This morning I went down to get my gi from the laundry rack. And I had a bit of a scare seeing my purple belt hanging up there. “Oh, no, I’ve gotta put that in my bag!… …. wait a minute…” On the one hand, a very large weight has been lifted. I’m no longer wondering what else I have to do to be promoted. I’m no longer tracking if the instructor is watching everything I do. I’m no longer critiquing every little movement as to whether it’s “purple belt level” (let alone brown belt level, goodness) or not; everything feels like a nice brown haze, lol. Even when the biggun’ white belt tossed me aro ..read more

This morning at class, I was promoted to brown belt. Just last week was my 13th anniversary of starting BJJ. 1.5 years at white, 5 years at blue, and 6.5ish (minus 1 month) at purple. My Green Gi belt has been through a lot and will finally get a rest: I have been meaning to post recently, and I guess this is a good enough reason. I might have more thoughts later; I’m still in “wait, what?” mode ..read more

Forgetting to update, that is. The holidays have chopped up my training times (e.g., I took the last 2 weeks completely off), but I’m still intending to train at 2 classes each on MWF. Somehow in those 2 weeks of not training, though, I managed to hurt myself? I thought resting was supposed to make things better, not worse. My left hip/leg seems to lock up after I’ve been sitting for a while. Now that I’m back to class, it warms up quickly and rolls fine and doesn’t do it there, though the leg does feel a bit weaker, perhaps. A new lady starting training before the holidays. As I was showing h ..read more

New guy in class this morning. Tim had me roll with him for his first round. I caught a choke. He tapped and looked around a bit wide-eyed. “I suddenly couldn’t breathe!” Yes, dear, that’s how chokes work. There was another new guy a couple weeks ago. Same choke, only he didn’t tap, so I just held it and waited and tightened it a little bit. Tim suddenly came over and said, “Do you know how to tap?” Kid shook his head. Oops! I released and then we taught him about tapping. On the injury front, I got dropped on my head one night. I’d locked on to a guy’s turtle and was trying to take his back ..read more

I am glad that — because my company is still working from home (some folks are still completely bunkered in their houses) — I’ve been able to train in the mornings. Besides Tim, none of the instructors and only some sporadic blues can come in the mornings right now, which means if Tim can’t be there, I’ve been able to step in and teach so we at least have class. I’ve now taught a total of 10 times in the last 3 months. I feel completely inadequate each time. And also a bit annoyed at myself for feeling that way, because I’ve been training a long time and so I ought to know how to teach some th ..read more

I have ended up teaching a couple more mornings (including today). I’m getting better at remembering the warm-up, at least. Though, I might already be scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of what I am actually capable of teaching at jiu-jitsu. What do I do when I roll? Er, whatever seems logical at the time…? And because most of the morning class is white belts, I have to make sure I can articulate it in a way that they can replicate. Speak English? This early in the morning? Okay, guys, so you use your … knee? no… …elbow! This is your elbow. I also finally made a playlist for the mornin ..read more

Our academy sits in a great location — a few blocks from downtown, right on the corner of Main Street and another major road, on the first-floor corner of the building. There are two sides of windows for all the car and foot traffic to see in, letting the classes themselves advertise the classes. On the other hand, we’re on the west end of the building, so the sun blasts through those all windows in the evening. Everyone tries to avoid that front corner (and the whole front half toward the end of class) because it’s hotter and the sun is in your eyes. For years we have hinted to Tim that he sh ..read more

Because I’m still working from home — and because I’m soft & out of shape (& a masochist) — I decided to start going to morning classes this week as well as evening classes on MWF. When I have to head to the office, there’s all the logistics of packing and hauling everything as well, and it’s inconvenient. But now, I can get back home, shower, and be at my computer by 9; grab lunch from the fridge; and grab gear & head out again at night. I figure I can at least get myself in better shape while I have the opportunity. Mornings are mostly white belt dudes right now. Some warmup, lot ..read more

Our academy opened back up this week. Oh, how I’ve missed these mats! I did absolutely nothing BJJ or exercise related while the academy was closed. I tried the first week to at least walk on the treadmill every day, but that quickly fell off. My job sent us home and I’ve been working from there for months. I did a bunch of gardening and painting and other house stuff. But I didn’t even look at all the BJJ resources being offered or read anything or watch anything. I only saw a few reddit posts with titles like “My gym opened today, and I tore my ACL” and “My gym opened today, and I broke my h ..read more

…apparently not write a blog post. What I have done instead is painted the walls (as high as I can reach with my little ladder, sigh, vaulted ceilings. Also 2,833,293 miles of trim -.-), painted furniture, fermented all the things (carrots, zomg. And ginger beer!), started baking sourdough bread (before I knew it was an internet trend), cut down the bushes I’ve hated since I moved in, and put in a garden (and most isn’t dead yet). My job can be done completely remote, and I find I much prefer it that way, no surprise; I am quite happy not seeing most people. Also somewhere in there, I hit anot ..read more