What Shark Girl Would Do. . . to Not Miss Class

I don't know about you, but skipping class freaks me out. Here is why:

My friends and partners, whose Jiu jitsu I want to encourage and foster, whom I care about as human beings, whom I love dearly and spar with only to improve their Jiu jitsu and NEVER for any egotistical reasons (I am much more Zen than that), if I miss a class, those wonderful people will totally get a leg up on me with some new move or extra practice. Then they will wreck me mercilessly the next time I am on the mat.

I also hate missing class because mat sense is real. I have been sidelined by inuries, keeping me off the mat for months. When I came back, it felt like that blue mat was water and I was floundering to stay afloat. It takes a while to get used to the mat after an absence. Like walkng on land after being at sea. Any time I miss mat time, I worry that my mat sense will diminish.

 Here is a Short List of things I have done instead of missing class:

Skip Eating

I love food, just not when it is within an hour of Jiu jitsu class. Dinner will have to wait until I come back. Speaking of food . . .

Not Feed My Children Dinner

Look, there is cereal in the pantry, and they are old enough to understand the beauty and ease of ramen noodles. I am confident their instincts will kick in and they will not become some Darwinian statistic. In the meantime, I got me some learnin’ to do.

Laundry On the Off Day

SG has so much laundry. Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus rolling that big rock up a hill. Instead my rock is a laundry basket, the hill is the basement stairs, and when it all rolls back down it goes through a laundry chute that wouldn't exist anymore if I had my house renovated because it is against fire code and no self respecting contractor who wants to keep his license is keeping that shit around.

     But no matter how much laundry I have done, no matter how tired I am of my basement corner with the dryer sheets and the Arm and Hammer and the big bins of sorted, sweaty, elementary-school–boy laundry, I will get my ass downstairs and make sure I have clean Jiu jitsu gear for my classes. Period. My son doesn't need clean underwear or socks, really. Half the time he wears them for days straight of his own preference. But I need a clean gi.

Take Maximum Ibuprofen.

Whether I feel a migraine coming on, or my muscles are sore from running, it doesn't matter. I will pop this wonder drug like candy if It means being able to make it through jujitsu class.  

Take Other Pharmaceuticals

 . . . especially those quelling any gas that might erupt, embarrassing myself and my classmates. Yes I am saying that sometimes (maybe very often) I take a Gas-X about a half hour before class, what's it to ya’? Actually you should all be thanking me. I do it out of consideration for my classmates. 

Show Up Places in My Gi

Yes, I have appeared at school events in full gi in front of parents and students because I didn't have time to change after class. I have gone to the grocery store flaunting patches and a belt. I know my schedule is tight, but that doesn't mean I should have to sacrifice choking someone I care about.

 

Looks like I will have to wait until 2018 to be friends with Jason. 😢

And finally,

Fight With Husband

I don't care what he has scheduled, Jiu jitsu is sacred time. He best not get in the way! (I’m pretty sure I can take him!)

The Berimbolo Kid

I recently visited another school’s Open Mat. I had a fine time training with some women, something I don’t get to do very often. It is always easier to approach the women at a new school, so I do that first, if I can. After a few rounds with the ladies, it was approach someone new or sit it out. I looked around for someone who might be willing to train with my petite ass. I spied a guy, not too much bigger than me, but muscular and compact. He was sweating from a previous roll and wearing a white belt, one stripe.

     Perfect. I thought. Not too big—if he goes nuts I can handle him. A little tired, so he may have gotten some aggression out. I went up and asked him to dance.

     “Sure,” he said. We tapped hands and jockeyed for position.

     As always, when I roll with someone new, I try to respond to what they give me to get a sense of whether they are skilled and restrained or some crazy knee twister. With guys, I am always aware of the ego. In some men, ego can trigger EIIB—erratic, injury-inducing behavior . . . aka spazzing out. I’ve had my share of spazzing–out injuries and I really don’t need another. 

     This guy seemed to know a few things and was not too wacky. Between the initial grip fighting, I started small talk. I find small talk helps disarm tension that could lead to, you know, EIIB. I learned that this guy was about a year into Jiu jitsu.

We grip fought for a while, and then swept me. I countered, reguarding. He opened my guard, passed it, and pushed forward, hard. I hip escaped and reguarded, pulling him down. We went like that for while, and then he went for something . . . hard. When he didn’t get it, he shook his head.

     “Are you working on something?” I asked, figuring he was practicing some move on me. 

“Ahh, yeah. The berimbolo. I just can’t seem to get it.”

     “Oh, I see.” I reguarded . . . both physically and mentally. My mental reguard was something like: Hmmm . . . one-stripe white belt can’t seem to get the berimbolo down. I better watch out for this one or I’m the next YouTube video casualty.

    He lunged at me and arm–dragged me, looking for a Kimura. I wriggled out and snuck to his back. 

     “Kimura, ey?”

“Yep.”

“You want to try it again?”

“Nah.” 

“Kay.”

I moved toward a sweep myself, spidering my right foot on the crook of his left arm. My foot fell through and he clamped down. He’s going for a footlock. I play so much open guard I can see that a mile away. I punched my foot through to the other side of his armpit. He grabbed at my ankle but it was too late, I was already through.

I noticed his hand was swollen. It looked like a latex glove after someone blows air into it.

“What’s that?” I asked. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, my hand is screwed up.”

“Too much grip fighting?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll stay away from it.”

“Nah, you don’t have to. It’s all right.”

“Maybe, but I’ll stay away. Injuries suck. Both my knees have had ‘em.”

“Oh, your knees?”

“Yep.”

“So I’ll stay away from the heel hooks then.”

“Hahaha!” I laughed, but he wasn’t laughing with me. Was he serious? “Wait . . .  were you trying to heel hook me?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, NO heel hooks, please.”

“OK. Glad you said something.”

“Me, too.” 

I finished up the roll as soon politely possible (there were no timers) and moved on.

Age is Catching Up With Shark Girl!

I am feeling old. It’s not my high cholesterol or failing eyesight. It’s not my kidneyberg and all that’s put me through. It’s not that even now, two years after my LCL tear, every once in a while my knee tweaks and I have to take a break from jiu jitsu. It’s not the milestone birthday—45—precipitously approaching. It’s not even my training partner at the gym calling me “Old Bag.” Nope. None of those things. Dear Reader, what has pushed me over the edge of realization this past six months is . . . fat knees.

 

Why don't mine look this cute?

Yes, you read right. Shark Girl has fat knees. Not phat knees. That would be okay, welcome, actually. No, fat-with-an-eff knees.

This is where you all go, “Shark Girl. You are crazy. I’ve seen your profile pic and you are about as fat as Meghan Trainor is ‘All About That Bass.’”

At least she's got all the right junk in all the right places!

If you look at me—or my profile pic—it is hard to miss that I am small. Tiny. Minuscule, really. So tiny that third graders feel compelled to comment on my stature.

“Your mom is really small!” A friend of my 8-Year-Old Son commented to him. Great. I thought that when I left elementary school I would stop getting picked on by elementary school children. Apparently that was not in the cards for me.

But however small I may be, the other day when I was in downward dog, I noticed some skin draping gently down from my thigh and cascading over my kneecap. It was like my knee had a muffin top. I touched it. It was jiggly. It felt like whale blubber. I lifted it up. It fell back down. What the fuck! 

I’ve always had meaty thighs. It’s part of the Mediterranean childbearing curse. But my thighs are strong and muscular and nothing has ever drooped on them before. Now, apparently, they have mud flaps.

“Honey,” I lamented to Husband.

“What is it now?” He replied.

<sigh> “I’ve got fat knees.”

“No, you don’t”

“Yes I do.”

“Show me.”

“Here.” And I pointed to my little puffs of flesh.

“Hmmmpff,” he commented, putting on his reading glasses to get a better look.

“See?”

“That’s nothing,” he replied, putting his glasses away.

“And look at this cellulite!” I added, because clearly he wasn’t giving me the reaction I wanted. (Does he know better, or has he learned from experience?)

“Honey, that’s always been there.” (Nope. Nothing learned from 18 years together.)

“Well, what the hell am I going to do about my fat knees?”

I don’t think there is anything non-surgical I can do about my fat knees, and that is why I feel old. I am not fat. I am not out of shape. I am old. My skin is stretching and sagging and forming new shapes. I am not sure what this means for my bikini bod, but it can’t be good news. Thankfully, gis cover the knees.

Summer . . . Interrupted

Well, I’ve been away from Jiu Jitsu for about a week. That makes me mad. Mad, I say. Mad with Hulk-like rage and anger.

 

Things were going well. Too well, if you know what I mean. My physical therapist had graduated me from my knee instability sessions, which were starting to bore me anyway. Their only saving grace was that the therapist watched The Food Network. Shark Girl, who lives without the magic of cable television, could drool over Ina Garten’s latest food fetish, or wonder why Rachael Ray didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as she had in years past. Was it Botox keeping her from emoting over that swish of EVOO?

I had started my summer regimen of running, too. The miles were creeping up every week, and by golly, my middle-aged belly was starting to show signs of a kind of 6-pack, albeit one with some plushy insulating material around it, just to keep it cold.

And then it hit me: an elbow. Right at the back of the head. With a loud thwack. No pain. No spinning, just, well, weirdness.

I sat up to see the couple-next-door looking at me concernedly.

“Are you okay?”

“What happened?” Shark Girl asked.

“We rolled into you. Sorry!”

“Oh. I think so. I think I’m okay,” Shark Girl responded tentatively. “I’m not hurt. I’m not spinning. But something doesn’t feel right.”

Shark Girl went home.

“That’s it,” I said to Husband. “I’m done. I can’t do BJJ anymore.”

“No you’re not,” said Husband.

“Yes, I am. The universe is trying to tell me something. I can’t be doing this. I’m a freaking middle-aged woman with kids. I’m killing myself. Probably giving myself brain damage. I was fine and healthy before I started BJJ. Now it’s always something. It’s either a sprained finger, or an unexplained rash, or a storm of kidney stones, most likely jostled loose from some damn mat throw. Now I’ve gotten a concussion, probably. This is ridiculous. I’m too old for this. I should take up tai chi. I’m going to take up tai chi.”

“No, you’re not,” replied Husband, gently.

“Yes, I am. . . . Why not?”

“Because. You’d be bored.”

He’s right. That’s the problem. I’d be bored to death. I would die right in the middle of one of those graceful, peaceful, arcs of the arm. On the spot. Dead. Dead of boredom.

Which one will Shark Girl be?

But, what the fuck? A week after that fateful elbow thwack, here I am, feeling much more like myself, but experiencing strange head and neck twinges. Certain pitches rattle my left eardrum painfully and I have to keep yelling at my kids to stop yelling, even though they are using their indoor yelling voices, which wouldn’t usually faze me since I have pretty much given up on parenting.

Last week Husband forced me to see the doctor. “It will ease your mind,” he said.

After relaying some epic tale of his father having a strange household head injury that left him foaming at the mouth, the doctor proclaimed I had a “boo boo.” Yes, a “boo boo,” like I was a three-year old who skinned her knee on the playscape.

There is nothing that pisses me off more than interrupted training. I’m not good at taking time off. I’m even less good at relaxing. Why does this always happen to fucking Shark Girl? Why can’t tai chi be more interesting? Oh, well, I guess some mysteries will never be explained. And that’s why Shark Girl is so mad!!!

Spring . . . Backwards?

Dear Readers,

I was going to write this post as a glorious triumph, one of those rare BJJ moments that we work for and dream of. But it seems there is never triumph without setback.

            I was going to write about a beautiful roll I had that confirmed my progress, progress long in the making and progress I doubted I could ever achieve. But then I rolled back to a place I hoped I would never find myself in again, in fact the old aphorism of “two steps back” is more appropriate.

            I wanted to write about how for the first time, I floated outside my body as I rolled and I watched myself and my partner, and I calculated my move. How I trapped him in my guard and eyed his left arm for my Kimura. How when I put my hand on his wrist he pulled back. He was much stronger than I was. I was never going to get that Kimura. But I went for it anyway, knowing it gave me the chance to move my hands to his unprotected neck while he dealt with my threat. I went for his neck, never hoping even to get this choke.

            “When he moves to protect his neck, I’ll try for the Kimura again, and then when he hides his arm by grabbing his pants like he did last time, he will expose his neck. That’s when I will make my move.”

            Well, that’s what happened, and that’s what I did. I successfully set up a decoy and a real attack. I saw all of this from afar, I thought faster than I was rolling. If you are steps ahead of someone, your setup can work. I had never done this before. I know . . . I’m a slow learner.

            That’s what I wanted to write about for you today. But it seems that the Jiu Jitsu Fates have other plans for me, because I find myself back where I was last year, and two years before that, with a knee injured I-don’t-know-how and the Kidneyberg making a feverish comeback. Yes, now, when I can see success and progress more than ever, when I want it more than ever.

Sigh. Bring on the Ben & Jerry's!

NYSFC is my favorite!!!

Tonight Rocked!

It’s not that I was a crazy submission machine. Not even close. It’s not that I got every move right, or showed technical chops that would make German engineers proud. No, it was none of those things at all. But tonight’s class rocked.

For the first time since my injury six months ago, Shark Girl felt back. I rolled round after round, not worrying about submissions, just working my game. Trying to weasel out of stuff, trying to put my opponent in a bad position, and just maneuvering from where I was. It felt great. I felt–dare I say it?–almost back to my old Shark ways. At the end of the night, I collapsed on the mat. flail-armed and exhausted, sporting loose and limber joints that allowed me to do back flips in celebration of an evening well spent.

Gratuitous cute cat photo

In the three months I have been back to training, I have had doubts. Maybe my time is up. Maybe I can’t go any further in my practice. Maybe this jiu jitsu thing has run its course.

Returning to the mat has been like meeting an old friend that I used to know really well, like in college, but we have drifted apart. There’s not much to say except to reminisce about how things used to be. Then we say goodbye and I get a Christmas card to remind me that Friend was once an important part of my life, and look how her children have grown! It always works the same with me and those friends—it’s hard for me to live in the past, and I’m not really good at maintaining friendships. I have admitted that many of my old friendships are things of the past.

But tonight. I belonged on that mat tonight. Tonight I was creating new memories and having new experiences and jiu jitsu was a vital, necessary part of my life. Just the way I like it. I suppose it can stick around for a while. We’ve got a lot to talk about, the two of us.

Of course, I am still vigilant about my injured limb. I probably will be for a long time.

It's Finally Over!

School, that is. Writing and grading final exams and projects, attending end-of-the-year events for my kids . . . all these things have taken Shark Girl away from you, Dear Readers, and I am not happy about that. Today I am finally free. School is out. Hooray!

And in this freedom, Shark Girl has finally posted all of the pictures and measurements for my gi review, so please check them out here if you are interested.

But I have a confession to make. I can hide behind my professional and parental responsibilities only so much. There has been something else consuming my time, inching in on precious BJJ territory, slithering into the corners of my life. I am about to go very off-topic, so if you are reading this blog purely for jiu jitsu technique (and I wonder why you would be, since I have never written about one technique in all my years of blogging), it's time to stop reading and go somewhere else.

I hinted at this previously, but when I returned from the land of espresso, I decided I wanted to upgrade my at-home caffeine-making abilities. I have spent hours and hours pouring over the fora at coffeegeek.com (great folks over there, by the way), deciding on the perfect new machine for me, and learning proper foaming and extracting technique. I have a long way to go, but here’s some food porn for you:

Please feel free to give helpful advice on technique!

I know that I should have been poring over YouTube grappling videos in my recovery period, but instead I have been focusing on barista videos. *sigh* Maybe this is why my return to the mat has been rather stunted. I am glad to report that I am back up to full speed. The sad news is that while I learn to protect my healed injury, I feel a little awkward and spazzy on the mats. Hopefully this too shall pass. Or perhaps it’s all that espresso I’m drinking.

The Official Watcher

In a span of seven years my mother had four children, and I was the last, trailing several years after the penultimate one. I grew up when good, suburban mothers stayed home and talked on the phone all day while their children whiled away summer hours in backyards filled with neighborhood kids making up games, getting in trouble, and resolving conflicts until we were all called in for dinnertime soon before our fathers would come home from work.

     Not only was Little Shark Girl the youngest of her own brood, but she was also the littlest kid on the block. It goes without saying that I wasn’t picked last for the neighborhood games. I wasn’t picked at all. There was always one less spot on the makeshift baseball team, not enough tokens for the board game.

Like any good little sister, I learned how to do two things when slighted: scratch really hard, and tell my mother. I reserved my scratching for the inevitable fist fights—at that time my only defense against larger, stronger opponents and my training ground for a martial arts practice that would not come for another thirty-four years. But when I was left out, I would go inside and complain to my mom, who in turn slid open the door to the patio and shouted out to my oldest brother, “Can’t you let your sister play?”

No one wanted the runt on their team. Plus, both teams had like-aged and –skilled pairs. Not only would I suck at baseball, but I would throw off the balance. After arguing with my mom about this for some time, Oldest Brother got wise. He told me I could be the Official Watcher. To a six-year old, this seemed like it could lead somewhere. But soon enough, Little Shark Girl realized that she was sitting on the sidelines, ignored, while all the other kids were participating and having fun.

Even still, I stayed there, watching. Why? I suppose that forcing other kids to play with you isn’t fun at all. But leaving to do something else, well, what I really wanted to do was be there, hanging out with all the other kids. I didn’t want to miss the jokes, the laughter, the fights, the camaraderie. I wanted desperately to be a part of that group, even though I couldn’t be.

It’s been two months since my injury. Although I can’t do jiu jitsu for another month at least, I go to class every so often to watch and keep my head in the game. The first time I visited, tears sprung up. I wanted to “play” so badly. It was hard to be there. 

When I observe class, I don’t wear my gi. I know if I do, I’ll get sucked in. So, I have become the class’s Official Watcher. And I feel just like I did when I was six: too emotionally drawn to the activity to leave, and heartbroken when I stay.

Women in Jiu Jitsu

There have been some really good blog discussions lately about whether women should be in jiu jitsu. I’ll admit that I have been paying attention half-heartedly. I feel a bit guilty about it, like I should be putting in my own two cents. But I’ve got my own drama playing out in Shark Land.

 I’ve hinted in my past few posts of a mysterious injury. Nothing to elaborate on, I thought, so I didn’t. Well, it’s been a month and The Injury, perhaps looking for greater billing on my blog, not used to taking a back seat to vacations and margaritas, has started to make some noise.

            I’m not quite ready to describe the incident yet, but I am ready to describe my feelings and my fears.

The Injury was partly my fault and partly my partner’s. When it seemed like The Injury would be minor, I chalked it up to training. But weeks later, as it grows worse and not better, as I wait for results of X-rays and MRIs, as Husband says, “I hate to say it, Honey, but this could be the end of jiu jitsu for you,” as RICE and ibuprofen do nothing but alleviate discomfort for a short while, as all of my cross-training exercises fall off the list of things it seems my body can handle, I have to face that surgery and an extended jiu jitsu hiatus are on the table for me, even if I try to be optimistic.

With every passing day, the chance that my orthopedic surgeon will say, “Just a sprain, just a sprain,” gets smaller and smaller. And this is where it gets complicated. I am starting to resent my partner. Even though it was partially my fault, even though there was no harm intended.

            I fear Husband is right, or that if he is wrong, my jiu jitsu game will be drastically changed, or I will be so changed in my practice that it will no longer be satisfying to me.

            So, should women be in jiu jitsu? Right now that seems like a silly question. My feeling is that this woman, me, should be in jiu jitsu right now. But I can’t.