Sitting here today, I feel a little nodule of soreness at the top of my left ear. My jawline line is a bit tender. Both shoulders are achy but no worse for wear. The right wrist is a little raw from Big Dave wrapping the wrist with my belt and mimicking a garrote. A rib on my left side is sore from his knee a couple weeks ago. My abdominal muscles are gnarled up from excessive crunches and leg lifts from the Joelbow-led exercises. My right knee still hurts and is clicky from a fall over a month ago. And I'm having fun. Such is life at the dojo.
As noted, Joelbow led an exercise session that left everyone gasping. Lots more push-ups than I expected from someone with a bum shoulder. Joelbow and I were paired to train together for the night. We worked on the yellow belt chart and worked our way through 75% of it before newaza began. Joelbow's shoulder is still not right so we worked at half-strength. It was interesting to do the yellow belt techniques again as they seemed far less complex after so much time spent on the blue charts.
I got in plenty of newaza with mixed results. The good news was that I never felt gassed. Or maybe that means I didn't push myself enough.
- Sempai Steve: As always, this is a losing proposition. I don't have an advantage in any area. Size? No. Strength? No. Agility? No. Skills? No. Experience? No. I feel like one of those teams UConn plays early in the season to break a sweat and get a W in the Win column. You know, South Appalachian State or the like. Sempai Steve always finds a bunch of submissions on me and lets them pass. He usually finishes me with something I try on him. It's sort of his lesson on how it should be done.
- Osoto Gary: We had a good roll until I banged my heel into his face on a Mount/Juji Gatame attempt. He's been sending me coloration details by e-mail to remind me of my carelessness.
- Special Ed: He's WAY better than he was. Fights much tougher and won't tap to a mean look. He needs to keep a better base as he's still easily knocked over but he's far more game than he was.
- Lawyer Steve: He's not big but smart and very strong. He tends to give 110% of that strength in the first few minutes. Waiting it out until his gas tank drains is the easiest route. He has the potential to be a killer when his techniques catch up to his willingness to fight.
- Big Dave: He seems bigger than ever. I survived despite being either buried under his 300 pounds or being literally flung across the dojo. Each roll is death defying and only made survivable due to his reasonable temperament.
