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.

Do you shower too hard?

I was going to ask if you shower too much, but considering I shower both too frequently and too aggressively, I decided to change the title.

Two weeks of not training is enough time to feel like your life has reset to pre-training status. Long story short, I feel fat and clean. Amazing, since I've only been showering twice a day recently. So no gym contact along with a case of some very uncool mat-nasty has me reexamining my showering practices.

A Dornbracht shower. Ain't it purdy?

So I'm going to roll with The Part Time Grappler's theme of skin care. I ran across this article on showering frequency and, not surprisingly, those of us on the North American continent spend WAY too much time getting clean. What DID surprise me though, is the recommendation that medical personnel not shower immediately before a procedure since washing with non-antibacterial soap just disturbs colonies of skin-critters as opposed to getting rid of them. It also recommended against the "Japanese" exfoliating rag I've been using for...years now. I love the thing. I even got my brother one because where he lives in Japan (strangely, where nobody had heard of said rag), towels and washcloths go funky overnight and this thing holds almost no water. Apparently, I'm doing my skin more harm than good by shredding off the upper layer twice a day. Dah well. Back to the washing board.

Of Recipes and Recovery

Onward and upward in the quest to eat more vegetables. Today, I'm filling out my work lunch rotation with an improv dish...fresh tuna and mushroom casserole spiked with sweet peas and spinach.

It's pretty simple and you cut back on the salt by making the "soup" from scratch and using fresh tuna (gives it less of a fishy taste) instead of canned. I shaved a lot of the time off by not pre-boiling the noodles (works with lasagna too). You just water down the sauce some after you pour it into the casserole dish.

In other news...I'm clear to train again! I went to Dr. Fox today to get cleared to wean myself off the boot and start training again. I made my way back and he introduced me to a visiting doctor. He then explained that I hurt my toe training "for UFC". Doctor #2 laughed it off as a joke.

"Ha...I'm serious...I don't joke about that stuff."
"Oh wow..."

It was my third appointment since I started seeing him and I figured this visit would be similar to the others. Testing the bones to see if there was pain. Some nice banter about training. Oh-ho was I wrong. Little did Megan know that today it was time to clear out some of the scar tissue and adjust the clicking in my toes. He explained to me in his usual, calming tone (he has total yoga-voice) that he was going to manipulate my toes in order to remedy some of the clicking issue. Cool. He demonstrated how he was going to grip my toes and bend them away from the rest of my foot. Cool. He then stood up and I thought to myself  "hmm...I wonder why he's standing up. He probably did that for better leverage. Wait. Why does he need better lever...AHHHHH!!!!" I didn't actually scream...well, I did, but I swallowed it. After that though, my toes move more smoothly and the articulation is better than in the non-injured foot. Woo!

And now...dancing cats.

Toe shoes, Sombo or tape?

Me and Bootsie at work. I've been wearing crackle nail polish to coordinate and make a statement about the state of my toe bones

***Update...I got the toe shoes and you can read about them here***

So I SHOULD be getting the all clear tomorrow to be rid of the boot () and go back to training. I'm getting a little (and by that I mean a lot) tired of taping my toes...so...I'm considering footwear.

I've heard good things about wrestling/sombo shoes, but then just had someone suggest those toe shoes that people have such a love/hate relationship with.

I'm really curious to see how my training has changed after some time off. Sure, I've been itchy, but I've always found breaks in the learning process to be a great way to take a step back, let your mind cement what it already has and to clarify direction. We'll see.

Healthy Foods I actually like

So I've been checking out some of the nutritional guidance at Precision Nutrition. I'm on part 4 for the free tutorials for women and fat loss and I'm proud to say that I seem to have discovered most of their tips on my own...I uh...just haven't been following them.

Five hours a week of exercise? Check. Better fats and more protein? Check. Not starving yourself? Done. They even suggested my exact protein shake recipe. My big problem has just been that I've been slipping on portion size and have stopped replacing carbs with vegetables. So...I need a little reminder on healthy foods I really like...

You win this round.

Broccoli...eating a broccoli omelet right now. I love the taste of it when it's overcooked
Spinach...even in its non-creamed state, it's good stuff
Asparagus...LOVE it baked (over baked) with lemon and olive oil
Nuts...pecans, cashews and pistachios only need apply
Herbs of all kinds...extra flavor with greenery points!
Fennel...cooked only. Cooked. Only.
Anything out of the sea...seriously...anything.

So yeah...making a small change back to where I used to be. Dinners that are based more on greens than potatoes again. Hopefully I won't miss the red creamers too much.

Freemind Upgrade!

To keep this blog as readable as possible, I keep my techniques in a separate database using Freemind's mind mapping software.

Well They just upgraded and fixed a lot of the bugs that used to irk me. Notes no longer automatically pop up if you hover over a cell. The interface is cleaner overall and you can edit them using HTML. The preview pop up is pretty nice too. As far as keeping a technique journal is concerned, it's definitely the best solution I've run across.