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Friday, April 15, 2011

My lemonade addiction's been exposed.

So I have this problem.

After every class I get a mean craving for something cold and citrusee. At the old location, I would pass Chick-fil-a on the way home and got into the habit of picking up a large lemonade after class. Realizing it probably wasn't the best idea to be knocking the things back three times a week (sugar overload!), I cut myself back to once. Then I started putting lemon juice in my water, which killed the cravings almost altogether.



Well, a few months back, I fell off the wagon. I'm back to once a week...sometimes twice. So I went by tonight and got my usual $2.17 ready. The young man at the window looked at me, smiled, and belted out a "Wow! You really like this lemonade!" I laughed and explained it was my after gym ritual. He replied that he wanted to get into working out again, saying his weight had sneaked up to 205 lbs. I invited him to come visit the gym, explaining how much fun I had doing jiu jitsu. He said he just wanted to lift weights.

So tonight was my first class in week two of judo month. It was rough. Really rough. The concepts weren't really that bad, but after an hour fifteen of setups and throws, up and down the mats...my back is EXHAUSTED and I feel mad uncoordinated. I really expected to be better at anything working from the feet, but I found myself longing for the days of being stuck in the dreaded bottom half.

We went three rounds at the end of class...I did one with a blue I haven't rolled with in a while, another with the brown I take lessons with and  a third with another big blue that's always asking for gi info. I was lethargic in every sense of the word. Physically burnt after judo (I still don't get how you end up so tired just walking and kicking and bending) and mentally still drained after training people and visitors at work. Here's how they went...

Blue #1: I found myself on the bottom way more than I should have. It was mostly my own fault. When my brain gets lazy, I lose aggression and tend to pull people on top of me. As much progress as I've made getting comfortable with the top game, I still prefer the bottom. And por lo usual, I was giving up my arms like crazy.

Brown: I like rolling with him because I get more tailor-made rolls, but then, when, like tonight, I blank on things we've covered in our lessons, I feel like a dork. We worked on...I don't know what guard this is...shame on me...but it's basically half guard with the bottom person on their side. I didn't even recognize it as the position we'd worked on last lesson until well after we'd worked on it. Then I pulled back on like, three omoplatas. "You had that Megan. You had it" Mow. He did say though, that I'm posting better and I'm much more aggressive. I think...and I won't know this until my next shot at sparring...that I've overcome my omoplata hesitation. Being called out on it is a great impetus to just go for them.

Blue #2: I'm starting to get the feeling that this guy likes to pick me up and train for the sake of handling weightier opponents. He's used me before to weight train half guard bumps and I notice him tonight trying a lot of sweeps that require weight bearing. But yeah...ugly roll. Ugly, ugly roll. I was flopping over into positions and kinda just muddling there. Even my beloved spider guard, I was barely even grabbing the sleeves. In my defense, this is the guy that says "Hey Megan, wanna go for a light roll?" and I feel myself fighting harder than I ever have before. The scary part? I know he IS holding back. I've seen him roll with the monstrous guys in the gym and it's bru-tal.  I was happy though, that I quickly set up and attempted a tri-pod sweep from a failed triangle without hesitating. Didn't work since I didn't commit to holding that anchored foot with my hand, but glad I got to that point.


So yeah...I feel like I'm in a period where I'm overcoming a lot of mental walls...walls that have been blocking my way to even techniques that I know perfectly. Honestly, if I can just clean up and apply all the stuff I already know, I'll be ecstatic.  

2 comments:

  1. Chikfila has the BEST lemonade! If I drove past one regularly, I would be drinking it all the time!

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  2. i dont like chick fi la lemonade. it just dosent taste good to me but i live on minuite maid. minuite maid lemonade is all i drink. me and my friends cant get enough of the stuff! and to add onto the lemonade addiction they sell it in the school cafeteria! oh joy.

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