Training Breakthrough

I have always admired the way a good practitioner can get on the mat and, sans partner, mime the motions to a move. Air-grab–air-grab–hip-escape–bump–turn. That’s how you do it. “How do they do that?” I would think. “I can barely get it right with a compliant partner, let alone the thin air.”

Well, last night, there I was, trying to explain a move to a partner. Words failed. It was easier to show it. And—ta-da!—I mimed the move. Applause, everyone, and no, bouquets are not overkill. After sixteen months, I have actually internalized some moves so completely that it is easier for me to mime them than to try to explain them.

If you are throwing flowers, I prefer a nosegay like this one. It's simple, yet chic, and "nosegay" is such a cool word.

It reminds me of my journey studying Latin. I spent three years doing hard grammar and reading mechanical prose. I could tell you all about the “ablative of degree of difference” and then turn around and parse the hell out of that verb.

Then they threw poetry at me. I learned to just read, because rules in poetry are meant to be broken. So, I forgot about the rules and just read Latin. Conversations with classmates would sound like this, “How do you know to translate that like ‘he plunged his sword in all the way to the hilt’?” And I would reply, “I don’t know. That’s just what it says.”

            Then one day I walked into a prose composition class. All those rules? Guess what? They were important to know again. Although I could read Latin very well, I realized I had internalized the rules and could not explain many of them anymore.

I am happy that I have committed some jiu jitsu to muscle memory. It is the first step toward seeing the underpinnings of the art and building an organic and dynamic game. I also see that the next step is to to do both—to feel the move without thinking, and then to be able to express the move to someone else. But sheesh! I’m just happy with this for now!

Shark Girl Gets Her Poetry On

Last week a cousin e-mailed Shark Girl. He got his DNA tested and wanted to share what he learned with all his matrilinear relatives. Among the various tidbits about haplogroups and other things I can’t pronounce, Cousin added,

            “Apparently, we're also distantly related to Petrarch.”

            For those of you who don’t know who Petrarch was, first, join the club, and second, you can Wikipedia him. I must warn you that Cousin felt Petrarch was “Chinese food famous.” This means that about an hour after he Wikipediaed Petrarch, he forgot what the big deal about him was.

            I (kind of) know who Petrarch was because he wrote a lot in Latin. I just returned from a conference of classical professionals where a scholar presented a paper on Petrarch. I probably wouldn’t have gone to the paper, but I felt obligated, being related to him and all.

           

Since I now have famous poet blood in me, and since Husband started complaining that Shark Girl is “formulaic,” I thought I’d branch out and give you some submission grappling poetry. I know . . . just what you’ve been waiting for. And for all you Latin geeks out there, this poem is inspired by Book II of Vergil’s Aeneid. (I haven’t titled it yet and am open to suggestions.)

***

But look! Across the field of blue

Immense legs make their way forward

Writhing and snapping like snakes

After a careless foot has disturbed their resting place.

Without seeing they sense my presence

And stretch to reach me.

Biting, they embrace my back

And coil around my slippery neck,

Squeezing out my air.

The hiss of blood blocked from its path

Fills my ears.

I wonder,

What madness drove me to the mat?

And tap.

© 2012 by Shark Girl (because you know you want to steal it)

I Beat Up Boys

This afternoon Shark Girl got on top of Husband. If you want to be technical, I was in mount.

“Try to get up,” I said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve wrestled.”

When I started BJJ, Husband wrestled with me periodically to check my progress. This resulted in a series of professed back injuries and whining, until Shark Girl couldn’t take it any more and just stopped the progress checks altogether.

“I know I can’t get up,” Husband said. “I’ve given up. It’s official: you can beat me up.”

I do have a long history of beating up boys. It all started in the third grade . . .

Psychedelic Time Travel Picture (and optical illusion)

***

When Shark Girl was in third grade, Mother of Shark Girl came home from the parent-teacher conference with some news for Dad.

            “She scratched a boy,” Mom told him, chuckling.

            She was laughing because here was this cute little, tiny girl, (Little Shark Girl was about the size of a kindergartener) beating up on boys. It was the family joke for some time. (Even today if you were to bring up this incident around the Extended Shark-Family dinner table, Brothers and Sisters would ROTF and L. Or L their FAO. Or maybe they would just LOL. I know they would do some acronym.)

Nowadays, a student scratching would be a huge deal, written up by school administrators. The perp would be forced into counseling, or Child Services would be brought in. Back then, Mother of Shark Girl only asked, “Why?”

            “On the playground, Paul B— gave my friend Danielle half a chi-chi,” I explained. (A chi-chi is our familial term for the double butt squeeze often given to cute children’s bottoms.) But I wasn’t telling everything. When the lights were off in my and my sister’s room that night I whispered to her that the half chi-chi was not on Danielle’s backside, but actually Paul had grabbed her crotch. Little Shark Girl was defending Danielle’s honor.

Danielle moved to our school in third grade. I’ll never forget the first time she came into class. She was tall and pretty and blonde. When she walked into the room, everyone’s head turned her way. I felt a pang of jealousy. Why couldn’t I be blonde? Danielle wasn’t perfect. She licked her lips in our blustery winters, causing chapping that extended up to the base of her nose. It didn’t matter, though, she was blonde, and Little Shark Girl learned the hard lesson that tall and blond trumps cute, dark and short any day.

Up until Danielle came along, Paul had a crush on me. It was on that very same playground in second grade that Paul danced around me singing, “If I can’t have you, I don’t want nobody baby!” Little Shark Girl rolled her eyes and told him to get away. Maybe I scratched him then, too. If I didn’t, I should have.

Check out the song, plus the groovy 70s vibe!

***

I’ve come to terms with Paul and what happened in elementary school—both the sexual harassment and even being “dumped” for a blonde. (Believe me, I hadn’t seen the last of either experience.) So tonight when I heard “If I Can’t Have You” emanating from the Oldies station, my hand dropped from the buttons and I started singing along. Husband is not an Oldies fan, so to placate him Shark Girl said, “This song brings back memories,” and I told him the story about Paul B—.

“Humph,” Husband replied.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Well, I was just thinking. . . . If you had married Paul B—.”

“What?”

“Well, if you had married Paul B—, not much would be different. You’d still be beating up on him!”

Thanks, Husband, for your vote of confidence.

Shark Girl Dreams Big

The other night I had a dream. A jiu jitsu dream.

Shark Girl's styling dream accommodations.

It was dark, and I was at home. In my dream, my house looked like a row house, connected to its neightbors. The front door opened up to a riverfront. At night, the riverfront was lit up and folks hung out on their stoops. It was a new house for me. As I looked out the window, I saw a tough-looking young woman accompanied by some thugs. They were swinging neighborhood cats around by their tails and when there was enough speed and the cats’ bodies looked like helicoptor blades, they tossed them into the river.

Outrage filled me. Overcome by loathing and the memory of my dear, departed cat, I burst out the front door and leaped down the steps toward this hooligan and her partners in animal cruelty.

I have to set the tone now, or I’ll be beset by this bully for as long as I live here, I thought. Not to mention she’s killing cats. What kind of a person kills cats?

As I neared, I did my best puffer fish, blowing up my tiny 4’11” stature by putting my hands on my hips, sticking my chest out and raising my neck. I can’t remember what happened next, but her posse deserted and I ended up giving her the rear naked choke.

I remember thinking, If I let her go, she’ll overpower me. But if I keep choking her, she’ll die. Curses! I’ve never practiced the sweet spot between consciousness and death before. This is a limitation of my training. And what if she fake passes out and jumps me when I let her go? Do I have to kill her?

Well, I won the day (I don’t know how), but I was too late to save all but one of the neighborhood cats, whose plump body I embraced and brought home to live with me in the sanctuary of my new, riverfront row house.

About now you’re asking, “Nyquil induced dream, Shark Girl? Or did your basement wine turn bad? Did someone slip an acid tab in your Greek yogurt?” Personally, I think it was one too many episodes of Breaking Bad. You know: generally good person gets caught up in the Underworld for, what seems to them, good reasons, but then is forced to do heinous and more heinous things. I try to decompress with 30 Rock afterward, but you see what that added to my dream. Cats and obsessive thinking. Yes, my dream was a hallucinatory cocktail of critically-acclaimed network darlings.

 

I recently read an article about the advancements of brain technology. Scientists are getting closer and closer to being able to project the thoughts and images we see in our brains. I would be able to just download my dream into a video clip and share it with you here instead of trying to remember the murky details of my valiant feline rescue attempt. Of course, the down side of this technology is that people’s thoughts would be vulnerable for harvest. It makes Facebook and Google look like your most loyal confidants.

Would I give up my mental privacy to be able to replay my dream match? It was the best (and most meaningful) match I’ve ever had (sort of). But I don’t know. I think it would compromise Shark Girl’s anonymity.

Shark Girl Hibernates

Shark Girl is not happy to be where it is snowing. Just last week I was in 80 degree weather sporting a bathing suit. If you don’t believe me, check out my new profile pic. Yes, those of you who know Shark Girl know that I am all about the sun. I’m not quite sure why I live here in the Northeast. Nothing is right to me in winter. That’s one of the reasons I started jiu jitsu—if I had to fight three nights a week maybe I wouldn’t realize that I was freezing my ass off.

 

It worked for a while, especially last year. But this year I am again aware that the cold, dark land has taken me prisoner, making me yearn for the freedom of spring. Husband would scold me right now. We need both dark and light to be whole, Husband would say in his ministerial way. Winter is a time for reflection. He’s right, I know he is. Just as we need night to recover from a long day, winter serves its purpose. But that purpose for me is hibernation, and unfortunately I can’t hibernate through my job in winter. During winter I need even more energy and spirit to motivate my students (many of whom may be hibernating as well).

Even if our modern world refuses to let me hibernate, I try as much as I can. Pajamas go on some nights as early as 4 PM. Some weekend days they never come off. Who needs to leave the house when there’s pancake mix in the pantry? I would make a good bear.

Hibernation periods give me time to reflect on what I have learned, internalize it, make it my own. Last week in Florida I did no jiu jitsu. However, I did raise eyebrows in the hotel fitness center when I pulled out the portable mat and practiced somersaults, forward and back. I suck at somersaults. Maybe I’ll get better if I practice them on my own hibernation time, instead of in front of the whole class, nervous that I’m going to totally flop my roll. Oh, look at that almost-blue belt—she can’t even do a forward roll!! Let’s all laugh loudly at her! That’s what they would say. Right now in my head I am gustily going through my side escape procedure with the vain hope that perhaps it will finally click.

Back from my trip, I notice more light in the morning when I wake up, more light in the evening when I retrieve Son #1 from tae kwon do. This means my hibernation will soon be over. Hooray! Yesterday I went for a glorious run and luxuriated in the rays. They were meager compared to last week’s Florida sunshine, but hey, I’ll take ‘em. I know spring will be here soon.

Shark Girl Tries to Justify Her Losses

Some time ago I gave a pop quiz. The day before in class we had worked on some grammar. For homework, I asked students to review it. The next day I gave a pop quiz. Afterward, a student said, “I never expected that.”

“Really? I dropped big hints that I was thinking about giving a pop quiz. Did you review for homework?”

“No, I didn’t, because I never expected that.”

I was discussing with my colleague how frustrating it was when students expected to actually learn without putting forth effort. I have heard students sigh, “I failed again,” after admitting that the only studying they did was during lunch . . . for ten minutes . . . at a table crowded with friends and Cheetos. Let me restate that: I have heard students sigh, “I failed again,” while they lament how horrible it was for them because they studied so much . . . for ten minutes . . . during lunch . . . at a table crowded with friends and Cheetos.

Colleague and I went on to talk about how the best students often aren’t the most gifted ones; they are the ones who work hard. They do their homework every night. When these students don’t understand something, they don’t accept it. They ask questions. In a group, they don’t spend ten minutes talking about their weekend and when their teacher comes in earshot say, “Okay . . . number three. . . .” Sometimes these students earn an honest B or C instead of the A. But they stand out to the teacher as having dignity, motivation, integrity. And while their knowledge may be hard-fought, it is theirs entirely and it is hard-lost.

Watching these students has informed my jiu jitsu practice. I am not the best practitioner. But I strive to go regularly, to ask questions, to try hard. I know I never will be (at my age!) the best jitser, and I don’t care. I’m not going to win at Mundials. That’s not the point. Although I sometimes feel like my knowledge is hard-fought and easily-lost, Shark Girl is trying to learn, and that’s a very different thing from winning.

The Weirdest Girl of All

Tonight at dinner, 9-Year-Old Son shared with us that the boys in his class were smarter than the girls.

“Really?” Husband and I asked. “Do you think that’s true?”

“Yep,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s true.”

“What’s your evidence?” we pressed, ‘cause we’re those kind of parents.

“Well, when the boys raise their hands, they’re always right.”

“And what about the girls?”

“They don’t raise their hands that much.”

“Hmmm . . . did you know that there have been studies done that show that boys raise their hands more often than girls? Then they get called on more frequently.” That’s Husband talking. He’s a Harvard grad, so it’s all about the research.

“That’s right, Hon.” (Sometimes I call Husband “Hon.”) As the person at the table with the advanced degree in Education, I felt the need to validate this statement. “Son, the next time you see it happening, you should say, ‘The girls are awfully silent. I wonder what they think about this.’” It’s fun to teach your children subversion! It's best to couple it with self-defense classes.

“Yeahhh . .  . I don’t know,” Son slurred and tilted his head skeptically. “To be honest all the girls are kind of . . . weird.”  

“Excuse me?” The Shark in Shark Girl came out and gave the death stare to 9-Year Old. “Girls are weird?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“I’m a girl. Am I weird?” This was one of those set up questions. There’s only one right answer.

“Mom! You’re like the weirdest girl of all! You do jiu jitsu!”