I haven't been writing much about my training specifics, or about how I feel about anything, lately. And I'm sorry. It's a combination of being busy and the holidays and whatever, just everything and life in general intruding. My priorities usually have a jumble of things at the top, at any given moment-- family, food, sleep, work, and of course jiu jitsu- and then a bunch of other stuff scrambling for whatever time is left, things like errands, car maintenance, writing letters, home tasks, friends. Once those things all happen it just seems like there's rarely time for things like writing, thinking, watching DVDs etc. So I'm sorry.
(Normally, when work is a little slower, I can spend a lunch hour blogging away-- but lately I'm either working through lunch or training through lunch.)
This week's been a little stressful for me. [major understatement] Work is nutty. My husband and I have had some conflict over my addiction to jiu jitsu. [ha ha ha- understatement of the century, we have been quarreling over jits for just about the duration of our marriage. sigh.] I'm about to vastly vastly oversimplify things (and I'm not even going into how long I'm trying this or into all the other factors we're dealing with, so please, skip the advice for now) by saying I'm trying his latest request which is to not train jiu jitsu at all in the evenings so that I can be home when he comes home from work. As a result, I am attending all the early morning classes I can, and all the lunch classes I can. Which means I'm working later in the evening. And I'm definitely grumbly, because IMHO our night classes are ... different. Different instructors, 3 hours instead of 2, different people taking the classes, more smaller people at the night classes, Donald's competition team class is only at night, and having gained weight over the holidays I'm chomping at the bit to burn as many calories per day as I can. So, yeah, grumbly. But this week, I only trained (at night) on Wednesday, while he was doing his night of volunteer work at the hospital. We stayed home and watched movies and ate dinner the other nights and it was pleasant. But honestly, really truly, I wish I could have done jits first and then come home and had dinner and a movie. But anyway.
Today his parents and his aunt flew in for the long weekend. We go to Dallas tomorrow to visit the preemie twins again, yay. They're both over two pounds now so I'll be sure to take more pictures and share the good news with you.
The bummer is, I only train once tomorrow and none at all Saturday or Sunday, unless I can sneak out and get on the mats with Steve Hall (Pesadelo BJJ) for a little while one day.
Enough bitching. I trained twice Monday, twice Tuesday, had a 3-fer yesterday, and got two in today as well, so that's all good. We have had THREE new brownbelts show up lately- one just visiting from Alaska, but the other two are newly moved to Austin, so I'm very excited to feel them out and start learning from new perspectives. Only rolled with the Alaska guy the one time on Monday, so far.
Today after lunch class one of the people I rolled with was a new-to-us blue belt. He's on the smaller side, maybe 160ish? Felt very strong and definitely more explosive than me. Have I mentioned how much I hate playing guard? My guard is epic failblog. I think my passing game is getting garbled too-- like 80 different fragments of 40 different pass strategies rattling around in my head at once, so I shake a few bits out and see if I can make a puzzle picture out of them. Usually, ahem... NO. Well, I did pass his guard once or twice though he passed mine more. He tapped me once, can't remember the exact position, but he was grabbing for my hand and twisted my fingers (all 4 at once and totally by accident I am sure, so I mean nothing derogatory about him in mentioning it). He once also sucked me in to a triangle, but I had one arm and the other hand in and his angle wasn't quite right, so I was happy I could eat it till he transitioned to something else. I got his back off an armdrag twice, I think, but I was too high and he was able to just pull me off his back by tugging my arm down in front of him. (grumble, grumble) Most of the roll I felt like he was being a bit rough, but I rationalized I'd rather him feel he had to pull out all the stops to manage me than for him to pussyfoot around me to be nicey-nice. At one point I had a solid armbar on him, just needed to separate his hands... at the end, I had his back, but we'd rolled about 25-30 min straight and I had to leave for the airport, so I just quit and gave up. :)
There's a whole SLEW of tournaments around the corner. Tyler TX this Saturday; a round robin in San Antonio (only $15 for women!!!!!!!! CRAP!) next Sat the 15th; something else the 22nd... Feb 12-13 is the Houston Open IBJJF. I will admit, I have NO DESIRE to compete. I like to win. My last tournament I crappled and I have no reason to think I'll do any better now. I freaking POINT-TIED A WHITEBELT (though Tara is rock solid and super strong, and is finally a well-deserved blue belt now) and got tapped by a TEENAGER, and I'm not eager to risk a repeat or worse. Call me a giant pussy chicken, I don't care. I'm just happy to roll and play and train for now. And DON'T ask about Pans and Mundials. I'll definitely be there and work both of them. Just not sure about competing.
*snif*
I just want to feel like I'm a rock for others to dash themselves on, an unstoppable force, a terror on the mats. Instead I'm happy when I train, I'm learning, I'm making progress, but I still feel too timid for competing. When will my badassery come back?
Oh well. Bringing some DVDs this weekend and hope to watch a LOT, learn a lot, bring some new tricksies with me. And hope to get some training in.
Thanks for listening. Woooo 104 peeps following! You're all crazy by the way ;)
14 comments:
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Hope you get your badassery back! I'm sure it'll come around sooner or later. Maybe you're just in a lull and need a break.
My New Year deal with the wife is to limit bjj to x2 a week but i get to go to more weekend events. I can live with that.
Ahhhh, the all to common signinifcant other BJJ "deal". How familiar I am with thee...unfortunately.
Being single, BJJ is grandfathered in for me..... any future prospects will be informed that it is just part of the deal and they can take the deal or leave it.
If I ever have another relationship, though, I'd like it to be someone athletic enough to do athletic things with me. It wouldn't necessarily have to be another martial artist- although that would be cool- but someone who is up for walking, paintball, contact improv, and other active passtimes instead of couch-potato-ism.
Unsolicited advice:
1. Missing badassery - eat chocolate.
2. Relationship woes - eat chocolate.
3. Need motivation for tournament - eat chocolate.
4. Got writer's block - eat chocolate.
5. Extra tonage from eating chocolate - Honey, I'm getting tonage. I have to train more!
I can't wait to see pics of the twins! Have fun this weekend in Dallas!
I was starting to feel your pain (my wife is a little jealous of the time I spend doing BJJ) I saw 9 classes in 4 days!!!! LOL I know where you are coming from though.
Badassery is like mono. It doesn't ever leave your system. And when it comes back as the shingles, it's terrifying!
Sometimes young jedi sacrifices must be made to restore balance to the force.
I think anybody who has a significant other in their life runs into this dilemma (repeatedly).
I got myself into trouble when my wife not so jokingly said "you should be married to jiu jitsu" and (without thinking which is often my curse) I jokingly replied "cool, then MMA could be my sleazy Vegas mistress!" - Needless to say, she didn't find it amusing.
When I read it in black and white, then yeah, it seems like I train enough. But when I am actually at the academy in the early morning and noons, they're just NOT adequate. I really want to do at least SOME night classes.
But ultimately this is all reflective of a problem in the relationship -- because all the married people I keep hearing from via blog comments, email, facebook etc have one theme-- they're sad to miss out on jits but they're happier about keeping their SO happy. If I'm constantly chomping at the bit to do more jits to the point where I don't care it pisses him off, that's a symptom.
More chocolate is the cure! ;)
If you can catch a 160 pound male adult blue belt in an armbar at all you are doing great. Your timing and angles must be very clean.
I feel sorry for your husband. Sounds like moderation is the cure vs. chocolate. Not sure how any close relationship would be able to survive if one party is willing to place an activity or recreation above the other party. My wife and I both train and it's a total give and take. I would be hurt if my wife was more excited about going to the gym three times a day over coming home to our family. Putting it up on a blog for the whole world to see is just salt on the wound.
Sounds like you're well on your way to becoming a divorced world champion BJJ player.
@anony: I wish the world champion part were true- maybe it would take some of the sting of the rest out. However I also acknowledge that creating a relationship that can hold its own with bjj is not a one-person job. It takes two. Thanks for the insight, I will definitely take your thoughts into account.
My marriage is on the verge of collapse because of Jiu Jitsu. I wish I married some who trained! Now I have kids and can't leave. Don't become trapped. Jiu Jitsu is everything.....
I would say 3x per week. That would specifically be 3x per week that could potentially interfere with us being together, so if that person worked until 9pm every night, I could do BJJ every day. If there were morning classes, they wouldn't count.
It's funny--I hadn't read this before I posted My Roommate Hates My Doing BJJ but they're definitely related.
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