Shark Girl Is Ready to Pull the Plug on Her "New" Gym

I need your jiu jitsu therapy again, o vast and all-knowing readers. 

About a year Before Covid (BC), my native gym closed down--the one where I trained from a lowly white belt, made great friends, and found my stride. 

Eight months BC, I decided on a new gym. I worried that I wouldn't fit in. I was a brown-belt, dare I say over-promoted by my laissez-faire gym environment that focused more on training consistently with pals then going for the gold. To be sure, I welcomed a more challenging environment. I wanted to improve. I set my ego off the mat, tied on my brown belt (because it's rude not to), and hopped into a competition-focused gym. I gave it my all until covid.

I went to every class, stayed until the end and, despite getting home late, took copious notes on techniques, drills, even the partners I was rolling with. I wanted to make this work.

My new coaches were great teachers. They had solid techniques that were not super flashy but worked. They gave me some good advice to improve. And then . . .

Covid hit. 

This isn't a story about covid. So I'll just skip along to the After Covid (AC) period.

I went back to classes this summer, ready to pick up where I left off. My goal was to get better with each class and not worry about my belt, how I compare to others--all that shit. I'm fifty-one after all. I just want to have some fun with a sport I love.

But now I am realizing that, every class, I feel like a disappointment to this group. I feel like they are embarrassed that they inherited a brown belt that isn't up to their standards. Honestly I feel like it would be a load off their shoulders if I leave. 

So, I think that's what I am going to do. There is one other gym in the area that I am looking into for a little later, Post Delta (PD), or whatever variant comes along. (My family is covid shy, so I might as well wait.)

Other than that, a buddy of mine has a few mats and we are going to roll intermittently. If you have any other ideas, I am open. 

Those of you who have been reading along know how hard I have fought against leaving jiu jitsu. I hope this is not the end. But if it is, it's been a good ride.

It’s A Dick Move--Or Is It?

This was my first night back on the mats post-Covid lockdown.

Last night I rolled with a new white belt, one month in. 

“What do you want to work on?” I asked.

“Breaking the guard and getting to side control,” New White Belt replied.

NWB seems about thirty, not too tall, not too short. Average build, maybe a little meaty. I would guess he’s about 160-170 pounds.

“Well, that will be easy to do on me.” My stubby legs usually they pop open with no resistance. 

I wrapped my legs around NWB, barely connecting my feet together. NWB took a deep breath, stared at the ceiling, went over the breaking-guard steps in his head as he carefully postured up, slid his knee into my posterior, stretched away. My ankles snapped open. I resisted the urge to activate my open guard—this was his learning experience, after all. I waited patiently as he transitioned to side control, leaving gaps large enough to drive a truck through.

NWB worked to side control and exhaled. 

“That was good!” I encouraged him. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now you gotta work on your spacing. I could have escaped while you were passing.”

I demonstrated how to keep his knee close to the hip on a punch-through, how to underhook the opposite arm, and how to transition his other knee under the shoulder.

He tried again, maneuvering a little better this time. As he settled into the position he asked,

“Now, what’s that thing you do where you crush the person’s jaw?”

    “Oh?” I replied, not eager for a jaw crushing just then.

“You know, with your shoulder?”

The thought of his extra 60+ pounds driving into my jaw made me say what I said next:

“That’s kind of a dick move.”

He seemed shocked. “Oh, it is? I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Some of the purple belts have been showing me how to really crush someone’s jaw when you’re in this position.”

Oh the purple belts have been showing you? I thought maybe he had seen it on YouTube. But he was learning it from my teammates. I didn’t want to dis them. I also don’t want to end up with a broken jaw when this guy spazzes out during sparring. So I regrouped.

“Oh, I see. Well, with me, it would be kind of a dick move, because you are twice my size. You don’t need to do that to control me. But, if you were rolling with that guy over there,” I jerked my thumb toward to our resident 260-pound black-bear of a mat-mate, “You might need to do that to keep him down.”

I went into side control on NWB and gently crushed his jaw.

“It’s like this: in Jiu Jitsu you want to expend the least amount of energy necessary to control your opponent. If you can do it without the jaw crush, you should.”

So, here’s my working definition, folks: a Dick Move is when you use more force than you need to in order to control your opponent.

. 

Do you have other ways to define a Dick Move? When is it all-is-fair Jiu Jitsu, and when is it a DM? When is someone calling something a Dick Move actually a Dick Move on their part?

Coaches: 13 Ways to Get (and Keep) More Women in Your BJJ Classes

 Most of the time I am the only woman at my gym. Every now and then, a pair of women will come in, stay for a bit, move on. Sometimes a singleton will brave a class or two. Most do not stay. Let’s face it, most guys do not stay, either, am I right? You have to be a special kind of person to enjoy being smushed repeatedly, miserably punished, striving bleakly to overcome the gargantuan dude crushing your thorax.

     But, some guys do stay. Almost all girls leave. Perhaps it is their acculturation--it’s not

nice to beat people up. I know I had to “unlearn” that. But if jiu jitsu is about the smaller person overcoming the bigger and stronger person, who needs it more than the ovaried sex? So, coaches, what can we do to keep the ladies? 

Fucking Up the Blow Out

On a normal day, I'm not much to look at.

My eyes are too small, my nose is too prominent, my face too splotchy. 

Some days I make it to cute. The head-turning--that's for my sister. She can stop a fire truck with her good looks, even after age 50.

But there is one time, and one time only, that I turn heads. That is when I've just had a blow out. 

Ladies, you know what I'm talking about. But you dudes might be scratching your MMA-shaved heads right now. 

A blow out is when a stylist blows your hair dry. 

Usually Shark Girl ain't got time to worry about hair. I let it air dry. It frizzes and follows strange and circuitous cowlicks. But when I go to the hair salon and my stylist gives me a blow out, watch out, world. 

After my stylist has blown my hair into gloriously smooth silkiness, a transformation happens. Gentlemen vigorously wave to me from the next car over while we are waiting at lights. Old men hit on me in liquor store parking lots. Middle-aged men with dad bods approach me in therapist waiting rooms, right in front of my teenaged son. 

Yesterday, after my blow out, a handsome, much younger man eating Chipotle looked up at me from his cafe seat. His eyes followed me all the way to my car. And you know what? I knew they would. It was so predictable. It's the magic of the blow out. Shark Girl ain't much to look at, but give her a professional blow dry and watch out. It's like that old Salon Selectives commercial from the '90s. If you're too young to remember, here it is for educational purposes. Brace yourself. Commercials haven't been made like this since #metoo.

I'm telling you a lot about my hair and you may be wondering why. Here it is: A good blow out can last three or four days. I can't replicate it at home. I don't have the tools, the talent, or the time. So I schedule hair appointments for when I won't have wash my hair for a while, to maximize blow out longevity. That means I schedule them as far away from jiu jitsu as possible. 

I'm not alone in this, right? 

This week, the only available appointment was the day before I was doing jiu jitsu with my quarantine buddy. Oh no! I had a choice to make: Roll and wash my hair, or don't roll and keep my sexy blow out. 

I'm guessing you know which one I chose. I chose to fuck up my blow out.

After my roll with my quarantine buddy, my ponytail was a mess. Just to be clear, if you google "messy ponytail," you will get images of ponytails that are not messy, and have been teased and over-producted to look like Chrissy Teigen just had sex and then put her hair up. (See below) 

Not messy

This is not the kind of messy ponytail I am talking about. 

In fact my google searching could not find a picture worthy of my frizzy, disaster of a post-grappling scare-do Perhaps that is better for you all; no one needs to see that. The closest I came was when I looked for "hair" and "van de graaff generator."

As I left the gym, ready to wash the sweat and filth out of my hair and to destroy my sexy blow out forever, my quarantine training partner turned to me. 

"I like this hairstyle better," he said. 

That's why we're friends. 

So, ave atque vale, blow out. Until next haircut.

Shark Girl's (Evil?) Coronavirus Pact

So, after almost four months, I started rolling again. My jiu jitsu best friend and I decided to "pod" together. We only roll with each other. To do this, we discussed our coronavirus exposure tolerance and interrogated each other on our personal contact lists and our disinfecting routines. Then we made it official: we were exclusive. We would only roll with each other.

I am in a big, midlife jiu jitsu crisis right now. Switching gyms threw me. It shook my confidence in myself. It broke my social reasons for going to class. Sometimes I wonder why I am still practicing. My coach is a nice guy--a good teacher and communicator--but I came to him with a bloated brown belt. How invested is he in me? Certainly not as much as he is in the purple belt that he has cultivated since white belt. Not as much as he is in the new white belts that he needs to keep his cashflow positive. I broke into a community in progress. Where do I fit in? I'm not quite sure. 

I am friendly with everyone at my new gym, but I have not yet developed real friendships. Others in my new gym are missing the camaraderie of class; I'm not. To be fair, I was only there about six months before we closed. How integrated should I expect to be?

With my old friend, who is from my old gym, rolling is like a weathered loafer. It feels natural and normal. We know each others' moves but can still surprise each other, and are happy when we do. Of course, the danger is that we may not challenge each other enough. But I've found that I can roll for hours with my friend without even noticing the time. He reminds me of why I do jiu jitsu. (Which, after much soul searching, I have decided I do jiu jitsu because I want to be a creative badass. I think. I'm still trying to answer the question: Why does a petite 50-year old mother of two whose injury tolerance is waning by the month do jiu jitsu?)

At our last rolling session, we shared that we each felt the same at our new gyms. "Honestly, what if we quit our gyms, got some mats for our garage, and just trained the two of us?" Call it jiu jitsu monoandry. We tossed that around for a bit, but in the end rightly concluded that having a black belt who was current, practicing, learning, teaching, and competing was significant to our development.

My gym is still doing solo drills only. I appreciate the effort. But, I need to be on the mat. Or I might never return.

     

Jiu Jitsu in the Time of Coronavirus

"We won't shake hands anymore," my coach instructed. "And we won't tap hands before rolling."
     "But then we're going to roll, right?" someone asked.
     "Yes."

This exchange happened after reminders to wash our gis after every class. This is jiu jitsu in the time of coronavirus.

But they look so cute! Like Frankenberries!

I was not sure whether to go to class on Thursday night. All around me are recommendations of social distancing. Jiu jitsu is the opposite of that. You get in close, you hug your partner, your gi soaks up the sweat beading off your partner's forehead. . . . I know. When I put it like that, it's a wonder everyone doesn't want to do jiu jitsu!

If I don't go tonight, I thought, then I really shouldn't go until all of this blows over. That could be weeks. Months. Am I prepared to go without jiu jitsu for that long? 

The answer was no. I am focusing on new grips. I want to try them out. I have been working hard lately, acclimatizing to a new gym, trying to legitimize myself and my brown belt. I feel like I can't spare a minute, never mind a quarantine.

So, with Husband looking at me sidewise, Shark Girl went off to class and heard words like, "As always, if you have any cold symptoms, stay off the mats."

I mean let's face it, I've been rolling around in these guys' sweat for months now. If one of us has it, we've surely passed it on. We know that carriers can be asymptomatic, I justified to myself.

Middle School Son wears shorts to school every day. In the middle of winter. Unless Husband forces him to wear "sweatpants at least." We've given up on the winter coat that he insists he does not have but has been hanging in our coat closet gathering dust and growing too small for about a year. Middle School Son has seen this coat. He knows it exists. Yet he refuses to acknowledge it.

One day I asked High School Son (who always wore pants but lived through this strange shorts fad a few years ago) why middle school boys did this. "Its a game of chicken," he said. "No one wants to be the first to wear pants and admit that they're too cold."

If I'm being honest with myself, part of my decision to go to jiu jitsu was like that. I don't want to be the first one to cave in to the virus. Especially as the token female. They are going to have to make me not go, in spite of the fact that I have a son who is at high risk if he develops the virus. (Yes, Shark Girl is crazy. But you knew that already.)

I also wondered if I was contemplating skipping jiu jitsu to wimp out on my feelings of inadequacy. Who knew that deciding whether or not to go to class was going to tap into all of my psychological issues?

When I got home Thursday night, I washed my belt along with my gi. I know that's sacrilege. But the belt was sweaty, too. What good is it to wash the coronavirus off your gi only to have it fester unchallenged on your belt?

Just today another gym I am connected with announced they would be closing for a period of two weeks, like our local schools. What a relief it would be if mine did that, too. Then I would not have to make the decision. Then I would not have to search my psyche to figure out why I should or should not go to class. Won't someone else please wear their pants first? You would make it a hell of a lot easier for me.

*****
I really like Stephan Kesting's resource on COVID-19 and BJJ. I haven't read it all yet, but it looks pretty comprehensive. If I find anymore resources I find helpful, I will update this post. Please feel free to comment with any resources that have helped you, too.

Stay Healthy,
Shark Girl

Shark Girl's Big Learning #2: Jiu Jitsu Is Harder As a Small Person

Jiu jitsu is even fucking harder as a small person. 

I know what they say—size doesn’t matter. But let’s be honest. That’s a myth in just about any arena.

When you are tiny, everyone is bigger than you. Brand new white belts can muscle you. Brand new white belts freak out when they see you because you they are like, “Oh, damn! A 100# brown-belted, middle-aged woman creeping toward AARP eligibility. Damn! If she beats me my penis will fall off!” 

The other night a new small dude joined our gym. (Mind you, a small dude is still has about 35% more body weight than me.) I was partnered with him to roll. We slapped hands. Immediately he leaped on me like a starving zombie who has not seen quivering flesh since the Apocalypse. Or like Voldemort attacking Harry Potter.
 

Small Guy had no idea what he was doing, but he did it anyway. Well-muscled arms were flying. His torso was thrown at my face several times. I’m sure when the five minutes were up, he was thinking, “I survived a brown belt!” I was thinking, “I am so glad I do not have a broken finger or tooth.”

Staying safe is usually top on my mind unless I am rolling with one of a handful of “pre-qualified” people. If you have tips, tricks, or mindset tweaks that can help me here, I am all ears.

Wait! I promised myself I wasn’t going to complain about being small anymore! Oh, well, Screw that.

Shark Girl’s Big Learning #1: Jiu Jitsu is Fucking Hard

It's been just over four months at my new gym. I am still filled with self-doubt each time I suit up. But I have made it this far and it is time to take stock of what I have learned.

Much of what I am going to say is not new or earth-shattering. It is mostly a reinforcement of what we already know—stuff it is good to be reminded of every now and again. Some of what I have learned is about what students need from their teachers, and it has informed (reinforced) concepts in my professional life as a teacher, too.

I have a lot to say, so my plan is to put it out in installments.  

Behold, Dear Reader, Installment #1: Jiu jitsu is fucking hard. 

Yes, you read me right, it’s fucking hard. Not flipping hard, not forking hard, not fricking hard . . . fucking hard.

Many of you are saying, “Yes, Shark Girl! That’s a good thing! It’s impossible to fuck without it being hard!” Well, to you I say, “Please! This is a family blog!” and “Maybe it’s time for you to get more creative in your personal life!” But, now I am off topic. Back to jiu jitsu.

Every time I think I have something down in jiu jitsu, every time I have felt that I was on to something or that I was gaining in knowledge or insight, I have learned that there is always more, there is always better, there is always something else, just beyond my reach. 

I work so fucking hard at jiu jitsu. Again and again I come back to the mat. I try something. I am humiliated. I come back. I try something else. I take notes. I make the same mistakes over and over again. I review notes. I see people better, younger, stronger, more talented, more [fill-in-the-blank] than I am, and I wonder why I put myself through this. Why do I press on in the face of insurmountable odds?

(borrowed from BJJafter40blog)

Sometimes the answer, Dear Reader, is, “Jiu jitsu is a magical cocktail of kinetic connection mixed with nerdy undertones and street cred.”

Sometimes the answer is, “Duh, cuz I wanna be a badass.”

More often than not, however, the answer is, “I have no fucking clue.”

None at all, Dear Reader. No idea why I make my life harder than it has to be. I could be sitting home at night eating pretzels and chips, sipping herbal tea and watching Netflix. Getting my kids their dinner instead of wondering if and what they are eating and what mess I will cmoe home to. Correcting papers. Perhaps even stealing some precious “alone time” with Husband. But, no, I choose jiu jitsu. And it’s fucking hard.

Oops, I Mansplained Again!

I got mansplained by a white belt.

I get it. I suck. But at least have the decency to feign respect.

Literally, he tried to tell me why top pressure is important. Thanks, pal. I'm fucking 100 pounds. I think I know a bit about top pressure.

Then he went on to say that, when I have someone in good pressure, I should wait for them to try to escape and then think ahead and catch them in a sub. Again, thanks.

I nodded politely and smiled.

There's more: He said that when he rolled with someone significantly bigger and stronger than him, he took that opportunity to work on his escapes.

I don't know where to even begin unpacking this, but I can tell you that it gave me a stress espresso dream last night.

What is a stress espresso dream, you may ask? Well, Shark Girl takes her espresso seriously, and has spent more time than is rational on coffeegeek.com. I'm not the best barista, but I am the best barista I know.

Here is what a stress espresso dream looks like:

I was using a new espresso machine in public. I was excited to see what I could do with it. But this dude, like, watched me stumble a bit as I was getting used to the new equipment, and then he mansplained how to pull a shot of espresso. Like I don't fucking do that multiple times a day, fuckwad? How do you think I get this goddamned cheery? It's called caffeine.

This morning, I was grinding beans for my morning cappuccino and thinking that 2% milk foamed up much more delicately that fat-free, when I realized: Wait! That dream wasn't about me having a fear of pulling shots in public. It was about that White Belt mansplaining jiu jitsu to me!

Here is the last thing last thing White Belt said during that conversation.

After extolling the virtues of crushing your opponent, he said how much he loved rolling with me because I helped him learn.

You are fucking welcome.

So, here is the hidden meaning behind what he said:

"I can crush anyone I want and that's the way to do it. But, when I roll with you and you don't crush me, I actually learn something."

That's genius, dude. Try connecting the dots backward. When you crush your training partner, you hinder their growth. (Unless, of course, you are expressly working on escaping crushing control.)

So the next time you are on my chest and I can't breathe, maybe you just should ease up. You can make a mental tick mark counting that you beat the 50-year old who weighs half of what you do. But then give us both a chance to learn.

Can We Talk? Jiu Jitsu is a Conversation.

Lately, Shark Girl has been thinking a lot about what jiu jitsu means to her.

As I face a terrifying start at a new gym , I wonder whether it’s time to give up jiu jitsu forever in favor of less injurious pursuits. Therefore, I keep coming back to this: why do I do jiu jitsu?

A few reasons bubble up.

The first is that I am a control freak. Undisputed. Capital C. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I’ll save that for another post.

Today I want to talk about how for me, jiu jitsu is a conversation. My partner says something to me and I respond.

"How you doin', pal?" "Not bad, how 'bout you?"

I grew up in a family where verbal sparring was the main form of recreation. The person who was the loudest or could overtalk the other person was usually the victor. To even enter these arguments as the smallest, youngest person there, I had to stealthily choose when to assert my point of view. I had to be quick and concise, and I had to understand that most likely, no matter what I said, I was going to be brushed off, overpowered, ignored. Or worse, someone would use twisted logic to turn my thoughts into something I didn’t even recognize anymore. 

These days, I have found that it is not really worthwhile getting into one of these family-style arguments. Last night on the phone Shark Dad tried to goad me into a lame shouting match over whether I had a lot of stuff left at his house from thirty years ago. (Spoiler: I don’t.) He complained that it was causing him and my elderly mother stress because they had to clean out all my shit and figure out what to do with it. 

I tried to deflect with a joke: “Oh, those rolls of quarters from when I was a waitress? Please save those for me. It’s my escape money if things go south with me and Husband.”

Watch out, Husband! Shark Girl could be movin' on out with this bank!

I tried to rationalize: "Those empty photo albums (that aren't mine)? No one uses those anymore, Dad."

But Shark Dad wanted contention. Stymied by my stonewalling, he pushed it forward: “Now your mother is getting mad at me because I’m upsetting you,” he said.

“You’re not upsetting me, but I’m not going to argue over this. If I have a lot of stuff left there, feel free to throw it away or leave it for me to sort through when I come home. I really don’t care.” 

And then he passed the phone to my mother. 

I think we were both sadder for that conversation. My 84-year old Dad was trying to connect the only way he knew how, but he only succeeded in causing tension. I saw a lonely, old man cleaning out his house so his kids don’t have to. But instead of having a meaningful conversation about that, Shark Dad made me feel guilty. I had disappointed him because I did not take his bait (chum?). And I disappointed myself because, in the heat of the exchange, I failed to realize what it was really about: (I’m not going to be here much longer. You better come see me and) Get your stuff. 

Just take the bait, Shark Girl! Doesn't it look tasty??!

That made me feel guiltier. 

I get frustrated rolling with people for whom it’s a fight. I’ve had enough fights in my lifetime. I don’t want to fight. I want a conversation. A communication. Something that when we are both finished, we do not have to agree, but we can respect each other and we know each other a little better.

I don’t play closed guard, but I respect yours. I don’t have long legs, but I enjoy learning how to get around yours. 

I do jiu jitsu to connect with the person I am rolling with. When that person smashes me or uses disproportionate strength, then I have nothing to say. I feel like, Why am I in this conversation, anyway? I have nothing to contribute and you wouldn’t listen if I did.

I recognize that not everyone is on the mats for the same reason. People have different demons to exorcise. But I need to understand what I want and need from this sport/art.

Check out this jiu jitsu demon by tattoo artist Fabien!

For me, when my partner does something clever, I laugh out loud. When they frustrate me, I try to find a different way to answer their moves. I walk away from those rolls feeling like I know my partner, and myself, better. 

When someone uses their full muscle and crushes my little person so that I can’t move, I usually walk away disappointed, defeated. I feel brushed off, overpowered, and ignored. Inconsequential and unheard. I’ve experienced that a lot in my life and it’s not fulfilling for me to experience that on the mat. Sure, I could learn to “speak louder,” but then, wouldn’t I just be doing the same thing to someone else? 

Maybe I need to give my Old Shark Dad a call. Perhaps we both didn’t have the best conversation skills last night. Maybe I was passing his guard (avoiding his sadness) while he was trying to choke me (with crushing guilt). Sometimes a conversation is not about what it seems on the surface.

Sometimes jiu jitsu is not about who wins the match. It’s about how much we listen to each other.

Shark Girl is Back. And She’s Bad.

I never thought anything could be more intimidating than starting Jiu Jitsu: walking into class every night as a white belt, knowing nothing, feeling lost, and getting tooled on by the regulars, who had spent years developing relationships, inside jokes, rapport, and techniques. And yes, they were all guys. Boy was I wrong.

       Try walking into that same gym as a brown belt.

       Yep. That’s me. My gym finally closed, a year later than expected. My coach awarded me a brown belt, years earlier than deserved, in my opinion. 

     And now I start from scratch. At a new gym. Where everyone knows everyone else’s name, but illogically, I am the highest belt other than the coach.

     Everyone has been practicing their style of Jiu Jitsu, so different from mine, and I’ve got to catch up. 

     Everyone has had real, serious coaching and goes to competitions. And I, well, I just love a good roll, hate being crushed, and have learned not to care much about submissions because sometimes they cause more trouble for a girl on the mat unless you have a real good relationship with your partner.

     Everyone expects me to be awesome and I suck.

     Everyone expects me to have something to teach them, and I don’t.

     I stopped writing posts a while ago because I felt this blog’s purpose was served. I started it as a white belt so many years ago, looking for support to go into that gym every night. I vowed to give it three months. You all, dear readers, kept me going and I fell in love. 

      Now I am back in the same spot, needing your help to walk back into a gym week after week. I have vowed to give it a year. Some nights I want to cry. Some nights I feel the bile creep up in my esophagus and my pulse quicken an hour before class. Of course, there are some moments of joy, too, but they feel fleeting and disconnected, overshadowed by everything else.

     Shark Girl is back. But she’s bad.

You Can't Fight City Hall

In the mid-90s, while alt-rock raged across the airwaves, twenty-something Shark Girl used to visit two elderly Italian sisters who lived in the North End of Boston. They would make me lunch. We would talk about Italy and life as an immigrant in Boston. We told stories of our families and discussed the problems of the world. These conversations usually ended with the older sister, Filomena, saying, “Well, you can’t fight City Hall.” It was one of the few English expressions she could say clearly, understandable even to those not well-versed in Italian-tinted English. Almost once a visit, Filomena would declare to me that City Hall could not be fought.

The other day I was leaving the kids jiu jitsu class that I started assisting. (I know. We have a lot to catch up on.) In my head, I heard Filomena say those words: You can’t fight City Hall. 

My blog has documented well the outsider feelings I have as a woman on the male-dominated mats of jiu jitsu. I guess I thought the kids class would be different. It’s not. It’s more of the same. When it comes time to work with me, I see the boys avert their eyes to the other male coaches or another member of the class, hoping that lack of eye contact will “save” them. At first I thought, Maybe it’s just the pre-teen weirdness of rolling with a female. That could be it. 

But the other day one of them got stuck working with me and said, “This time can you go full force?”as if he was insulted that in the past I had not. “Do you want me to?” I asked. “I don’t know . . .” he said. This summed up his whole dilemma for me. He was anxious that I wasn't going full force and it would look like a “girl” was taking it easy on him, but he was also afraid that if I didn't go easy on him a “girl” would crush him. He didn't have these same concerns with the male coaches.

(I use the word girl here, because I think in those moments that's what I was to him, even though I am I’m a 48-year-old purple-belted woman who clearly should have some skill over a white-belted 11-year-old boy, if there is any truth to jiu jitsu.) 

I'm not sure why I thought maybe kids would be different. This youngster is simply reflecting his culture.  Filomena’s words came back to me: You can’t fight City Hall. As women in jiu jitsu, we can’t fight City Hall. After eight years of jiu jitsu, it still stings. I bet it always will.

*After reading this post, many of you jiu jitsu playahs, well-versed in fighting, are saying, "Wait a minute Shark Girl! You may not be able to fight City Hall . . . directly. After all, isn't that what jiu jitsu is about? Figuring out how to fight the bigger, stronger opponent?" To you, I say, "Well played." You are absolutely right! No self-respecting jiu jitsuer would try to break down the locked front door. No, we look for the key under the mat at back door. Now, I'm going to stop before you all take this in some, tawdry, NSFW metaphorical way. But know this: I have a companion piece percolating about how we actually can fight City Hall, but we have to do it jiu jitsu style. Stay tuned!

Shark Girl Faces a Change

It is a turning point for Shark Girl.

I haven’t written in a while. When I was a white belt, everything was new and curious. And being a woman on the mat was challenging. I needed help and support, and you, faithful Internet readers, were there for me. You helped and guided me.

Now, as a purple belt and then some, I have drifted into stasis. My game doesn’t change so rapidly anymore. The huge strides I used to make in a month are now incremental improvements over months and months. I used to practice how to escape; now I work on shifting moves slightly to the left to see if that will help, or moving my center of gravity *here* and seeing what that will do.

Likewise, in being the lone woman at my gym (still), I have fallen into a pattern, a habit if you will. Some of the same problems remain, but after this many years, you either put up or get out, and I have chosen the former. I believe I made the right decision.

So at this point in my jiu jitsu career, change is slow. Glacially slow. And to write about that on a regular basis seemed, well, boring.

Now its global warming time, my friends. My gym just announced that it is closing. I don’t have many options. But one thing is certain: Change is coming, and it is coming fast.

It Took Me Over Seven Years, But I Have Finally Done It!

Yep. Last night. I let out an expulsion of gas that echoed throughout the chamber, shook the walls, and was finally absorbed by the mats. How embarrassing! 

Others before me have done it, followed by eruptions of laughter from the class. Usually it's the older

guy. Every once in a while it is one of the younger dudes. Me, for my part, up until now, I have only let out those ones that could be mistaken for a foot rubbing against the mat, making a squeak. Should I say excuse me? Or would that call attention to something that no one noticed anyway? Best to let those go.

But last night was different. Last night, it was like a balloon letting out a quick burst of air when some little kid spreads apart its lips to annoy a roomful of partygoers.  And of course I was in north -south. “Excuse me,” I said sheepishly. It was clear I could neither ignore or deny this one. 

Now, I am always very careful on the mats. I do my best to hold my sphincter tight. As a mom who pushed out two babies in less than fifteen minutes a pop, sometimes things are not as . . . sealed . . . as we would like them to be. But, Good Lord, I use all my muscles to keep it in! Sometimes I sacrifice power moves and opportunities because I have to keep my “core” engaged. But last night in drilling, I was committed to holding down my partner with my upper body, and I had to jerk my leg away. There was only so much my core could keep track of at one time. Kind of like when someone talks to me at the copier. Look, I can make copies, or I can have an intelligent conversation. I cannot do both, and if you make me, my brain will fart.

Last night, I was pulled in so many directions that I was not able to hold in my body's brain fart. In fact, I never even suspected it was coming. My partner, gracious even though his face was inches from the scene (scent?) of the crime, remained professional and businesslike. We continued drilling the move. I, however, decided to use slightly less power than before.     

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!)