighting to train his body and mind to become increasingly effective more quickly than his body can degrade.

He does this knowing that at some point it won't matter how hard he tries, or how much he trains, that the upward slope of his effectiveness will not only level out, but will begin to angle downwards. This will be inexorable.

He gets it.

I get it, but none of that matters.

We train.

Fix the Real

We have a wonderfully simple and effective promotion system that runs under the direction of Rener and Ryron Gracie.

Keep in mind as I blather that the primary requirement of promotion is an instructor who is pleased with your progress and skill level. 

Beyond that, our Gracies insist that at any of their satellite schools, students must spend a minimum 8 months of training between stripe levels. Promotions are registered online, and cannot be changed again until another 8 months have passed. This eliminates a lot of abuses that happen under other systems. It doesn't matter if you are the instructors kid, or girlfriend. It's still 8 months; written in stone.

The second requirement is a bit more flexible. Attendance at appropriate classes are meticulously recorded. 100 or more are required for a student to be eligible. This can take much longer than 8 months. Completing on time takes about 3 classes per week with almost perfect attendance. The flexibility I mentioned is that instructors can authorize other events or classes as counting. This normally includes things such as private lessons, classes taken at other schools, seminar attendance, and more.

 My big goal in regards to rank is to get as far as possible, as quickly as I can. For a JJ student I am spectacularly old. If a younger person takes a little extra time advancing, they will still get there eventually. I might not.

Our school has almost exactly the right number of weekly classes to get us promoted on time with a small buffer.

My current problem is that my attendance has sucked this year, and this won't be changing anytime soon.

My wife and I love to travel, and are away from home about 1/3 of the time. Thus means my next few levels will take about a year each. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with some kind of damage control system.

Let's start with the silliest notion first.

I could fly down to LA to train with the Gracies. I've been there before, and find the maximum number of classes I can manage without breaking down is about 10. That means that every week that I train there would shave about 2 weeks off of how long it will take me to complete my requirements. A total fantasy, as this would cost way too many thousands of dollars.

A better option is to attend seminars close to home. I've been to 3 of these over the years. Each was great, and worth about a weeks off of the tally time. The only problem is that they are rare events, and there don't seem to be any upcoming.

I could also head into the city to our nearest neighbouring Gracie school a few times. They have an appropriate class every Saturday. The problem is that the ferry trip ain't cheap, and the entire trip would take 7.5 hours to get 1 hour of instruction. I would also miss the usual training I get at our Saturday morning open mat time. Unfortunately, open mat doesn't count. Still, I just can't see how giving up 2 training hours, blowing away 7.5 hours in the middle of a day, and spending almost a hundred bucks on ferry rides to gain 1 authorized class makes sense.

There is also the private lesson route. I wouldn't consider this method either if I didn't have a goal other than administrative attendance collection. However, I recently missed a couple of tricky techniques. I could work them up at open mat on my own, but a couple of privates would be easier, and leave the open mat time free for other stuff. This would shave around a week off my promotion qualification time. That isn't much, but makes vastly more sense than either going to LA, hoping for seminars, or Saturdays spent going to the city.

Let's say it all goes my way, and a seminar pops up in Seattle, and I use up one of my Saturdays training in the city, and take a couple of private lessons. That would still only fix things by significantly less than a month.

Might make more sense to just keep working on improving my real Jiu-Jitsu rather than my attendance card.

I had about a perfect example of this last week. There were 3 regularly-great advanced classes, and also went to 3 White Belt classes as well. Outside of class time, I had three training meet-ups as icing on the cake.

Worked with Tawha on her curriculum test material. For me it was review, but not casual in any sense of the word. It was high-rep, intensive, and top-notch training. I have always picked up a pile of details each time I've helped friends through this process.

Friday open-mat went overtime and lasted more than 2 hours. There was tons of position-sparring, as well as free-rolling, and technique practice. It didn't end until my partner and I were both exhausted and bathed in sweat.

Saturday, there were four of us on the mat. We rolled in various combinations for about 60 minutes. Two people then headed out, leaving Koko and me working on side-mount for more than another hour.

None of those extra sessions "counted" in a brownie-point way, although in reality, they counted a very great deal.

Maybe I should try and do more weeks like that.

And, of course, any real improvement that I make will help satisfy the primary promotion requirement skill and progress recognized by our instructor.

Pity that is the only one that isn't necessarily time sensitive.

Concert Poisoning

I seem to be the odd man out.

Yesterday, the mix of driving, lineup waiting, and ferry-boat riding had us up at 5am to be at a concert by 7pm. We are in Comox, you see, at the Vancouver Island Music Festival.

There are zillions of acts, on a dozen stages, all surrounded by craft booths, and food stalls. It has all the awful toilets and distant parking that anybody could want. We will be here for two more full 24-hour days, before reversing our long day of travel to get home.

I don't know how many musicians I'll be seeing within that time, but am certain that it will result in a nasty case of concert poisoning.

That's why I'm a monster. I am not absolutely loving the music.

Don't get me wrong; I like tunes. I run with them in my ears, and drive with them in my car. I do not, however, need to experience it live. This is especially true when the experience is coming at me like a waterfall.

If last night's show were all there was, I would probably say it was nice. Would I want music from any of the three bands on my iPod? Can't say that they'd make the cut, and I actively disliked one of them.

And the concert experience? Outdoor venue, with rain threatening, and a temperature less than ideal, sitting on camping chairs, surrounded by loud people, who felt free to contaminate the air with recreational smoke. Not so wonderful.

I am enjoying the company. Helen and I are in the guest room of a former work colleague, and her gentleman. Also there for the weekend are three more former colleagues, spread out in different rooms. Seven of us are in the house. Now, that is fun. Plenty of conversation and laughter.

Pity we have to keep going off to concerts.

Comox has some nice beaches, and there are plenty of good restaurants, and pretty decent shopping areas. Hell, we could even just hang around the house.

Of course, that isn't going to happen. We're here for the music, I guess.

The part that makes it worthwhile for me is that Helen is in heaven. There is also enough interaction with the friends to keep me from going totally bonkers.

Even if she were to go totally festival crazy, the earliest music doesn't start until shortly before lunchtime, and although the doesn't wrap up until after midnight, there is no way she could last before about 10pm. Call that an absolute maximum of 20 hours over the remaining two days. The real max is much less than that, as Helen can't handle so much, even if she wanted to.

I'd say the practical upper limit would be closer to 10 more hours. Already did a couple of hours with no lasting side effects.

Anybody can handle a mere 20 more concert hours over two days, even though it is currently raining.

Bunch

I love it when there are big shakeups at our Jiu-Jitsu school that really have nothing to do with me. Just such a thing is happening right now, and I get to watch, and participate on the periphery.

Every so often, somebody from the White Belt class gets invited up to the advanced class. Usually this happens shortly before their belt exam, one they have completed about 80 classes or so. At about that point, adults get promoted. If the student is too young for the new-belt rules, they join as White Belts until they get old enough to do the test.

Due to the small size of our school, it's pretty rare that this happens to more than one person at a time.

Switching to the "big kids" class can be intimidating. The lessons are mind-bogglingly more complex than those in the White Belt classes. An good example would be the material we were working on a couple of days ago. It assumed that students would have at least two levels of preparatory material before attempting the lesson. Out of the ten students on the mat, only one of us had ever done it before.

Also, of course, students get their first exposure to free-rolling. For about a half hour of every class, we all do little 5-minute rolls with a number of partners. New people really have no idea what to expect. This is also where they find out that everything that they learned in the White Belt class can be easily countered by the least-skilled of the people they will face.

We are not the kind of group that considers new members to be "fresh meat" to be bullied and intimidated, but even so it can be pretty disheartening.

One such new person to the group is Alex. Her transition started maybe two months ago. She is a very eager student, but pretty tiny compared to most of us, and too young to test for a Blue Belt yet. She has managed to put up with the complexity, and the rolling. She actually seems to like both.

She was there for both the White Belt and advanced classes last night, but something strange was happening at the later session.

She wasn't the only White Belt sitting in the circle. Mason was there, and so was Mack. For both of them, this is their very first week in the group.

Mason, like Alex, is only 15 and will remain a White Belt for a while. He is also one of the smaller people. Mack is an adult, and fully adult-sized, and is already part way through his Blue Belt exam.

They make up a group of three.

Seven Inna Row

Started the week quite dissatisfied with my free rolling; all heavy and slow and choked up.

Thursday; two rolls, and both were brilliant. Didn't even mind that my calf got crushed pretty bad during a drill, although I walk funny now.

Friday; class was officially cancelled, but I opened things up anyhow. It was an open-mat time. It's pretty common during those almost nobody to show up. Sometimes, I'm all alone. This time, there were five of us present. I rolled a bunch more with Koko, and with Rob. Again, they were gold.

Happy as pie, and hopeful for a good open-mat time for Saturday as well.

Saturday; five of us again on the mat, mostly different people. Rolled for a few minutes with Natan, and tons with Koko and with Tobias. All were different, and all flowed. Me and my funny leg loved it all. Bought a litre of ice cream on the drive home by way of celebration.

There isn't any training tomorrow, which is Sunday. Usually, I'm just fine with that, but have an irrational fear of breaking my lovely streak. Not enough that I'm going to contact anybody trying to dredge up a training partner.

So what started out as a week of me rolling in a most crappy fashion, ended with 7 wonderfully flowing consecutive partnerships.

Outstanding.

Two Rolls and a Leg

The other day on my blog I complained about my rolling getting all tight and my losing the flow.

Last night, I only rolled twice, but both were much, much better.

The first was with Robert. He's really strong, and skillful. At the best of times things with him can get competitive. Last night, no hint of that. We both seemed to want to do stuff, and it went really, really well.

The second roll was with Koko. Those are always good, and last night was no exception. The closest we got to being stuck was when she would get side control on me, and we'd battle for my less exposed arm. She tries everything to trap it under her shin bones, and I try and get it far south to facilitate my escapes. It probably looks like she's trying to kill me, as I'm having some kind of seizure. It's fun, and useful, and we really aren't stuck in any fashion.

Two rolls isn't really a very large sample to draw conclusions from, but I was very pleased.

The bad news is that earlier in the class, we were doing a complex standing sequence that ended with any of a half-dozen leg reaping takedowns. I don't like drills with that many steps, as most of what I'm doing is trying to remember the sequence. For me, about three steps is a good maximum.

Anyhow, my partner and I were taking turns, when something weird happened during a takedown. Upon ground impact, my leg got hit hard. My calf muscle must have gotten injured, as it promptly went into full spasm.

It took a while to get it relaxed enough that I could stand, but it still hurt like the dickens.

Luckily, sparring was next, and our instruction was to start in closed guard. That meant I didn't have to stand, and so could participate. If I hadn't been able to, I wouldn't have had those two great rolls.

Today, I have my calf wrapped up to keep it warm, and am taking mild muscle relaxants to lesson the tightness of the spasm. No problem sitting in my poofy chair, but walking is interesting.

Pity it's Canada Day, and Helen has her heart set on going to the parade. Oh, well. Limping is always an option.

Open-mat time starts at 4pm, and will run for a couple of hours. A good thing about Jiu-Jitsu is that training can be done without any standing around or walking being necessary.

Both Robert and Nathan have said they'll be there and that they want to roll. Koko wants to work on side-mount, and there is a good chance that even more people will show up.

Like me.