First night back...charlie horse.

Sad spider is sad again, sadly.

Last night was one of the hardest I've had in a while. Point blank I left feeling incompetent, questioning whether or not I can do this with any reasonable expectation of success. That was almost certainly fueled by my expectation that my time off would have amounted to some amazing cementing process, allowing my body and mind to become one, awesome jiu jitsu machine.

Yeah...that totally didn't happen. What DID happen, was that I got stomped by a white belt. I know, I know...the three months I spent trying to not get worse, he was spending getting better. I know he weighs 220+. I know he's a he. I know my full guard is all messy because I'm just coming off an injury. Funny how little emotions listen to reason.

So we started from the knees and I took KickboxerInstructor's advice of someone taking the top and someone taking the bottom (as to not waste time with unrealistic grip fighting). I went for the bottom since this guy was stripping my grips like crazy and pretty aggressively. He pinned a thigh to the ground, passed my guard and ended up in half. I'm honestly floored by how bad I am about making decisions on how to get out of side control/bottom half. Well, he started passing with some nasty shoulder pressure and I tapped to that alone. I don't think I've ever done that with ANYONE, but I felt pressure on my neck/jaw that felt like, had he decided to apply a bit more, would have cracked my face open or injured my neck.

We reset.

I was feeling a lot of strength and quick, hard movements from him, so I fell to guard again. He started to pass and normally, I take the few extra moments my long legs give me to set up grips for spider...well...my foot tweakiness has almost completely eliminated that time, so as soon as he started to pass, he was able to get a knee up and smash my left thigh down again. Pass again. Lapel grip. Mount. Choke. Futile defense. Tap.

We reset.

I decided it was time for me to try to start from the top. After grip fighting he fell back with me in his full guard. I started passing and he set up a sweep which failed. I fell to the side and got him in my guard. CHARLIE HORSE. I winced as he smashed my left leg once again. Some other stuff happened and choke. This time though, it wasn't set up properly and I decided not to tap. Then he started doing something that completely caught me off guard. He started pulling my upper body up off the mat and pushing it back down while holding the choke. Did it about 3 times. I can't say it did anything to make the choke tighter or correct, but I tapped just to avoid being someone's choking experiment.

Next roll was with BlondeBlueBelt who I absolutely adore. After a musclee roll like the previous one though, I read his usual helpfulness as patronization, which I think was totally in my head. He defended my beloved triangle from mount properly, which no one has ever done before, so I learned of a new hole. He then submitted me in two triangles because of arm placement mistakes I was making when passing open guard, which he later pointed out and explained.

I felt light-headed and dizzy, so after we lined up, I spent a few more seconds with Blue, going over what got me caught in those triangles. I left immediately...the earliest I've ever left on a Friday. Said goodnight to no one. No waves through the glass while walking to my car. I noticed that the sun was still up, which I knew meant I was leaving crazy early.

This though, is what I love about blogging. Up until I sat down to write, I'd totally forgotten about drilling with NewBlondeWhitebelt and his gas issues and me telling him about my...incident in a very quiet gym when I first started. I'd forgotten about BlondeBlueBelt mistaking my commentary on his beard for me offering him a beer (gotta love mouthguard-ese). Writing it out also got me thinking that I may need to talk to dude about wrenching chokes. On top of that, I'd forgotten that I need to work on staying tight in butterfly sweeps and the spider guard sweep I'd learned from a purple just before the boot. I covered a lot of specific things that will be good for me, but I forgot them all last night because of a very uncomfortable round.

So I guess things will even out as I, out of necessity, learn to branch out beyond full guard and deal with stronger, heavier, musclier opponents.