NAGA and Testosterone and Niece

In not-quite-that-order...

NAGA was cool. 16 mats running continuously meant that when I arrived at 3pm, the kids' matches were almost all finished and nogi womens matches were getting underway. I watched a frickin' hilarious match between two beginners who were on the large side-- catfight the whole way. Neither could get a takedown because whenever a hand came up looking for a grip, the other girl slapped it down. *slap* *slap* *slap* *slap* *slap* It would have been funnier if they'd realized how silly it was, but they were too inexperienced to realize the humor, so they kept at it, both of them getting madder, madder and redder, redder (hands, arms, even faces.) Hilary Williams was reffing and it was nice to see her back in the States (though she obviously would have preferred to stay in Brazil.) She removed the cast from her formerly-broken thumb on Friday and she'll be back on the mats pretty soon.

I was happy not to be competing in one sense-- that being my still painful cauliflower ear which still gets drained twice a day-- but sad in another, especially when I watched the intermediate (blue belt) matches. My biggest competition would have been another redhead who I first met last November. She's my only opponent I didn't submit-- just won on points. She's gotten better, though I think I have too. It would have been nice to see who's best but there's plenty of time for that.

Then my brother- and sister-in-law brought Sarah and we zoomed off to Austin. Played the standard car games (punchbug, 20 Questions, the alphabet game) and the hours went pretty quickly. Picked up Mitch at home and went to a friend's to watch Strikeforce (Wahhhhh! I was rooting hard for Gina!)

Yesterday, brought Sarah to jits (she was intrigued by the thought of me vs. those big guys) and then to the Testosterone Festival. I got a kick out of watching dopey bikini models learning how to RNC in the background of the jiu jitsu matches, but Sarah was bored after a while so my husband took her home to the swimming pool. Ricco Rodriguez, former multiple Abu Dhabi champion, former UFC heavyweight champion, who tapped out Noguiera, was there and fought in a few demo matches. Alas, one against my friend Scott ended poorly, with Scott screaming in pain from what I thought was an excessive kneebar. Scott pulled out of his fight next weekend as a result and I am pissed. He doesn't have time to go to the doc yet-- he's a new hire and his company is doing layoffs so doesn't want to stick his head up-- but I am worried about his knee. People were saying lateral miniscus tear but what do they know.

Gonna bake some cookies or something with her this afternoon, then trying an experiment for dinner-- spaghetti squash. Can you believe I've never eaten it? And then jits tonight.