All you with gentle sensibilities, please forgive me, but from the rest of you can I get a “Hell, yeah!”?

Seriously, as much as Jiu Jitsu is fun, it is also flippin’ difficult. I enjoy everything except the frustration of not remembering the various steps involved in each move.

Today we learned the elbow sweep. I think. Even the name I’m not sure on. But I’ve found that saying the steps out loud as I perform them helps. Instructor, witnessing my success, said the words in this post title, adding, “That’s one of the two hardest moves to learn. The other is [insert several words that were nonsense to me], but you haven’t learned that yet. [Enter mental sigh of relief that I wasn’t supposed to have understood whatever the heck he just said.]

“Wow, thanks,” I responded, and tried not to beam too brightly.

For reals.

Validation.

This was Day 5. I don’t normally go on Saturdays, so it was mostly a new cast of characters, and more of them. Most notably, two older gentlemen. One with experience, one fairly new. This one I will call “The Commentator.” When Instructor demonstrated something, it would frequently elicit an “Oooh,” “Ohhh,” and even, you guessed it, “Ahhh,” from The Commentator.

After one of these, Enthusiastic Teen next to me snickered.

He was also enthusiastic in trying to help me out by adding his own instructions in stage whispers while Instructor did his thing. Was it irritating? Oh, yeah, you betcha. “Let me listen, punk!” [More internal monologue.]

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