Chess Hot

I’m going to give it to you straight. I’m not unattractive. But I’m not a looker, either. Most of the time, I walk through life unencumbered by the burdens of the beautiful—no one tries to pinch my buttocks, there are no demands for phone numbers, no jaws drop or heads turn when I walk in a room. I’m in my 40s now, but it’s been this way my whole life. I’m quite comfortable with being average looking, at most, kind-of cute.

However . . . put me in a chess tournament and suddenly Shark Girl is hot.

Oldest Son plays competitive chess, so I find myself in chess contexts a fair amount. At the last tournament, I was “hit on” more times than in the entire previous ten years of my life combined. “Hit on” in a chess context encompasses a broad spectrum of weird compliments, strange confessions, and awkward put-downs of my absent husband.

Apparently in chess circles, Shark Girl is smoldering.

Perhaps it’s because I come from good chess stock, and these guys think I will breed good chess babies. (I do, by the way . . . both my boys got trophies today!) At one tournament, a chess enthusiast hovered around the edges of my personal space, complimenting my son’s prowess until he found out he knew my brother and nephew who are both high profile chess players. Then, he went in for the kill. Chess Enthusiast entertained my restless children, mercilessly showing me how “good he was with kids.” He bragged of expensive chess accoutrements, and even let my clumsy son play with them, feigning not to be really angry when Son spilled a drink all over the high-end wood. He questioned where Husband was and commented that he, Chess Enthusiast, would never leave a woman of my caliber’s side (presumably until his chess match was called).

I’ve had someone tell me, “Hey, I was looking at you from behind and I thought you were a teenager! You’ve got quite nice hindquarters for a woman of your age!” Let’s not get into why he was checking out teen-aged behinds.

Yes, I am what you call “chess hot,” meaning that most of the male populace passes me by without notice, but for some reason, chess nerds find me irresistible. Is there something about my jiu jitsu physique that drives them wild? Do I have some heady BJJ pheromone exuding from my pores, alerting all nerd-type men in a hotel-lobby radius that “I play chess, baby, but horizontally”?

I guess I’ve got to take what my average-perhaps-cute-and-aging person can get. So today as I prepared to take my sons to another chess tournament, I pulled on my best Land’s End sweatpants and a ratty fleece pullover, threw my shoulders back and strutted into the lobby prepared to lean over the skittles table like some super-sexy chess diva. Take that, soccer moms!

Shark Girl Is Sad

sniff sniff . . .

Or am I just . . .

 

jealous?     feeling sorry for myself?

over competitive?     overworked?

                all of the above?

I’m a busy gal. You know, mom-of-two, spouse and full-time teacher. And I run three times a week and do BJJ three times a week.

Lately, some younger, spryer folks who started around the same time as me have been going to class more often. And getting better. Than me. You can see why I’m upset, right? Oh, I mean sad. Jealous? All of the above?

I know I’m supposed to concern myself only with “my own progress,” not “compare myself to others,” leave “my ego off the mat,” blah, blah, blah.

Let’s get real. I’m competitive and have high standards for myself. I work hard. I try to cut myself some slack and learn at my own pace. But when my ass gets handed to me by some young teether whom I previously trounced (okay, maybe stalemated), well, I’m not too thrilled. Intellectually I know they don’t have the pressures and commitment of spouses and children. They don’t have the same weight of years on old bones. But I don’t feel this inadequacy in my head. I feel it in those old bones.

Don't let the cute face fool you. He's a killer.

I have mixed feelings about this.

Part of me says, “Chill out, Shark Girl. You’re a forty-two year old lady doing righteous jiu jitsu. You should just be happy you can drag your AARP-solicitation-receiving ass on the mat.” But another part of me wants to embrace that unsatisfied part of me. Isn’t it those very “fighting” feelings that got me on the mat in the first place, the lone girl confronting men much larger in hand-to-hand combat (really, who does that?), convinced that I could have a shot at winning? If I “chilled out,” I would have been long gone after the first lesson.

In the end, I suppose I need to strive for that balance between competitiveness and reality, jealousy and satisfaction, hard work and rest. I need to find the happy medium that will keep me on the mat and striving to improve without feeling overwhelmed. It’s sort of like what I try to do everyday in my roles as mother and teacher. Jiu jitsu is so much like real life, isn’t it?

Cute, Cute

“Ooh! That’s cute! Try it on!” said Sister of Shark Girl when she saw me take it out of the package. It was my new Tatami gi, and she was right—it was cute. Despite the splatter of patches that I swore I would never wear, despite that mat blue is not my favorite gi color, it was cute.

            “You have to try it on. Now!” Sister of Shark Girl ordered.

            Shark Girl slipped it on over her shorts and tank and Sister of Shark Girl confirmed, “Yep. Cute. You have to look at yourself in the mirror. Go upstairs and look at yourself in the mirror.”

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Sister of Shark Girl is a few years older and in the habit of ordering Shark Girl around. Shark Girl usually does what she says without complaint or hesitance. Years of conditioning, and let’s face it: she’s usually right.

Shark Girl went upstairs and looked at herself in the mirror. “Oh my God! It is cute! I can’t wait to wear it!”

So this fall, Shark Girl will sport a new gi. Stay tuned for the review, but for now, you should know that it’s dang cute.

 

Many thanks to Martial Art Supplies for this opportunity to be so fetching while fighting.

It's Hard Being Anonymous

Here I am in NYC--surrounded by BJJ clubs. And no one will have me.

It's not that I haven't tried. I've e-mailed and re-emailed and forwarded e-mails. Some people haven't responded. Some have said, "Yes, you are welcome. Ask So-and-So for more info." And So-and-So hasn't responded. Then some have said, "No, unfortunately, unless you are a member or a member of an affiliate or a guest of a member, or you want to shell out huge money for a private, essentially you are not welcome."

Oh, how I long to wield the power of Shark Girl:
     "Yes, hello, I am Shark Girl. Perhaps you have heard of me or read my wildly successful blog? No? Oh . . . um . . . well . . . ahem. Let me start over. I write a blog and would like to visit your program. Afterward I will probably write about my experience on said blog, thereby giving you lots of free publicity as the cool, welcoming BJJ school you most surely are."

Who would refuse? But I can't do that because then I have to sign that waiver. You know, the one that says if someone kills me, the school isn't responsible. And I have to sign it with my real name. Believe me, I've thought about just putting down "Shark Girl," but something feels illegal about that. And when I say I am just some female blue belt visiting the city, the open arms, well, they are folded.

So instead, I am sitting alone at a restaurant because I turned down invitations to B'way plays in the hopes that someone, anyone, would respond to my BJJ query and let Shark Girl kick some tail (or get her tail kicked) and add to the bruise collection on my legs which is already raising eyebrows at my staid classics professionals conference. "Oh, dear, Muffy! Could it be? Don't tell me that poor woman is anemic!"

Anyway, it's restaurant week and instead of writing a review of that BJJ school, I'll write a review of the restaurant where I am eating. Stay tuned, New Yorkers, you know who you are.

Oh, and BJJ schools, you should really learn to be more open.

Girl On Top

Okay, I admit it. Husband made me use this title. But it’s true: I have been getting on top a lot more lately. If only I knew what to do once I got there.

You see, for the past 18 months, Shark Girl has been a bottom dweller. I started as the only female in my club. I have been routinely crushed and pancaked, flattened and steamrolled. 

I have been muscled and maneuvered, manipulated and manhandled. 

And now, a year and a half later, I feel pretty comfortable on my back, thank you very much. My legs wrap and wriggle with ease and my body twists in the correct angles to prevent an attack and facilitate an escape.

But put me on top . . . and I’m a newbie all over again.

Take this recent roll, which is indicative of many. In it, a new teacher-type rolls with me to assess my abilities.

• Teacher Type lets Shark Girl (SG) get on top.
• Shark Girl sits there and waits. Isn’t he going to do anything? How can I defend if he doesn’t do anything? SG thinks to herself.
• Shark Girl realizes Teacher Type wants her to attack.
• Shark Girl looks down at Teacher Type, catches a flailing arm, and then pauses . . . Now what am I supposed to do with this? I know there’s an armbar here somewhere! Do I have to get this from side or swing my leg over? Why can’t I just choke him? Oh, crap! I wish he’d sweep me already so I can get back on my back!

•  After many awkwardly embarrassing moments of Shark Girl pressing herself against Teacher Type to hold him down and stare at him, SG confesses that she has no idea what to do.

• Teacher Type laughs and comments that Shark Girl’s teammates must beat the crap out of her.
• Teacher Type mercy-sweeps Shark Girl
• Shark Girl springs into action.
• Teacher Type says, “Wow—now you are in your comfort zone!”
• Shark Girl pulls a rad sweep and winds up on top . . .

 Recently, probably due to the influx of like-sized women, I’ve started to catch some of these sweeps and get myself on top. Queen of the hill, if you will. Sounds great, right? But it’s a totally new experience for Shark Girl and I feel more like a flounder.

The Adventures of Shark Girl in Jiu Jitsu Land

Sometimes You Get What You Need

In a commentary on the rush of superhero movies that have flooded our theaters in recent years, this excerpt from Manohla Dargis caught my eye (You can read the full article here):

I like some comic-book movies very much, dislike others. But as a film lover I am frustrated by how the current system of flooding theaters with the same handful of titles limits my choices. . . . The success of these movies also shores up a false market rationale that’s used to justify blockbusters in general: that is, these movies make money, therefore people like them; people like them, therefore these movies are made.

So, in effect, movie studios pour huge money into these films, market and merchandise the hell out of them to recoup their budgets, and when they are successful, they use that as proof that they are giving people what they want. And perhaps they are. But, let’s face it, a lot of what they are putting out is just the same old story with a different costume and different effects. We might prefer something else, but the studios won’t chance losing their cash on a “maybe.” They stick with tried and true and we go to the trough.

Anyway, Dargis got me thinking, “Do we get what we want or want what we get?” Are people asking for these movies and getting them, or are they being fed to us and we are just playing along? And then I read this last piece:

The movie industry . . . persists in recycling maddeningly troglodytic representations of women that its embrace of superheroes has only perpetuated and maybe exacerbated. For all the technological innovations . . . superhero movies just recycle variations on gender stereotypes that were in circulation back in the late 1930s, when Superman and Batman first hit. The world has moved on—there’s an African-American man in the Oval Office, a woman is the secretary of state—but the movie superhero remains stuck in a pre-feminist, pre-civil rights logic that dictates that a bunch of white dudes, as in “The Avengers,” will save the world for the grateful multiracial, multicultural multitudes.

And that’s when I thought about jiu jitsu. Some of you may remember that last year on vacation I called a gym to visit a class and was told by the Gym Leader that I wasn’t welcome because, “well . . . women aren't really interested in jiu jitsu.” 

DBGL?

That man, I’ll call him Douche Bag Gym Leader (DBGL for short), DBGL was asking me to want what he was giving me rather than giving me what I wanted. He wouldn’t even let me be the super sex-symbol chick on the sidelines (which you know I would be). No, he gave me the 1930s “let-me-tell-you-what-you-want, little woman” (which never ends well with Shark Girl).

With a larger society (and some DBGMs) telling us that “strong” women are bitches, aren’t sexy, or at best are sexy but really not effective, is it any wonder that more women are not practitioners of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

For most people who start BJJ, practicing jiu jitsu is about gaining strength. Women who join jiu jitsu classes have to gain a lot of strength before we even step out onto the mat. For me, I had to realize that what the larger world was saying about myself was not what I wanted. It goes against all cultural norms about what a 40-year-old, suburban mother of two should be doing with her spare time. For a while I hid it from friends and family—heck, even my blog is anonymous! I had to be willing to go against that cultural narrative. I had to look Hollywood square in the face and say, “I’m the superhero, thank you very much.”

           

Source

Manohla Dargis in “Super-Dreams of an Alternate World Order: ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ and the Modern Comic Book Movie.” Published in The New York Times Magazine, June 27, 2012.