Feb20

What next, you ask? Let me tell ya.

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“So we’ve done the ‘rona, the broken toe, and the falling on a baseball bat. How should we mess with Betsy now?”

“First of all, we don’t know for sure she broke her toe. It still looks all right, and she could always bend it.”

“Sure, but it hurt when she did, and being able to bend it doesn’t mean it didn’t break. At least, according to the internet.”

“Whatever. You know she’d never go to the doctor for her pinky toe anyway.”

“True. But, ‘Falling on a baseball bat’? Dramatic much?”

“We’re THE UNIVERSE! We invented drama!”

“Still, she was flipped over onto a girl’s bony forearm. Not exactly the same thing as a bat.”

“Hurt like it did, though.”

“True dat!” Earth-shaking chuckle. Metaphysical fist bump.

“So back to the problem at hand. We’ve been doing an excellent job of keeping Betsy away from Jiu-Jitsu. But if we’re not careful, she’ll defy us and keep going back anyway.”

“You’re right. We need to do something that will make it so she can’t go back, no matter what.”

“Okay, okay. I like where you’re going with this.” Rubs hands together. Several stars explode.

“I got it! Are you ready for this?”

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Feb18

What do I need to throw into a volcano?

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Message to my Jiu-Jitsu instructor:

So here’s what happened NOW.

On Wednesday afternoons, a buddy and I co-teach a self defense class at our kids’ school. He works with the guys; I work with the girls. I was teaching the Elevator Sweep (originally mentioned here, though I had the name wrong), when the girl stuck her arm out last second and rolled me over onto it. I got up, paused, breathed, and this should tell you how much it hurt: I used a CLICHE!!

“That’s gonna leave a mark,” I said.

I’m so ashamed.

Her arm was fine, but by side hurt worse than my gnarly ugly foot.

One week after “The Incident.”

So far I have been to class twice this month. Twice!

Every 20 classes, you get a white stripe on your belt. (Anyone else hearing Seven Nation Army in your head all of a sudden? M?) In my last class, Sweaty/Indifferent Man earned his fourth stripe, and we all clapped. Instructor then pointed at me with a broad smile and said, “You’re next.”

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Feb15

Birthday Revenge

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Not really.

My neighbor did an exceedingly excellent job of making me feel special on my birthday. (Darn her!) I was quite nervous as to how I could possibly return the favor. Then I realized the solution was simple.

Kidnapping.

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Feb12

Blog Name Vote Results

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Of the 20 blog name offerings, 15 got votes. I will not say what they are, so those who submitted the other five won’t be sad. (I, the only one who truly matters 😉 enjoyed ALL your submissions.)

The ones that received three votes were as follows:

Chick Kick; Life is Funny; Chex Mix, Chickens, and Other Tales; All Things Betsy; and I Have Nothing Better to Offer.

Next, there were two that received four votes:

Laugh Lines and The Accidental Rooster.

And the winner, with a whopping eight votes, due to his overwhelming cleverness as evidenced in his own blog post titles, never mind that this contest was his idea, no doubt because he knew he would rock it, is….

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Feb6

I took down Andre the Giant

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Remember “Timmy,” the guy I compared to Andre the Giant because he’s big, and when he demos Jiu-Jitsu with Instructor, I can barely see Instructor?

We had another one of those classes where Instructor disappeared behind Timmy’s limbs. For the first half of this class, Instructor partnered with me. We started with a standing move where you get the “bad guy” “in the clinch.” In the previous class, we learned that from here you can do a “body fold takedown” and get the person on the ground. I told Instructor that in that class, I had a really hard time doing the takedown on Savage Teen Girl’s Dad. (At that class, Mom was there, too, so, thankfully, those two ladies partnered together, sparing me from teen girl’s savagery. And, yes, super cool that they’re a JJ family.)

Instructor said, “If you have a hard time working with someone again, let me know, and I’ll partner with you. I can be a good bad guy. I’m the best bad guy, and soon you’ll be a good bad guy too.”

#ThingsThatSoundReallyWeirdOutOfContext

Another example of #ThingsSafelyOnlySaidInJiuJitsu, was when, later in that class, still working with Savage Teen Girl’s Dad, he said, “You need to take your knees off the ground.”

“My knees ARE off the ground.”

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Jan25

Wordle was messing with me

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Now, relax. This was the wordle from days ago, while I was isolated thanks to my visit from the ‘rona fairy. Here’s my text complaint to my mother.

And now what you’ve all been waiting for: everyone’s ideas for a new blog name!

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Jan16

And now for something a little different

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A post about Taekwondo.

On December 20th, my three daughters and I tested for our third belt, yellow. We started as white belts, did a super-stressful-because-it-was-the-first-one-ever test for orange, then came the yellow belt test–only slightly less stressful.

When it was my turn, I was eager to get it over with, and grateful that we start with our current form–the part I was most nervous about. After that comes our “back form,” the one we learned prior. When I performed this in an earlier class, “Sensei,” (not actually what we call him) nodded and said, “It’s like breathing, isn’t it?” So I knew I had that one down pat. The third part of the test was demonstrating our mastery of three self defense and three street defense moves. No problems there.

The weird thing was, as I did the more difficult current form, my hands were tingling. “This is odd,” I thought. “My hands sort of feel numb, but not quite. It doesn’t hurt, thankfully, but it’s strange. I wonder why that’s happening. Nerves, probably.” And the next thing I knew, I was done. I did the form without thinking, which means I couldn’t second guess or freak myself out. I smiled inwardly. “Thanks, hands! Well done.”

They were no help at the end of the test, however: the Bowing Out Ceremony.

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Jan14

The Power of Sunlight Therapy Lamps

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Here’s a friend of mine, feeling rather low due to the cold gloomy weather and feeling trapped inside.

Then she got a therapy lamp! Behold the transformation!

It even took YEARS off her appearance!

Uh-oh. Maybe she spent a little TOO much time in front of her new miracle lamp.

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Jan10

Funny things Instructor said

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Funny things Instructor said

I might as well rename this blog, Jiu Jitsu is funny, huh? I’ve come a long way from writing about the silly antics of my kids, with the occasional foray into Chex Mix and chickens. If you’ll bear with me, one more JJ post. Then I’ll take a break for a while, promise. But gotta get this down before I forget.

Here are some of my Jiu Jitsu instructor’s best funnies, always said with a straight face.

Remember that Instructor is small, making him the perfect poster child for a martial art meant to be used against bigger, stronger opponents. He’ll frequently describe non-JJ moves that someone could try (and likely fail) as a means to defend themselves.

“I could go for a knock-out punch, and if that works, great. I hope someone got it on video. But if it doesn’t work, and he starts swinging, that’s a bad day for me.”

In another lesson he explained the importance of being stacked straight when lying on our side, shoulder over shoulder, hip over hip, straight up and down. “You want a perfect stack of pancakes, not a wobbly one. That’s what you get at Denny’s. When they bring that out to you, you send it back.”

Today he explained how to duck under a “haymaker punch” (your standard wide swing. I didn’t know either), ending with, “But most importantly, it looks cool when you duck under a punch. Someone will ask, ‘Do you box?’ ‘Nah, bro, Jiu Jitsu.'”

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Jan6

My body hurts

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My body hurts

“Adrian Brody” and I were the only Jiu Jitsu students one day, so we were partners by default. The dude barely touched me. Either I said something about not needing to take it so easy, or Instructor did, or both.

Adrian said, “I don’t want to hurt [infinitesimal pause] anyone.”

Clearly, “anyone” meant me. He wasn’t in danger of hurting the instructor. Reminder: Instructor is my size, though a smidge taller and with bigger biceps. At my first class, I was distracted by the realization that a man could have legs as skinny as mine.

Adrian is skinnier still.

So, Adrian was taking it easy on me, when maybe it should’ve been the other way around. *I* don’t hold back, however, because I’m a girl.

Wanna know who else doesn’t hold back? The teenage girl I naturally paired with during a rare evening class.

She. Trounced. Me.

Are you reading this, MOM?! That’s right–the men are nice to me. The female beat me up! [My mother gives me a hard time in the comments about training with men.]

Seriously, this girl may have bruised a rib. Or I pulled a muscle trying to get away from her. She’s not even a big girl, by any means, but this chic knows her stuff. I want to be like her when I grow… well, never mind.

The last portion of class was a “practice what you know”/ free for all. She was twisting me this and way that before I knew WHAT was happening. She ended with trapping my arm painfully out from my side.

“Whoa. What was that move?” I asked her.

“The Americana.”

“Isn’t that a type of coffee?” was my first thought, which I wisely kept to myself.

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