Fears of competition, some foul language/concepts, and Marcelo.

So despite this stupid cold, I've been training every day. I tell my peeps and most everyone's been cool with training anyway, probably because I'm dousing myself in antibacterial gel at every opportunity and partly because they're apparently as addicted to training as I am. I feel great while I'm rolling but then I come home and sit on the floor of my shower and just let the hottest water ever beat down on me. I'm getting used as chewtoy by some very creative, technical, fun people and it's nice on one hand-- I feel useful or helpful. On the other hand, I feel like I'm not getting as much out of it as I should be. More on this below.

So our coach and head instructor arranged for our academy to receive free entry to a local jits tournament this Saturday. (Long, political story but he always makes sure we're done right by.) This means that I should have no excuse not to compete. I still might-- but I'm not thrilled by the prospect. You're shocked, I know. Right now my cardio feels like crap, I can't seem to get my breath ever, and that's a little troubling. On the plus side, the last time we had this tournament, there weren't enough women to have any divisions besides "women." So competing together were: a 260lb whitebelt from Houston, one or two blue belts around my size, a 120 lb white belt, and a 180 lb purple belt (who competed in gi and no gi, absolute and weight class, men and women. Uh huh. That's Tammy Griego of Gracie Barra Albuquerque, who just won her division in the Abu Dhabi Pro Qualifier and will be competing in the ADCC in April. And Tammy has in the past defeated our academy co-owner brown belt. She's tough.)

The funny thing is I am much happier at the thought of competing against the big whitebelt, or any size of purple belt, than against blues my size. And happier if I competed on the spur of the moment, without training for it, when I'm sick and out of shape and fat and blah, blah, blah. This means I am a gigantic puss. Tell me something new. I'd love to say "Oh, I'm just not competitive" but the reality is I am a Leo, and in Chinese horoscopes, a rat with strong water influence. Not that I usually put much faith in that astrology stuff; on the other hand, almost everything you ever read about Leos and (water) rats is true of me.

Ahem-- for example:

You are highly imaginative, charming and very generous. You can sometimes be quick tempered and overly critical. Positive Traits: charming, protective, competitive, compassionate, communicative, dynamic, familial, thrifty, skilful, sober, upright, attractive, idealistic, prosperous, experimental, calm, sensual, loving, talented, adaptable, open-minded and brilliant entrepreneurs. Negative Traits: possessive, picky, defensive, excessive, addictive, fickle, stingy, bumptious, bossy, exploitive, anxious, argumentative, opinionated, overbearing and self-obsessed.

Uh-- sound like anyone you know? The only thing I disagree with is "stingy" because I'm far from it. I'll give you the shirt off my back if I can, if you like it, if you need it, if you want it. Life's too short to be stingy, you might die tomorrow and you can't take it with you. Share now and be happy.

Anyway..

I'm just TOO competitive to compete right now. Make sense? I would probably find it easier to compete if I'd always lost, if I was anonymous and low-profile, if no one I knew was watching my matches. The next time Richard, our 4 stripe brown instructor, says something about me being NAGA champion I'm going to deck him. Knock. him. out. I can't bear the idea of getting waxed by some bluebelt chick and having people look at my instructor and then at my belt and shake their heads.

Still, I am tempted. I haven't competed in almost a full year. Maybe it would be fun. Maybe I should just walk in fat and rolypoly and say eff it... who cares. *sigh* I know, I know.

Anyway. Been looking at highlight reels and getting excited about some matches this weekend on UFC 109. Chael Sonnen the "Republican" deserves to get napped with his face in ballsack. (sorry, did you want advance notice where the foul concepts would be popping up?) Wasn't excited by any of the Demian Maia highlight clips I saw, and didn't find any of Rolles Gracie. In lieu of that I decided to share this fun, long video of Marcelo highlights. The human backpack, gotta love it. And I dig most of the music on this too.



So back to what I should be getting out of rolling. Problem being, I ain't got no plan, Stan.

I'm loosey-goosey when I roll, mainly thinking pass, dominate, choke/armbar. If I had to say anything I do is any better than any other thing, it would be passing guard. Ish. Of course I can make anyone look like the King/Queen of Sweeping, so perhaps I should put "Dustbunny" on my resume. But I'm halfway mediocre at passing guard. And last night Vidush's pointers helped me base a little better, finish americanas a little better. So yay. But really? I'm frustrated that when I watch something like the MG highlight, I'm immediately motivated to abandon all other focii and simply work on taking the back, always and forever. (It would be nice to have ONE thing I do well.) And that motivation lasts about an hour, then I forget, until the next idea floats through my ditzy brain. And the next, and the next.

Maybe it's the decongestants?