Where have I been?

Sorry for the silence... I was working from home and being occupied with various projects, etc.  But I'm back now :)

Big shout-out to all the great people at the NY Open, especially Mike D, Charlie Liu and the guys at Matt Serra's, Ryan and Jen, Paul, Marcelo and Tati, Emily, Andrew, Shakia, Annie, Danielle, the Rock, the Crusher, Addy of the Green Gi, Chica at Killer Bees in Queens...

Here's a pic sent to me by Danielle, repping the "Female of the Species"--



Not a big shout-out to the people competing under the Team Lloyd Irvin affiliation (not the main academy which was totally absent-- but from some Virginia Beach academy called "Outfox MMA.")

Anyway, had the embryo transfer and now just waiting for to find out if it/they "took" or not.  Fortunately I was permitted to work from home, and now I am cleared by the doctor to resume my usual workouts and physical activity, even including training without knee on belly, no high impact activities, and no working out so hard that I can't speak.  And anyone who knows me knows I am pretty much always talking, so that's not going to happen.

Mitch and I celebrated our fifth anniversary-- we went out to dinner with our favorite cousins ever, Kathy and Joey.

I'm feeling great physically (though I gained 5 lbs from eating lots of fabulous food and not training for a few days, but it's going away quick!) and very excited by the opportunities-- not just for motherhood, which is duh of course, but also the restrictions to rolling "light" which my training partners are being super cool about, and which have made me more open-minded to trying different approaches.  I'm really playing a lot more open guard and trying to sort through the physics of base and connection, while applying some of the big picture lessons from Ryan Hall (muchas gracias) and Andris Brunovskis (formerly of TLI, visiting instructor with us for another couple days..)

Here's a match between Gianni Grippo, before he switched from Renzo's to Marcelo's, and Andris while he was still TLI, last year at the Houston Open.



And here's Andris v. Christopher Broadnax, in 2011.  Ironically Hillary reffed both matches.



Enjoy!