Tag Archives: Jiu Jitsu

Jul17

Some redemption and other happy things

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You may have noticed that I’ve had fewer Jiu-Jitsu stories to share lately. I suppose my getting better at it is to blame for my lack of entertainment for you.

We all knew it was bound to happen eventually. Probably for most people, it would’ve happened months ago.

However, I did majorly screw up recently. (Let’s pretend I did it just for you.)

I was partnered with Instructor’s younger brother, Surfer Dude 2. The last portion of class is Mount Drills, where you try to throw the other person off. I had already successfully thrown SD2 once within the 60 second allotment and was prepared to do so again with a cool new move I learned from a Jiu-Jitsu video, not from class.

Farewell, my Surfer Dude friend. You’re about to get rolled.

Suddenly, I became aware of Instructor, SD1, and another upper belt standing there cheering me on.

I had SD2 locked up and ready to roll left, yet I kept attempting to roll him to the right. In that direction, he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Toward me, Betsy. Roll toward me,” came Instructor’s voice, yet I kept pushing the wrong way. Finally, I gave up and heard a collective, disappointed chorus of, “Ohhh,” from the bystanders. One lamented, “It was all set up,” before they walked away.

I was mortified. What the heck happened?! For the rest of the day, I couldn’t let it go. Several times, I asked Hubby to assure me that they’d forgotten the whole incident. (He dutifully complied.) The next day I dropped a fork or something, and he said, “Did that happen because you rolled the wrong way?” which, though funny, brought the memory of the embarrassment crashing down again.

My next class was a week later. I brought my youngest daughter with me for a trial class. It was an unusually small turnout, with only three other students. So, when Instructor needed a demo partner, he chose the most senior student there, which happened to be me.

I gave a delighted little hop skip away from the wall when he called me up. (Obviously, I was super professional and kept my cool.)

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Jul15

If at first you don’t succeed, try again in a different language.

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You may recall my failed attempt to get a reaction from my Taekwondo “Sensei” when I convinced my compatriots to count our 25 jumping jacks in Korean.

So, you know, a normal person would leave it at that.

And then there’s me.

“New plan, girls,” I told my daughters. “Sensei spent the first nine years of his life in Germany. Next time, let’s count auf Deutsch!” (I know a little German from my semester in Austria.)

“Groan,” said Youngest Daughter.

“Eh, whatever,” said Middle Daughter.

“That would be hilarious,” said Oldest Daughter.

“Yes! She gets it! Let’s do it!” Apparently one vote was all I needed.

And this time? THIS time, Sensei…

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Jul1

Crazy with a purple belt

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My girls and I are now officially halfway to our black belts in Taekwondo.

I thought it would be fun to jazz up our testing and surprise Sensei by counting off our 25 warm up jumping jacks in Korean instead of English.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see his face when we began: “Hana, dhul, set, net, daseot…” I imagined him, eyebrows raised, failing to fight down a smile.

And how did he respond?

With nary a flinch. When we finished, he said, “Okay, next drill…”

Zero acknowledgement whatsoever!

I was so disappointed.

My purple belt.

During testing of the form itself, two people test at once. Because it’s always been my style to mess something up, I turned right when I was supposed to turn left. Fortunately, I had the sense of mind to course correct and continue unfazed.

On the way out, I said to Sensei, “I trust you were looking at the other person when I messed up?”

“Yes. I didn’t see your 17 mistakes.”

So he CAN still be funny.

“Furthermore,” I continued, “how can we count in Korean and you not react at all?”

“I can react with my ears. I heard you. And was that to earn bonus points?”

“Well, if it helps.”

“Do you know the next number, or did you only learn what you needed?”

“Sumul yeoseot.”

He nodded. “Good.”

If anything, I earned points in that moment.

The YouTube video that helped us learn.

BTW, I was out of town for several days. You know how when you board a plane, there’s that patch of walkway from airport to airplane where there’s no AC? When I stood in that spot, waiting my turn to board, I thought, “Whew! What is this heat?!” So I checked my phone.

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Jun10

Guess who’s limping again?

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Okay, even I admit this is getting ridiculous.

In Taekwondo, we were doing jump spin crescent kicks. Sounds cool, doesn’t? Looks cool, too.

When Sensei does it. When I do it, I look like I’m having a mid-air seizure.

But I land on my toes.

Not in a graceful ballerina way, but in a, “Crunch. There go my toes,” way.

One particular toe clearly took the brunt of it. The pinky toe is like, “Thanks, brah.” Purple toe: “No prob. You took the hit last time.” Pinky: “Chah right I did!” Purple: “Total bummer, dude.” Pinky: “For suuuuure.”

No idea why my toes are 90’s male stoners.

Aside from the above, I had planned to stop posting bruise pics, but I was oddly excited to discover not a bruise, but a bump!

An actual, genuine bump! I do remember my arm hurting during Jiu-Jitsu, but don’t know exactly what happened to it.

This did eventually turn into a delightfully colorful bruise.

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Jun7

He said it.

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He said it.

One part of last night’s Jiu-Jitsu lesson involved utilizing the triangle choke if your arm bar fails. Instructor emphasized trapping your opponent’s head while doing so. “It’s like a balloon. If you let go, it floats away. You don’t want it to float away because then you have to spend another $50 to get another one for your kid at Disneyland.”

The funny visual aside, I was reminded of the triangle choke class where I kept forgetting to trap my opponent’s head. He’d pop it up and say, “Your balloon is getting away.” Then I realized my partner from that class was standing next to me. I looked at him to find him looking at me, clearly thinking the same thing. We quietly chuckled.

I searched for an appropriate photo. This isn’t it, but I’ll use it anyway because it’s stupid and funny. Thanks, Kelle Pics from Pixabay.

Another nice thing: the guys greeting me by name and with a smile. One such gentleman I hadn’t met, but he still said, “Hello, Betsy,” with a friendly smile. Yes, I know his name now. It’s an uncommon one, so that makes it easier to remember. There are three pairs of people with the same name, and one name being utilized by three people. One of those is Li’l Trejo. Maybe I should just call him that instead to vary things up. Do you think he’d mind?

And now for a bit of throwback from January:

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Jun4

Rolling vs Sparring

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Quick martial arts lesson: Rolling is to Jiu-Jitsu as Sparring is to Taekwondo.

Quick blog lesson: Instructor is to Jiu-Jitsu as Sensei is to Taekwondo.

I’m now at the point of my Jiu-Jitsu journey where I get to attend Reflex and Development class. Your opponent gives indicators like step back, push away, post a leg up, etc., to let you know what move you need to do.

Often I ask, “What do I do?” because I’m not very good at this. The answer is usually Arm Bar or Elevator Sweep or Americana.

“Oh, right, yeah,” I’ll say then do the move.

At the start of 99% of the regular classes, we practice The Clinch. It’s a standing move that leads to getting the bad guy on the ground. We do this so often, I could sleep through this part of class.

Then in Reflex and Development, Instructor stood in front of me.

And stood there.

“What do I do?”

“Clinch me.”

Ugh! Face palm!

Visual interlude:

I often rate my workout based on how messy my hair is afterward. When taking this pic of my sloppy hair for you, I decided to have fun with the mirrors. You’re welcome.

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May19

I owe you an update (and can’t think of a better subject line).

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The hits keep coming

My Jiu-Jitsu instructor explained how to trap someone’s arm when they go for a punch so you can more easily roll them over and get on top of the fight. Someone asked, “What if the other person doesn’t try to punch you? How will you trap their arm then?”

“You can say something like, ‘You hit like a kid!’ That will make them want to punch you.”

He didn’t say “like a girl” because I’m here.

Then Instructor added, “I would’ve said, ‘You hit like a girl,’ but Betsy’s here and she hit me once and it wasn’t fun.”

Knew it.

The guys on either side turned to look at me, but I kept my face forward and smiled. I’ve never hit Instructor! But it was funny.

Also funny: when Instructor leaned sideways to demonstrate something and said, “I didn’t have my V8 today… That used to be a thing.”

One guy on the other end of the line stuck his head out, looking at the rest of us with a giant grin that bit back a laugh. Everyone else ignored him, but I caught the smile and sent it right back. Seeing other people enjoy Instructor’s jokes is almost as much fun as the jokes themselves.

The Return of Surfer Dude

Remember when I named my first practice partner Surfer Dude because he had the look of one, not because I knew he surfed? Another guy was talking to him about his big yellow van. After class, I saw the van. There was a wet suit hanging to dry over a side mirror and these stickers on the back.

He IS a surfer dude. Called it!

Relating to Li’l Trejo

Thanks to Mark reminding me of a Disturbed song, I was able to say to Li’l Trejo, “Guess what song I heard on the way here. I’ll give you a clue… maybe. ‘Oh-wa-ah-ah-ah.'”

“Oh! Down with the Sickness,” he said immediately.

“You got it! I wasn’t sure I could do that well enough.”

“No, it was great. That was the song that got me into Disturbed. When I first heard it, I said, ‘Mom, Dad, you gotta get me this CD.’ They got me the clean version. I had to wait until later to get the real version.”

How young IS this guy?

Regarding ET

There was a moment after a class when I could’ve said something to Instructor about ET’s extra attention, but he was intently working at his computer, logging our classes, maybe. Lots of room for human error there. His expression carried with it an invisible “Do not disturb” sign around his neck, so I let it go.

Thank you, Koala Park Laundromat, of pixabay.

At the start of the next class, everyone moved away from the wall to partner up except for me, ET a few feet to my right, and Lopez a few feet to my left. I gave ET an apologetic smile as I stepped toward Lopez. ET threw his arm up in a “what the heck?” gesture. But because there were an odd number of people and Lopez is an upper belt, Instructor pulled him from me, put me with ET, and had Lopez roam the room, assisting as needed.

I’ve realized a few things about ET: 1. He’s harmless. He did make some comment about how something would make me “just a little bit prettier.” I missed the first part of what he said. I ignore half of what he says anyway. But clearly there was only one response I could give to this:

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May5

E. T. is becoming a problem

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E. T. is becoming a problem

No, I’m not talking about the famous movie where the people in space suits freaked me out as a kid. I’m talking about Enthusiastic Teen whose fervor in our Jiu-Jitsu classes has taken a turn.

I used to see ET sparingly, but he’s been showing up more often than not lately. Because we don’t bring out the best in each other, I try to avoid him. Thankfully, the next class after the scolding was when Jack the Black Belt volunteered to work with me. However, near the end of class, we did a musical chairs-type thing, which led me to interact with ET. I told him what happened after the “Ugh. I got ET” comment. He grabbed both my hands and said, “I am so so sorry you got in trouble.” Then he said more and tried to grab my hands again, but I wouldn’t let him.

ET is becoming a problem.

In the next class, I arrived a bit late and so lined up at the end. ET stuck his head out from farther down the line to look at me, but I averted my eyes. At a pause in instruction, he moved to stand next to me.

ET is becoming a problem.

When instruction was over, ET asked, “Want to work together?” I wasn’t prepared for how to say no, so I felt I had no choice but to agree. He’s sort of difficult to work with in that he messes around too much.

He did, however, teach me (or rather remind me of) a valuable hook technique (I forget the name) that helped me lift his leg, which is probably about half my entire body weight, so I could sneak my leg out from behind his.

“Nice, Betsy. Using the ___ hook,” Instructor said as he walked by on his rounds.

ET is sometimes not a problem.

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Apr21

Traps and T-shirts

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I went down an Amazon T-shirt rabbit hole. Throughout this post are pics of the two shirts you overwhelmingly voted for last time (immediately below) and several more for your consideration and entertainment. Let me know which are your faves. I will purchase one of them, but know that my vote counts triple. 😉

1. Art of folding clothes.
2. First lesson free.

I received this email recently.

Aww. My JJ family misses me. I also got a text. Probably The System recognized that classes hadn’t been logged for me in a while.

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Apr13

Fight or Flight

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A blogger shared with me what she overheard on a podcast discussing martial arts:

“The guest had suggested that when ladies learn martial arts (like JJ) it can help them have more confidence and experience to fight with an attacker (sounded like a good point) but then Rogan noted that it would take years and years of training and then even with that – ‘basic anatomy’ plays a role in determining how most women would do if fighting with an attacker.”

“So while great for self defense and good for mind and body coordination and stability – the best advice is for people to put distance between themselves and the attacker (as opposed to someone with a certain level belt assuming they can take down someone twice their size).”

This is a good reality check. And I don’t disagree. Sure, I found it a little discouraging, but then I thought about my reasons for doing Jiu-Jitsu and Taekwondo:

  • Am I expecting to get attacked at every turn? No.
  • Do I intend to don a cape and spandex to fight crime vigilante-style? No.
  • Do I think it would be nice to have some ability to defend myself should I need it? Yes.
  • Am I largely just doing this for the fun of it? Also, yes.
  • Do I enjoy the challenge of learning something hard? Yes. (It helps that I have realistic expectations of myself. I never thought I’d be a natural at this.)
  • Does it give me greater confidence in general? Yes.
  • Is teaching what I’ve learned to middle school girls fun, fulfilling, and challenging? Yes.
  • Do they enjoy the class for all or most of those reasons above? I believe so, yes.

It has been pointed out to me more than once that the best option, when viable, is to simply run away. I joked that I should hang up my gi and work on my speed instead.

How am I doing?

Think I could outrun a bad guy at that speed? (This is also a nod to fans of The Office.)

I saw an interview with actor Ed O’Neill (Married… with Children, Modern Family), who has a black belt in Ju-Jitsu. He used his knowledge twice to put a rear naked choke (RNC) on men who had become unruly. This move is a good go-to, and I’ve already proven that I can, with a bit of struggle, successfully get the job done on a male blue belt (Surfer Dude 1). I don’t hope to need this skill in real life, but if I do, I’ll have it.

Fun side note: Hubs and I recently saw The Lost City. Brad Pitt used the RNC on several bad guys. I whispered to Hubby, “He’s using perfect technique. It’s nice the writers did their research.” Later in the film, Channing Tatum tries to imitate Pitt, but does so humorously wrong and unsuccessfully. It was a cute movie, and I’ve been a fan of Sandra Bullock ever since While You Were Sleeping.

Now. Let’s talk T-shirts, shall we?

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