Osu

[Kishi]

43 minutes ago, Mistr said:

I'm glad you are feeling well enough for strength work in spite of the lingering cough. I think you made the right decision to stay off the mats and miss the Star Wars party. Coughing makes people nervous, especially this time of year.

 

I hope you feel better soon and can get some training in before the break.

 

Thanks! I'm feeling better today. Cough syrup really helped in terms of suppressing the cough and helping me be drowsy enough to sleep. Probably could have slept longer this morning.

 

*

 

So speaking of parties and such, the Maine Friend invited me out to a Christmas party that she's throwing. All fair and good until it comes out that the DO is going to be there. At which point I nope'd out. Doesn't really feel like I'm missing anything, particularly as it's being thrown at the behest of the EDO (because Da Group isn't getting together to do anything for Episode IX and he apparently has a sad over that. Why my dude can't throw this shindig himself is beyond me).

 

Shame, though. Even if I'm not really missing anything, I still want to go. Just not willing to put up with the toxicity of the DO to do it. Maine Friend tried to sweeten the deal, "Oh you'll have buffers between you and you don't even have to decide today!" but I think I managed to be gentle and firm about it. I told her it meant a lot to me that she even thought to invite me in the first place. I suppose time will tell as to whether that's enough or not.

 

The bigger thing though is that for me this highlights a tendency in me to assume the emotions of others, ie that I know what's going on in their heads and hearts, when in reality I really don't. That's a thing I need to work on.

[Kishi]

So! Wednesday was a nice and quiet day. After work I went to my friend's place and caught up to he and his wife on The Mandalorian. No spoilers if you haven't seen it, but stay good, Baby Yoda.

 

After that, it was back home. Vegged out and called it a night.

 

Cough still seems to persist, although getting good sleep the past couple days has been so good for dealing with that. It's nowhere near as bad as it was, and I'm sorely tempted to get back out on the mats tonight. It's not based in some kind of external pressure or anything, I just really wanna get up and get out there.

 

Of course, in the grand scheme, a missed week or two of mat time isn't all that big a deal, and I reckon the training as I'm doing it now is probably a good barometer for how I'm actually doing. I've been induced a cough the past couple times I've done so even in the relatively comfy climate controlled confines of my place; it might be reasonable to assume it be worse on the mats.

 

Just hate this feeling that I'm falling behind.

[Kishi]

So! I thought that last night would be another relatively quiet night with not much beyond Q&D.

 

That didn't happen. Instead, when I was sitting in the breakroom, I got a call from my coach. He was on his way out and had left his keys to the dojo in his office back in Fayetteville. He was on his way to Greenville to pick up his son to bring him out for to train. For those of y'all not familiar with the local geography, it's a lot of distance driving to do, and he called me because I've got a key to the place and he wanted me to open up.

 

And, well, I had my gi with me and everything.

 

So one thing led to another and I wound up back on the mats. And I was in a mood to 'show some heart' so to speak. In general, when I play, I tend toward a lot of passivity and reactivity with people because I'm trying to be technical. The downside of this is that I tend not to play very strongly as a result and I usually eat a loss on the first roll with someone. But this time I decided to play more aggressively, because I figured if I actually do get myself together enough to go to tournament, I can't really afford to eat a loss right out of the gate. So I wound up playing more aggressively and, as a result, I racked up three submissions and gave Coach a harder time than he's had with me in a while.

 

Not bad for a week off. Although we have another new guy whom I haven't quite cracked yet, but even then I gave him a worse time than he did to me, which is an acceptable outcome. After that, went home, let the dice decide for Q&D for me and that was that. Today, the cough... remains. I'm not honestly sure whether it's better or worse than it was, but since I wound up out there ahead of schedule, every little rattle or itching in my throat feels portentous.

 

OTOH, to hell with it. As long as nobody else is sick going forward, it's good enough. I still need to figure out if I'm going to drop $100 or so to go fight in tournament. Part of me really wants to, and part of me thinks that it's an expensive way to waste time losing in front of a bunch of strangers. Need to get my head on straight as far as all that goes.

[Jupiter]

On 12/19/2019 at 9:04 AM, Kishi said:

After work I went to my friend's place and caught up to he and his wife on The Mandalorian. No spoilers if you haven't seen it, but stay good, Baby Yoda.

 

Argh, I still need to see this.

[Renate]

13 hours ago, Kishi said:

Part of me really wants to, and part of me thinks that it's an expensive way to waste time losing in front of a bunch of strangers.

Don't know a lot about tourmaments, but if this is something you want to do well in, is it not a win even to lose in it?

 

You cannot really know how to train exactly until you have gone out and done it for however many rounds you get, with the pressure of it being A Tournament & an audience. (Maybe you can know in theory but I think it would be different to have the feeling in your memory while training.)

 

What's a 100 bucks if you have it on hand & to prevent your future self from wondering What If?

[Kishi]

On ‎12‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 10:42 PM, Jupiter said:

 

Argh, I still need to see this.

 

True.

 

On ‎12‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 2:31 AM, analoggirl said:

Don't know a lot about tourmaments, but if this is something you want to do well in, is it not a win even to lose in it?

 

You cannot really know how to train exactly until you have gone out and done it for however many rounds you get, with the pressure of it being A Tournament & an audience. (Maybe you can know in theory but I think it would be different to have the feeling in your memory while training.)

 

What's a 100 bucks if you have it on hand & to prevent your future self from wondering What If?

 

Well, losing isn't the problem. It's just that I've never actually made it past the first round in the past tournaments I've played in. Spending $100 just for the chance to fight one person seems like kind of a waste to me.

 

I grant you, exposure therapy is a thing, but I dunno if I'm that driven to go find out again.

 

*

 

Happy Holidays, ever'body!

 

Been a while, so let's catch on up.

 

So Friday, I went to open mat. Just wound up being a white belts only kind of affair, but we didn't damage each other, so it was good.

 

Saturday was a Witcher watching party, in which we all got together and made as many Polish dishes as we could. I brought the vodka.  Polish cuisine, as it turns out, is all about looking weird and tasting awesome. No complaints about it here.

 

Witcher for its part is pretty enjoyable. You have to understand that it's three stories being told in three different timeframes, which the show doesn't go out of its way to help you grasp. That's an ongoing thing, actually; the show only shows and tells what it wants to and it doesn't really care if you get what's going on or have an adequate scaffold for understanding it.

 

I reckon that's gonna be an obstacle for people, but if you can forgive that it's a pretty watchable show.

 

Sunday I went to write with the Maine Friend. Which mostly worked out to compiling notes and coming up with another magic system, which was what I wanted to do. I've got my world mostly figured out, and I know my characters pretty well. I need to nail some things down about magical folk and I reckon I'll be good to go.

 

Afterwards, I went and saw the new Star Wars as opposed to going to train. This was a poor trade. I know, I know, it's a series of movies about space wizards for children, and it shouldn't be taken seriously. All the same...

 

Spoiler

So, let's begin by pointing out that a 53% RT score doesn't mean anything about the film's quality. All it means is that half of critics who saw it had a positive feeling and half who saw it had a negative feeling. It doesn't necessarily mean the film is good, although presumably a higher score means more people walked away liking it than not.

 

My point being that I was willing to turn off my brain and engage with the film on its own merits. And I did.

 

The thing is, it doesn't have a lot of merit to it. And I'm not quite sure where to lay the blame for that.

 

The easy way would be to say that Abrams and Johnson had very different visions of what they wanted Star Wars to be, and it freaking shows. Johnson in VIII wanted to make a story about ordinary people getting caught up in extraordinary circumstances. And I thought this was the right tack, not just because of my personal biases but because on a structural level Star Wars couldn't keep being about the Skywalker boys and their orphan-killing sister-kissing shenanigans. I adored VII for its nostalgia, but also for being a bridge film and I similarly liked VIII because it kept us walking away and into some kind of future. It even tried to explore the nature of war and why it persists, and while that particular sequence didn't "feel" like Star Wars I came to respect it as a gutsy move for a set of stories that's not typically prone to reflection.

 

But it's not just a difference in vision. IX basically spends most of its run time trying to undo VIII. Ben gets his helmet back, Rey goes from being a nobody to being a Palpatine, Poe's character arc in VIII is totally negated by the same overreliance on plot and cinematic flair that he's always relied on, Finn goes back to being the character who shouts "REY!" all the time, and oh look it's a whole fleet of planet busters this time.

 

It specifically goes out of its way to try to march back to VII. To "capture the feeling" of Star Wars. That was the initial directive from on high.

 

And what is the feeling that we are to capture? Well, whatever it is, it doesn't seem to involve growth or change or reflection. It's not really a story about ordinary people making a difference. Nope. You have to be special in order to matter in the grand scheme of things, and never mind the consequences!

 

But is that really Abrams' fault? The poor dude didn't want in on the project to start with, as he's known for being a strong starter and a weak finisher. As it is, he had to mold his vision with the vague directive to "capture the feeling," and also complete the trilogy. So he didn't have time to explore all those things that Johnson opened up, particularly when someone must have decided that the extra hour or so this film could have used was too risky for a holiday blockbuster. Instead, he had to wrap up all these plot threads and bring everything to a close.

 

Ultimately, I blame Disney for this. Without a concrete vision in place, there was too much opportunity for everything to scatter, and the result is a muddle that didn't cap this off in the manner it deserved. They saw a means to make money, and figured that they could rather than figuring out how they should.

 

There were good things in it. The actors and actresses did the best they could, and Adam Driver is the standout performance. He winds up doing a good job of showing why you don't give Force users guns in-setting (answer: they're freaking broken at that point) and he acts very well.

 

But, just... yeah. If this is what the powers that be have decided, then I'm honestly not a Star Wars fan anymore. I'm not interested in watching multimillion dollar productions that seek to answer the questions in Wookieepedia articles or play to the lowest common denominator, and I'm not interested in playing to some cynical bid to part me from my money over my childhood nostalgia. If this is the future of the IP, then count me out.

 

(mind, that's not to say there isn't good media out there. Mandalorian's good, and also the Fallen Order video game which does a lot to explore a lot of the gray areas. I've heard that Rebels and the Clone Wars series are good too. I dunno. I'm just not driven to do anything except write revenge fiction right now).

 

Monday I phoned in sick to work and went to hang with a friend and binge some television. It was good times.

 

Tuesday I didn't do much beyond getting my holiday shopping done and getting stuff together for Christmas.

 

Wednesday was Christmas! Went to go see my family, played D&D, and then Mom put us to work in the kitchen to help her put dinner together. I put together a Green Bean Casserole which turned out pretty good if I do say so myself, but I do think I could have done a better job. It was actually a really wonderful day, and I was happy to be a part of it.

 

Thursday, I wanted to go back to the MMA place, but the teachers were out of town at the BJJ place and the students wanted to roll. And I was the only one holding a key. So, I went rolling instead. Had a sub in about 60 seconds or so on my first match and managed to get to a favored position on the guy who I haven't figured out yet. Couldn't sub him, though, and he managed to break the position by dint of pure strength, which is frustrating as all hell but. That happens sometimes.

 

And here I am on Friday. At work. Because the place is open and nobody's working on my caseload.

 

Presumably, there is open mat tonight. Depending on whether or not drinking happens, I'll do strength work after. I don't know what my weekend looks like. My lit snob friend is in town and trying to pull people together to go watch Uncut Gems which I might go to, just for something different. Otherwise, no real plans.

[Kishi]

So! The weekend watching plans fell through! Lit Snob Friend was supposed to stay with Sci-Fi Friend and his wife, and they both turned out to be down with the sickness, and he elected not to stick around.

 

We still got together at the breakfast spot, though, and talked about books and movies with other friends of his who are all cool people and with whom I don't really get the chance to hang otherwise.

 

Without filmage to look forward to, I found myself in an odd and productive rhythm where I would watch some YouTube and then get up to do a chore. So I did video-chore-video-chore pretty much throughout the afternoon and worked some writing into it because why not? It felt like a damn good day.

 

Sunday I did not get together with my writer friend as she was putting together the Life Day shindig that I mentioned before. She said she'd invite me over if it was ever clear that the DO wouldn't be there. I never got the invite, so she must have showed. Therefore, implicitly, I made a good decision for myself. Go me.

 

Instead, I took up the video-chore combo again from Saturday and got a lot of stuff done. Apartment's cleaner now than it's been in a long time, for all that there's still a shit ton to do in terms of getting rid of boxes and such. I'm hoping to repeat this again next weekend, probably after the tournament.

 

Oh, did I mention? I decided to go ahead and do it. Because I realized that it scares me, and doing shit that scares you is how you grow. Coach and his daughter will be out there competing too, so one way or the other it's good for me to be out there. Coach says I could do well, given that I'm strong and tough and he anticipates a lot of softness in my division. I have tempered this by telling myself that whomever I'm facing has probably been told the same thing and likely has the kinds of athletic attributes and practiced skill that make them think tourney play is a good idea.

 

With all that in my mind I rolled hard and put up some strong performances. The white belts I rolled with put some strong performances against me too; they're getting to the point where the One Thing I do well isn't quite enough and I'm going to have to grow past it somehow. Fortunately, I've begun to in two ways: 1) I've found my way to a really neat guard-retention maneuver that suits my body really well and that I can pull off pretty well in drilling and randori, and 2) I've begun to find my way out of my favorite position to an easy sub and actually began to figure out how to do it with leverage as opposed to strength.

 

Stay tuned to find out how well I put these to work.

 

After that, I went home, hit up one last strength session, and polished off my holiday leftovers.

 

I suppose the year deserves a retrospective. I'll do that later. In the meantime, the plan for the week is to rest up and run deload protocol. I still intend to make as much mat time as I can, although I anticipate some serious limitations to last minute training what with the holiday this week. Oh well. Can't be helped. Just another rest opportunity.

[Kishi]

Monday wasn't much. Went out to game where we worked on characters and did some Q&D. Elected to roll the dice on this one; the next time on Thursday I'll be just doing the quick, low-time low-rep version of it. Tonight's plans are TBD based on what I hear because, hey, it's New Year's Eve, y'all. I give even odds as to whether I train or go off and get into shenanigans.

 

So, let's talk about 2019.

 

2019 has been... I mean. Wow. Lot of ups and downs. Bittersweet.

 

Me being habitually inclined toward the bitter is actually the biggest reason I didn't partake in the Holiday Challenges this year, because I thought I'd drag down the spirit of the thing. I've got a lot to be bitter about. A lot of my really significant relationships blew up or blew out this past year. I wound up parting ways with my Karate teacher, which has been one of the longest relationships of my life so far. One of my friend groups was overtaken by the toxicities of a pair of its people and when I wandered away only one of them cared enough to come after me. I started dating, and that... well. You know how that's gone so far.

 

But this is not a complete picture of the year. I lost my Karate teacher and found a community of folk whom I could learn from. I lost a friend group and found more groups of friends than I really know what to do with, and the friendship I have with the one who came after me is probably deeper now than it's ever been. And while the dating didn't end with anything long term, the fact that I'm dating at all is, well, a pretty profound change from the status quo.

 

The biggest thing that I've had to confront this year has been something that I had never really thought to confront before: a fixed mindset. I suppose that's a surprising thing to hear from a GL in the Rebellion, but it actually didn't require much in the way of mental gymnastics for me to accomplish. How do you do diet and exercise if you don't believe you can change? You tell yourself that you're simply the kind of person who does diet and exercise, as opposed to others who aren't.

 

Taking choice out of the equation in the long term was incredibly useful for those things. But that fixation on fixedness led me to see a lot of things in ways which were... distorted. I came to see myself less as someone who did things and more as someone who responded to things that were done to him. And I found myself dodging a lot of my responsibility in my own mind. Things happened to me not because of what I chose but because of who I was; I was simply the kind of person those things happened to.

 

And as crazy as it sounds, it never really occurred to me to actively interrogate those patterns of thought. It wasn't work I was trying to dodge around doing, I just... never thought to do it. Because as miserable as that sounds, it actually worked for me. I still had responsibilities for things, but I didn't have as many and taking more was painful in an abstract, existential kind of way because I was (and still am to an extent) the kind of person who assigned a sort of performative value to the choices I made. Confronting that I'd not taken more would have been something I saw as failure, and further something that needed to be fixed so I could perform better, and further something that had a sort of bare minimum that I could just put in and let that be enough.

 

But that doesn't feel right anymore. That mindset has put certain limitations on me that I find now I don't particularly care for, and I've had to run up against those limitations pretty hard this year. To be clear, none of the bad things that happened to me were completely my fault, but I made my choices and there were consequences, both for good and for bad. This was me trying to put lots of important parts of my life on autopilot and ignore them while I focused on other things, and I didn't really get that this was a choice I made, that it was optional and not something I had to do for the sake of responsibilities elsewhere.

 

My life isn't something I get to live someday. It's here and now, and coming and going.

 

To be frank, I'm not really comfortable making some grandiose statement about how things are gonna be going forward. I make my choices, sure, but my choices are somewhat defined for me too based on what I'm dealing with at any given time. That being said, growth is a choice, and growth in terms of mental and emotional health and depth isn't a choice I've made in... well, some time. Longer than I can remember, but probably not as long as I might think.

 

But I do want to grow in those ways. Not because I have to. Not because there's some gross punishment for failure or because it determines my value as a person. But rather because there isn't a minimum standard to life and by not growing I'm choosing a sort of shallowness of heart that, frankly, I don't want.

 

I don't want the way that things have been. 2019 has been about realizing that.

 

I don't know that 2020 will be better. But it will be different, I think.

 

Anyway. I wouldn't have got here without the help of so many people. I owe you all tags and gratitude, but it seems my work computer is crashing my gratitude groove right now, so for the moment you're going to have to settle for me saying thank you in general to all of you. You know who you are.

[Kishi]

Happy New Year, everybody!

 

Not much to report here so far. It's weird having a day off in the middle of the week. I've been employing the strategy of videos alternated with thing-doage and I have to admit, it actually makes the day feel better. Like I'm not wasting it, but I'm also not overworked or stressed or anything.

 

I got in trouble with one of my supervisors yesterday. I have a very old case (apparently second oldest in the unit) and she didn't like how one of the next steps I would have taken would have made it even older. I don't really get why. Fortunately, she tried to pillory me in text and included the main supervisor on it, so I was able to explain back to her how following her orders got me into the situation I was in.

 

Mind, I'm not gonna come out looking particularly good, but there's no winning with this woman anyway. Frankly, I'm past the point where I care anymore.

 

I didn't go out to any parties last night. I was invited to one that I saw the Ex was invited to as well and while I didn't see a confirmation, it just didn't feel like a fun time for me. Instead, I went to the MMA place and rolled. We didn't have enough people to have a kickboxing class after, so we rolled some more. The kickboxing coach is a brown belt and he offered to roll with me when I told him I was off to tournament this weekend. He says I feel good and that I have good composure; as long as I stick to simple, high-percentage stuff and don't psych out under pressure, I should be good. He showed me a couple ways to get single-leg and a high-percentage takedown from there, which is good because my stand up game on defense is pretty strong but my offense needs work. Ideally, I'd get the chance to practice more, but I don't live the ideal life.

 

Afterward I came home and did some deloaded strength work. Opted for lighter versions of my movements where available and was amazed at how much lighter they feel, particularly single leg work. No finisher or anything like that, though.

 

The training leading up to the tourney... as far as I'm concerned, it's probably going to be minimal Q&D on Thursday and Open Mat on Friday, unless advised otherwise. We don't really attract wild folk to come out on Fridays, but there's some part of me that's just paranoid enough to assume that outcome if I go. No reason for it, really. Actually, these things tend to work out to just being an extra set of practice rounds, and I'm pretty sure everything will be fine. It might be better to go, just to work off some nerves.

[Mistr]

You have made excellent progress in 2019. This has really been the first year where you have had control of your own living situation and had enough income to make choices instead of worry constantly. You continued your training both solo and with other people. I think you only changed programs twice, which has to be a record. That fits in with you figuring out what works for you.

 

Having that breathing room has let you expand your horizons socially as well as in martial arts. There is more emotional weight when people are involved, but you made good use of your evaluation skills to choose how you want to spend time with people off the mats. You got some emotional injuries and some physical injuries and are learning from them, not just avoiding those situations. It's not glamorous, but it is important work and will pay off over time. I'm curious to see what your 2020 wrap-up will include.  

 

20 hours ago, Kishi said:

I've been employing the strategy of videos alternated with thing-doage and I have to admit, it actually makes the day feel better. Like I'm not wasting it, but I'm also not overworked or stressed or anything.

 

I did much the same yesterday (if you sub in fiber arts for videos). I like this strategy a LOT. I feel like I get things done AND can do fun stuff. I'm going to do more of it in my next challenge.

[Kishi]

18 hours ago, Mistr said:

Having that breathing room has let you expand your horizons socially as well as in martial arts. There is more emotional weight when people are involved, but you made good use of your evaluation skills to choose how you want to spend time with people off the mats. You got some emotional injuries and some physical injuries and are learning from them, not just avoiding those situations. It's not glamorous, but it is important work and will pay off over time. I'm curious to see what your 2020 wrap-up will include.  

 

Yeah, me too. I'm actually kind of hopeful, although for what I don't really know.

 

18 hours ago, Mistr said:

I did much the same yesterday (if you sub in fiber arts for videos). I like this strategy a LOT. I feel like I get things done AND can do fun stuff. I'm going to do more of it in my next challenge.

 

Right? It's good stuff. Glad you're getting something out of it.

 

*

 

So I went to train at the MMA place on Thursday, as opposed to the BJJ place. I wasn't trying to duck my coach or my fellows or anything like that, but I figured that if I was going to go off to fight in tournament, with one week to go, it made more sense to get exposed to more bodies and get used to fighting against different feels. BJJ is a lot like chess in that if you play with the same person long enough, you get a sense for what their strategies are and what they like to do, and that shapes how you play in turn.

 

To be clear, I get to roll with good people at the BJJ place, but I get to roll with good people at the MMA place too, and there's more of 'em and with a wider variety of backgrounds. You get a lot of "stealth" white belts there, ie people who are only white belts in BJJ but then wrestled since they were 8 years old or have a shodan in judo, and I figured it would be good for me.

 

It turned out to be! We had a brown belt in to teach who hadn't been in a while, and he decided to work takedowns. So that's what we did. Then, during the strike portion, the regular coach turned it over to another gent who has both a striking and wrestling background and we decided to mix striking with takedowns.

 

What this translates to for me is getting a crash course on a weak aspect of my game for a week prior to the tournament. Feels like fortune, although I suppose it remains to be seen. Whatever. It's been a fun week. Also, mixing strikes with takedowns and groundwork is hard, even when you're going easy. My cardio was good and I could keep doing it, but after three rounds (admittedly after an hour of some intensive jiujutsu) I was definitely smoked and running on autopilot.

 

Tonight is the open mat. I got some pre-tourney jitters to work off, so I'll be going. Weigh-in is due by 13:00 tomorrow for my divisions. Right, then.

[ReturnOfTheDad]

On 12/31/2019 at 1:48 PM, Kishi said:

My life isn't something I get to live someday. It's here and now, and coming and going.

Wise words, best of wishes to you in the new year! Sounds like 2019 was a year of a lot of growth.

[Treva]

I had a heckin post written up and then my computer lost all of it and I am so mad.  So.  Heckin.  Mad.

 

Confronting your fixed mindset is a powerful thing that will allow you to enact changes.  I'm glad you feel like you finally recognized something that was holding you back.  It seems like it was recognizing a form of inaction that was so subtle because you were actively doing things to make yourself better.  There's something to be said for eliminating choice from your routine so you have to be healthy, but it seems like you found you were going too hard in that one direction.  

 

On 12/31/2019 at 2:48 PM, Kishi said:

That being said, growth is a choice,

THIIIISSSSSS.  I am a heck N00b but I feel like this is a core tenant of the rebellion.  You are making that active choice to grow in weird, new, and uncomfortable ways.  And I am super super excited for you to be making this choice for yourself.  I think the most important thing for your growth mindset is that you meta'd yourself into the mindset (you needed to grow into a growth mindset).  That's really neat to me.  You have made enough progress with yourself to recognize where you need to make the hard choices and difficult growth spurts.  I can't tell you how to live your life, but maybe give some weight to that? 

 

I am also going to say @Mistr made all the good points regarding your martial arts progress and personal, emotional progress.  I refuse to believe that you didn't grow in some ways by choice in 2019, especially with regards to your martial arts.  You bent with the breeze on that one, as tumultuous as things sounded from times.  And you took a critical, difficult look at yourself and chose to grow from that.  

 

 

Your new years eve MMA plan makes me so jealous.  What a cool way to ring in the new year, and I'm glad you got good advice before your tournament!!

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

So I went to train at the MMA place on Thursday, as opposed to the BJJ place. I wasn't trying to duck my coach or my fellows or anything like that, but I figured that if I was going to go off to fight in tournament, with one week to go, it made more sense to get exposed to more bodies and get used to fighting against different feels.

This makes heckin sense.  Glad you were preparing yourself well.  

 

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

What this translates to for me is getting a crash course on a weak aspect of my game for a week prior to the tournament. Feels like fortune, although I suppose it remains to be seen. Whatever. It's been a fun week. Also, mixing strikes with takedowns and groundwork is hard, even when you're going easy. My cardio was good and I could keep doing it, but after three rounds (admittedly after an hour of some intensive jiujutsu) I was definitely smoked and running on autopilot.

 

Tonight is the open mat. I got some pre-tourney jitters to work off, so I'll be going. Weigh-in is due by 13:00 tomorrow for my divisions. Right, then.

Sounds like exactly what you needed before your tournament.  I hope you kick some SERIOUS butt and I'm looking forward to hearing how well you performed and/or how badly you thrashed the Other Guy.  

[Kishi]

On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2020 at 2:28 PM, ReturnOfTheDad said:

Wise words, best of wishes to you in the new year! Sounds like 2019 was a year of a lot of growth.

 

Aye, for all that it was painful to go through. That's how growth works, right?

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

I had a heckin post written up and then my computer lost all of it and I am so mad.  So.  Heckin.  Mad.

 

TECHNOLOGY!!! *shakes fist in Millennial*

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

Confronting your fixed mindset is a powerful thing that will allow you to enact changes.  I'm glad you feel like you finally recognized something that was holding you back.  It seems like it was recognizing a form of inaction that was so subtle because you were actively doing things to make yourself better.  There's something to be said for eliminating choice from your routine so you have to be healthy, but it seems like you found you were going too hard in that one direction.

 

Well, yeah, and in a lot of ways it was because of a, shall we say, theologically deterministic view of myself. It had its uses for a time. That time has passed, and I get to choose to be different. It's a rather heady feeling, actually.

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

THIIIISSSSSS.  I am a heck N00b but I feel like this is a core tenant of the rebellion.  You are making that active choice to grow in weird, new, and uncomfortable ways.  And I am super super excited for you to be making this choice for yourself.  I think the most important thing for your growth mindset is that you meta'd yourself into the mindset (you needed to grow into a growth mindset).  That's really neat to me.  You have made enough progress with yourself to recognize where you need to make the hard choices and difficult growth spurts.  I can't tell you how to live your life, but maybe give some weight to that? 

 

Yeah. Growth leads to growth, but for me that meant I had to grow to the point to see that different kinds of growth were possible. It was something that I think I'd known for a while in the abstract, but it feels a lot more concrete now. Not sure if that makes sense, but it's something I'm kinda struggling to articulate.

 

But yeah, that's definitely something I'm going to credit and give weight to going forward.

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

I am also going to say @Mistr made all the good points regarding your martial arts progress and personal, emotional progress.  I refuse to believe that you didn't grow in some ways by choice in 2019, especially with regards to your martial arts.  You bent with the breeze on that one, as tumultuous as things sounded from times.  And you took a critical, difficult look at yourself and chose to grow from that.

 

Nah, you right. I had choices and I made them. Things happened to me that drove my choices; also, I happened to them and had the capacity to make choices then too. I feel like that whole process turbo-charged in the last part of the year, which has an arbitrary sense of lateness to it but ultimately it's better that it was done one way or the other.

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

Your new years eve MMA plan makes me so jealous.  What a cool way to ring in the new year, and I'm glad you got good advice before your tournament!!

 

Yeah, it was a fun way to ring in the New Year.  I would have loved to go drinking with those folks after, but 'twas not to be as nobody appeared interested in doing so.

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

This makes heckin sense.  Glad you were preparing yourself well.

 

On ‎1‎/‎4‎/‎2020 at 11:10 AM, Treva said:

Sounds like exactly what you needed before your tournament.  I hope you kick some SERIOUS butt and I'm looking forward to hearing how well you performed and/or how badly you thrashed the Other Guy.  

 

Heh heh heh heh heh. Yeah. Yeah...

 

*

 

So let's get the big news out of the way: got rekt. Took a couple Ls and my divisions were small enough that they did me in.

 

I didn't play badly! I played pretty well, actually; like I said, I've got a stern defense. I just got out-aggressed. I got took down pretty hard in my first match and got ran through like 4 different submission attempts which I was able to keep up with and stop; the guy just eventually got me in rear naked choke, though, and I had to tap to that.

 

Now that I've got a couple days under me I can't help but wonder if I got stealthed again, either because the guy had additional grappling experience or because he was used to playing in tournaments and didn't have the same psychological load that I was carrying. The reason I say that is that I also went in for the "absolute" division which has no weight classes; I went with someone who had 20+ pounds on me (which, for context, you "lose a belt" for every 20 lbs the opponent has on you in terms of things you can do) and I could feel the difference in terms of skill/mindset. For all the good that did me.

 

Anyway, I dunno if you can tell, but I'm way more sanguine about this than I would have been, say, a year ago. I think the difference is, again, a matter of growth. The last time I went out for tournament, I wasn't the same person as I am now; I had just lost a teacher and I think I was looking to validate myself in a lot of ways. This time there was pressure, sure, but it wasn't the same, and I found myself eventually at a point where my mind was able to relax, albeit about a minute or two before the match started. Probably would have been better to work the whole day like that.

 

Still, a lot of things did go right. I made weight, for instance; that means my metabolism has recovered to the point where I have some control over how much I weigh, which is friggin' huge. And I feel like I learned a lot about myself from being exposed to that kind of energy, and I think I can apply it in my training going forward, in a more constructive way than I did the last time.

 

It also helped that my Coach took gold in his division and the next night, he was talking about things he wanted to work on. There is no Win or Lose; just Working and Learning. Or rather, winning just doesn't mean as much as one might think.

 

Also helped that I didn't try to bring anyone out to root for me; tournaments, as they're done around here, are actually long and dull and kinda networky up until you have to fight and I was able to respect this time that that's a pretty dull time for someone who ain't in.

 

So, uh, yeah, that was Saturday.

 

(I skipped to Saturday because Friday wasn't much. Open Mat happened but it was just me and one other classmate; we rolled and came out even on subs. I personally think his jiujitsu's better than mine as I've got ~40 lbs on him and he got me, but I don't know the extent to which the results are a function of his skill or his knowledge of my game. Which isn't to denigrate him or me either way).

 

Sunday I was kind of a slug. I kept up with the bare minimum of my chores, but beyond that I was pretty chill. Felt kind of peopled out. Made it back to the mats Sunday night to work on X-guard, which is Not My Favorite Guard but feels different after a year or so of BJJ and like something I could come to like if I could wrap my head around it. Played better in sparring than I had in a while under worse conditions, which is a good sign.

 

Strength work after was harder than it should have been for a deload but in fairness to me I altered the protocol a little bit to go for higher reps and miscalculated my capacities on a few of those movements. Live and learn.

 

Anyway, it's a new day and the start of a new cycle. I think as much martial arts as I'm doing, I'm going to scale back to strength training twice a week. My shoulders are killing me for some additional rest right now, and now that I know my metabolism works again I don't need to train as hard to control my weight or make my body compose the way I want it to. I have just recently learned I have more opportunities to study jiujutsu than I thought; it turns out that the black belt who taught the black belt at the MMA place is actually teaching over at the BJJ place now too as he was apparently teaching at the other school that we were looking at integrating Way Back When.

 

That's a hecking opportunity if ever I heard one.

 

Anyway. Gaming tonight and Q&D, I think? Need to go back over my logs and check the schedule again because I had it worked out really well.

[Kishi]

Gaming and Q&D happened! Nothing of real note in either, save that we were gaming on the anniversary of the death of our prior DM. I wanted to bring alcohol to commemorate but I was told we gamed in a family store and it wasn't allowed.

 

Bah. Family drinks together. Or at least mine does. (without problems or need to. Because we get along. Did I mention, my Dad went way out of his way to find gluten-free beer so I could still drink with them on D&D days? Granted it's an IPA, but it's the thought that counts and this one honestly isn't half bad as those go).

 

Q&D wound up being the bodyweight edition and I'm pleased to report that my lower body power is doing better in terms of quality movement expressed violently. Afterward, I did some shadowrolling and was pleased to find some ways to practice some movements that we started in on on Sunday. I may have figured out how to shadowroll the X-Guard position, which would be great if so; this position is apparently very partner-intensive and as a result there doesn't appear to be a lot of discussion about ways to drill on one's own. Time will tell. I'm fairly confident I haven't discovered a new thing; it could just be that my Google Fu is weak.

 

Anyway. Tonight's plan is martial chicanery and strength training. I had to dig back into the Battle Log as, while I kept good notes, I'm apparently a touch too free-spirited in my training to keep to the schedule.  But yeah, M/Th is Q&D, Tu/F is Strength, with W, Sa, and Su dedicated to being open and flexible. Friday and Saturday are a touch on the interchangeable side depending on whether we drink after Open Mat or not, but FWIW it's not been a factor in, like, the past month or so and it's hard to imagine it becoming so as with the new year my Coach's travel schedule reset.

 

As far as martial arts go, I want to dig further into exploring that intersection of physicality and psychology. I want to figure out how to bring and give and take the kind of energy that competitors bring because that's the closest to out and out fighting that I think I've ever been. I don't know if there's necessarily a way to do that responsibly, though, except to keep showing up to tournaments and immersing myself in that circumstance over and over again. Which is costly, but worthwhile I think. There's apparently a bunch of kickboxing all over the place on top of the grappling... hm... need to start thinking in terms of logistics.

 

And also to get after that better job so that the money isn't so big a factor in the decisions. Sigh. Okay. Add that to the list, then.

[Kishi]

So, there may be a million things to do but we have to take them a day at a time in any event.

 

Chicanery and strength training happened last night. We worked on side mount escapes, which I wasn't able to apply in sparring this time but is definitely something I want to try to do as I think there's something to it. Kickboxing was focused around "returning to position," and I did that pretty well. We focused on flow-sparring afterward which I felt like I managed pretty well.

 

Strength work felt good; was notable in that I hit plank progression and added weight to my loaded carries via my backpack. Not really a whole lot else to report there.

 

Tonight should be rest and sci fi. We've invited another friend along; I'm not sure what this does to our watch schedule, but I imagine it'll be interesting as we sort through who's seen what.

[ReturnOfTheDad]

4 hours ago, Kishi said:

We worked on side mount escapes, which I wasn't able to apply in sparring this time but is definitely something I want to try to do as I think there's something to it.

Definitely a position I ended up in a lot when rolling, especially with heavier opponents. Most people are so focused on transitioning from side to full mount that an escape/reversal from the bottom position, when done well, can really take them by surprise.

 

Love all the possibilities and movement chains in Jujitsu, hope you find some good pieces to add to your game from that position!

[Kishi]

18 hours ago, ReturnOfTheDad said:

Definitely a position I ended up in a lot when rolling, especially with heavier opponents. Most people are so focused on transitioning from side to full mount that an escape/reversal from the bottom position, when done well, can really take them by surprise.

 

Love all the possibilities and movement chains in Jujitsu, hope you find some good pieces to add to your game from that position!

 

Thanks, I hope so too! I'm trying to build the connection in my thinking - jab-cross-roundhouse is a movement chain; it's just that we call that a combo. I'm trying to learn to think of my rolling in the same way, but while I can get the concept on a cognitive level, I haven't quite got down into my muscles yet. Everything right now is still in isolation.

 

That's what drills and rolls are for, though.

 

*

 

Wednesday was about as restful as I'd hoped it would be. There wasn't a lot to do except to work and then go chill with friends. It turned out that the new guy hadn't seen the last episode of The Mandalorian either, so that's what we wound up doing. As a former Marine, the new guy thought that the opening bit with the storm troopers was incredibly funny in terms of how real to life it felt, and we both cheered at their comeuppance.

 

We also watched a bunch of Patrick H Willems video essays on YouTube, and we all laugh-groaned when we realized just how hard he'd managed to call the end of IX when he ran his analysis of JJ Abrams. Good grief. We wound up revenge-plotting Star Wars afterward - that's my term for it now when we talk about how we could have done a better job.

 

Anyway. Tonight should be some kind of chicanery and Q&D. I think I want to stick to the MMA place on Thursday nights for the foreseeable future. Reason being that it's my one real chance to work on and maintain my striking, and I don't really like how rusty I get to feeling when I miss out. I feel bad about leaving the others at the BJJ place, although they've repeatedly said it's not a big deal and there hasn't been any kind of signaling to suggest otherwise. So.

[Mistr]

1 hour ago, Kishi said:

Anyway. Tonight should be some kind of chicanery and Q&D. I think I want to stick to the MMA place on Thursday nights for the foreseeable future. Reason being that it's my one real chance to work on and maintain my striking, and I don't really like how rusty I get to feeling when I miss out. I feel bad about leaving the others at the BJJ place, although they've repeatedly said it's not a big deal and there hasn't been any kind of signaling to suggest otherwise. So.

 

You describe my reservations about cross-training perfectly. There are clearly benefits to training in different arts. No argument. But a person has limited time and opportunities to practice. It never fails that those opportunities happen at the the same time, so you always have to give up one to do the other. It sounds like you are making the right choice for you, and you see the costs and benefits.

[Kishi]

21 hours ago, Mistr said:

 

You describe my reservations about cross-training perfectly. There are clearly benefits to training in different arts. No argument. But a person has limited time and opportunities to practice. It never fails that those opportunities happen at the the same time, so you always have to give up one to do the other. It sounds like you are making the right choice for you, and you see the costs and benefits.

 

The struggle is real, no doubt. I suppose if I wasn't so invested in it, I'd see it differently. That being said...

 

*

 

So I wound up back at the BJJ place on account of getting out of work late and general traffic tomfoolery.

 

For all that it wasn't what I planned, it doesn't occur to me to treat this as a bad result. I have the happy problem of having tons of opportunities to train, and having mats and being welcome everywhere I go is a good thing.

 

Besides, it wound up being a good night. It was a small class as one of our white belts is out on the coast for university for this semester, and the coach is out traveling, so it wound up being the Blue Belt and one other. We worked X-Guard again, and y'all, I gotta tell ya, I'm warming up to it. I could pop the thing on command in drills and I even tried to go for it in sparring. (it didn't work, but I was told why and now it's something to look for).

 

The better part, though, is the mindset stuff that I've been talking about. The other white belt who was there got me to a standing position at one point during the roll and as soon as my feet touched the ground it was like a switch flipped in my head. It was weird - I wasn't angry, but found in me some bound determination to take my opponent down and sub him. I don't know that I'd say I succeeded on either count; I went for more takedowns and I think I got one? But I'm not sure. I managed to finish the round in Scarf Hold, which is my happy place, but he was trying to slip and I would have had to find another way when the round ended. And for his part, my opponent went for ankle lock right out of the gate and tried to get me in leg lock maybe 30 seconds later, both of which I managed to slip. If this had been the tournament, I think I might have got him on points. Maybe.

 

Went home afterward and hit up Q&D. Finally rolled a shorter session. For context, you roll a die to determine how many reps you're gonna hit in total, and it's anywhere from 40-100. I've been rolling 80 like clockwork for the past month and some change, so when I rolled 60 last night I almost didn't believe it.

 

Tonight, the plan is open mat and strength work, as I don't anticipate any drinking. Plans may be subject to change. I'm hoping to go roll tomorrow as well, but it occurs to me that I don't know when that class is, and depending on the logistics - like whether I can get my gi washed tonight or not - I might not be able to make it. Rest isn't a bad outcome either, to be sure, but I'd hate to miss out.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Somehow I lost the follow on your BL. I hadn't read anything since Dec 9th. I skimmed to catch up.

[Kishi]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:38 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Somehow I lost the follow on your BL. I hadn't read anything since Dec 9th. I skimmed to catch up.

 

Yeah, huh, I dunno what happened there. I think it might be related to the weirdness back at the turn of the year? But I gave a "thank" react because you cared enough to come looking for me and to catch up, and I appreciate that.

 

*

 

Happy Sunday, everyone!

 

Friday happened again. It was Open Mat with just me and Spider Monkey. I was kinda hoping we might get into mixing striking and rolling, but he was all about that rolling life so I went with it. We went for about 45 minutes straight, barring the odd break here or there to dissect something. I got 3 subs on him compared to 2, and they were chokes, which thrills me as I usually don't get those.

 

I also got my nickname - Boa, as in Boa Constrictor, because I'm heavy and once I'm in, I don't let go. I like it.

 

(and because I'm friends with queer folk my mind immediately went to "feather boa" too, but all that means is that I'm light until I need to be heavy. It's a very Roger Gracie thing to do/be, I think. )

 

Did strength work after. I forgot to mention, I've progressed on my push ups too so now I'm doing "3/4 Push Ups" which is apparently what we normally call "Knee Push Ups." So, if Box Push Ups are done with knees under hips, 3/4 is when the knees are out and below. I was kind of surprised to find how hard they were when done with cadence.

 

In any event, I wound up being up late and when I thought about going to BJJ on Saturday I found myself feeling some reservations about it. Decided I needed to honor that and just slept in on Saturday, taking it to rest and do various chores about the house. Got rid of another box which was hecking gratifying as... heck. Found some spices that hadn't expired yet and a "mixer" that had gone missing from one of my shaker bottles which made me happy for some reason. Also a bottle of blackstrap molasses which is still good because that shit doesn't spoil for years, man.

 

Which brings us to today. Came out to a coffeehouse to do some writing with a friend who is not the Maine Friend but is another one who is finding her way back to writing. I thought that these Sundays might be a safe space for her to explore her work and redevelop some of her connections with the Maine Friend, which she wants to do. Maine Friend had a thing today so she couldn't join, but she said she'll be back next week, when this other friend will be working. Oh life.

 

I still plan to hit up BJJ tonight, though.

 

Random note: I've come across Collier Judo, which is apparently a sort of judo-centric mixed martial arts approach that reminds me very, very much of the old days with K-sensei. I'm... compelled, mostly because they seem to be taking people who have no grappling experience and turning them into very competent drillers in very short order and it appears to translate well into randori. I'd like to learn more, particularly as sparring was something that I struggled with a lot in judo, and it's an absence that I feel; I'd love an approach to judo that isn't tied to the sport aspect and concerns itself with effective practice rather than trying to avoid getting ippon'd.

 

I may have to see if I can find others who want to practice. Failing that, I may need to study on my own. But that's longer term stuff.

[Kishi]

Sunday down!

 

Sunday night I went out for BJJ. We had a new student on the mats which is always a good time. Naturally he chose to come the month we're working one of the more technically demanding guards, but he was able to keep up in drills. We later worked an X-guard transition from Back Mount. Spider Monkey was able to tap me with it in sparring. Meaning that we're back to even.  Man, I can't get ahead of that guy.

 

OTOH, I was able to sub the new guy, which sounds horrible but for context I've always been outspazzed or out-aggressed by newbies up to this point. This one was a spaz and I was able to get him on technique - we went up and down and up and down before I finally managed to do a takedown and manage a choke from down below. It feels like I'm still carrying some of that competition energy, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

 

I also tried to throw X-guard on the Blue Belt but couldn't manage it. Had a cue pointed out which helped, but as usual the devil's the details of manufacturing those circumstances. Oh well. I'm way ahead of where I was a year ago. That's really all I care about.

 

Anyway, it's a Q&D kind of night tonight after gaming. We'll see how it works out.

[Treva]

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

 

I also got my nickname - Boa, as in Boa Constrictor, because I'm heavy and once I'm in, I don't let go. I like it.

I love that you got your nickname!!  Yes!! Points!!  

 

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

I was kind of surprised to find how hard they were when done with cadence.

Dumb query: what is "done with cadence"?

 

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

Decided I needed to honor that and just slept in on Saturday, taking it to rest and do various chores about the house. Got rid of another box which was hecking gratifying as... heck. Found some spices that hadn't expired yet and a "mixer" that had gone missing from one of my shaker bottles which made me happy for some reason. Also a bottle of blackstrap molasses which is still good because that shit doesn't spoil for years, man.

This sounds like an amazing excavation.  Blackstrap molasses.  Dude.  What even does one do with that stuff, I ask.    Heres to finding the things you needed after you thought you lost them.

 

3 hours ago, Kishi said:

OTOH, I was able to sub the new guy, which sounds horrible but for context I've always been outspazzed or out-aggressed by newbies up to this point. This one was a spaz and I was able to get him on technique - we went up and down and up and down before I finally managed to do a takedown and manage a choke from down below. It feels like I'm still carrying some of that competition energy, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

YEE.  I only understood half this paragraph but I am glad you are doing the fighting progress that you wanted.  Excellent.  Great.  I'm glad you are finding new ways to grow.

[Kishi]

2 hours ago, Treva said:

I love that you got your nickname!!  Yes!! Points!!  

 

Yeah, it's crazy but I was actually kinda insecure about not having one beforehand. It doesn't matter; we gave them to each other but they don't signify anything.

 

2 hours ago, Treva said:

Dumb query: what is "done with cadence"?

 

Cadence refers to "lifting cadence," that is, the pace of a lift. A given lift can be broken down into 4 phases - beginning, concentric, end, eccentric. Beginning and end are fairly self-explanatory; concentric, then, is when a given muscle shortens, and eccentric is when a given muscle lengthens.

 

One variable that can be played with is the amount of time that you spend in each of these phases. It's not typical for it to be very long - I've seen about 1-4 seconds in general, although when you're doing a thing, those seconds can feel like forever! In the program I'm on now, the lifting cadence is a 1-2 second concentric, 1 second pause, and 1-3 second eccentric phase.

 

2 hours ago, Treva said:

This sounds like an amazing excavation.  Blackstrap molasses.  Dude.  What even does one do with that stuff, I ask.    Heres to finding the things you needed after you thought you lost them.

 

Hah, thanks.  If you live in the South, Molasses is something that you put on biscuits along with butter. It's very sweet, but it's also got kind of a mineral note to it as well; I've seen it recommended before as an ingredient in homemade post workout drinks. Since I want to use it up, I might start doing it on my rice at night, just to see how it fares. Or maybe on my rice and beans during the day? Mix that with tahini and maca or cacao nibs and see how many weird looks I can get.

 

2 hours ago, Treva said:

YEE.  I only understood half this paragraph but I am glad you are doing the fighting progress that you wanted.  Excellent.  Great.  I'm glad you are finding new ways to grow.

 

Thanks! Yeah.

 

So, to give you an idea, most BJJ is done from the ground, ie from a kneeling "base" position. You can transition to "standing" and back down to "base" again - or being up and down. That was what happened in this round; my opponent would spaz and try to get to standing; I'd follow him and then he'd try to do judo to get me back down to the ground with him in a position of advantage.

 

We eventually got to a point where he was "in my guard," which is a general position where I was on the bottom with my legs wrapped around his hips. He was trying to fight out but he didn't really know what he was doing beyond freaking out every time I got a grip. Since we were wearing gi, I was able to reach up from where I was and get a deep grip to set up a cross collar choke. He couldn't shake my grip and I was able to get the other part of his collar and cinch the whole thing down. He didn't last.

 

Anyway, I'm not sure if that clarifies anything or not, but I hope it does! I hope that dude comes back. He's young and has a dance background, which means wide movement vocabulary; I reckon he'd get pretty good pretty fast if he set himself to it.