Awesome 50kg match between Felicia Oh and Lisa Ward at the US Grappling World Team Trials. The FILA World Championships are this weekend. Good luck, USA ladies!

A ton of people showed up for the seminar and grand opening last Saturday, and I’m betting it was for two reasons – 1) to learn from a sixth degree black belt with a ton of experience and stories to tell and 2) to see exactly where it was Dalla learned it all. You know, the boa constrictor type rolling, the dirty moves (chin in the ribs, cheese grater across the face, tickling for crying out loud….) and all the non-dirty but totally slick and sneaky moves that make you wonder – while you’re tapping furiously – what the hell just hit you.

How many purple belts does it take to hang a Brazilian flag?

Well, now it all makes sense. Jorge Pereira is not only a great instructor (also where Dalla learned it, I’m sure) but he’s enthusiastic in a non-H1N1 infectious sort of way. In other words, it’s easy to catch his enthusiasm, but you don’t feel crappy about it once you do. He showed a lot of moves from various positions, include a couple self defense moves. One in particular, an entry into an Americana, was so sneaky and under the radar that the group let out a collective “Oooh…” when he first demonstrated it. Now that’s my kind of move.

The seminar ended, as I had hoped, with a bunch of stories about his training with Rickson and Helio and other members of the BJJ elite in Brazil, and then, jackpot! Stories about Dalla, including his nickname. I won’t mention it here because Dalla’s still mad at me for posting our swim race online. You know, the one where I beat him.

Dalla’s grand opening of his new location followed, with a lot of people hanging out to chat, eat, check out the new place, and roll, work the heavy bags, etc. It really is a great place – if you haven’t come to check it out yet, you should. Lots of room to roll, climate control (woo!), music… what else could a girl want?

Friday’s open mat was a much needed stress relief after a somewhat brutal week at work. I got a few frustrations out on the mat, and while chatting with a teammate (hi Tom!), got a little perspective on my biggest weakness as a grappler – my mind.

We were talking about whether swimming and grappling are in fact similar from a competitive standpoint. My initial response is no, it’s hugely different. Swimming -especially pool swimming – is a very solo sport. Sure, you’re competing against other swimmers, but they can’t physically impact your performance. How well you do is solely the result of your own efforts – it’s just you in that lane. Open water is a bit different because the physical contact can definitely be a factor, but the contact isn’t of a direct, one-on-one nature (except maybe around a hotly contested bouy).

Grappling, on the other hand, is a one-on-one, you against the other girl kind of sport. What your competition does has a direct and immediate effect on your performance. I think this is the part that tends to screw with my head a bit. I’m not used to not being able to do exactly what I want when I compete. I’m used to cutting bouys close during a race if I want. I know that if I want to draft off of someone, or drift a little off course to pick up a current, I can do it. In BJJ, I don’t feel good about being put in a position that I don’t want to be in. I get frustrated if someone blocks a pass attempt and puts me back in guard, or if they break my posture and start working for the armbar.

But in all honesty, as Tom pointed out, it’s really not all that different. In open water swimming in particular, you have a plan in place. You scope out the course ahead of time, determine the current and chop conditions, check water temperature, and stay flexible, When things change during the race – say the wind starts to kick up the chop or the tide turns on you early, you adjust your plan, but you still work your plan. And there’s the key, I think. In BJJ competitions, I’ve been so focused on reacting to the other person that I haven’t been focusing on my own game. The chess aspect of the sport, where you think several steps ahead, have a plan in place, and work to achieve your position rather than just trying to keep the opponent from achieving theirs, has eluded me somewhat.  Instead, I stress out about…well, everything really, and I’ve gotten myself beat before I even step on the mat.

So I’m going to try to approach my training with that in mind, and depending on how things go, consider possibly (maybe) competing sometime in the (somewhat) near future (but no promises). I still have a new job and a construction mess to deal with, so it isn’t a first priority. I’m ok with that – I’m not going to push it.

I am, however, incredibly excited for a full day of BJJ today. A three-hour seminar from Dalla’s instructor, Jorge Periera, followed by the grand opening of Dalla’s new gym (I’ll try to post pictures. Remind me to bring my camera…) followed by watching the fights with the team that night. Hot damn.

I have come to loathe microwave food. If you’ve ever done construction on a kitchen, you feel my pain. And my pain has extended long past it’s scheduled end date because of a serious structural issue that would see the master bedroom eventually fly away from the rest of the house in a stiff breeze. But, because I’m excited that our cabinets are coming in tomorrow, and because I just felt like sharing, here’s a look at what we’ve been living with over the past few months.

Pushing the wall out a few feet. Big hole to fall in!

Why our backyard is now a huge mud pit

What it looks like when you try to moosh your entire kitchen into your living room. Note the strategic placement of the refrigerator behind two large boxes (the new ovens), an armchair, and an antique hutch.

It's going to be worth it...It's going to be worth it...It's going to be worth it...

What is it about BJJ that makes you feel so crappy when you don’t get to train? I was just talking about this with a teammate, and it seems like it’s a pretty common phenomenon. I was out for a full week because of the nasty cold that’s been going around, and between the constant coughing and wheezing and running nose and the lack of any kind of training, I was a true joy to be around.

So a few people have asked me lately if I’m planning on competing any time soon. It sort of got me wondering if maybe I should, but I’m trying to squash that thought as much as possible. I know that at this point, I don’t really have the time or motivation to put the work into it that I would need to. I learned in my last competition that if you decide to compete at the last minute and show up with your head somewhere other than in the tournament, you end up getting hurt. And If I got hurt, I wouldn’t be able to train. So in the interest of not being cranky and feeling sorry for myself, I’m going to avoid competing until I know I’m able to really focus on it.

Part of the reason I’m reluctant to commit to a tournament is that I’ve just accepted a new position at work, which has me brushing up on my foreign language skills – and I will be traveling for a week or so at a time four to six times a year. There’s nothing worse than deciding in advance to go to a tournament and then finding out that you’ll be overseas that weekend. Now I just need to find BJJ schools out there, or else my coworkers will wish I never joined the project. Perhaps I can use them as grappling dummies, or something. Fun for everyone!

As for swimming, I’ve already told my new boss that the second weekend in June is sacred and I will NOT under any circumstances be in eastern Europe or Asia that weekend. The Chesapeake Bay Swim trumps all.

Oh, and some good news – in my earlier blog entries, you’ll notice that I got super excited whenever another girl would even glance sideways at my BJJ class. Well, now we have no fewer than three girls training regularly at Woodbridge (the new school rocks, by the way. It’s huge! And Dalla has already put up the surround sound. Priorities.) There are another two girls at least training regularly in Crystal City, one of whom just won her division at No-Gi Pan Ams. Congrats, Elyse!! So the fact that I saw another tough looking chick talking to Dalla on Friday was less shocking, but no less exciting. The more girls we have, the more we’ll bring in.

…and it’s not just my joints. Although I did jam my thumb really hard about three times over the past couple weeks. The joint is swollen and looks like arthritic. I’m hoping it goes back down soon. But I digress. 

Over Labor Day weekend, I went up to NYC to visit Nerfy. The original plan was to swim a Pro-Am 1 miler on Saturday and watch the Pro 10k on Sunday. The plans were made, the tickets were bought…and then they cancelled the Pro-Am. Grr. 

Instead, I bumped my train ticket up to get into Manhattan earlier so I could train with Shaolin before meeting up with Nerfy. It was a good plan, except that the train broke down somewhere between DC and BWI and we ended up cruising into Penn Station about 45 minutes late. I got to Shaolin’s school in the middle of the technique part of class with a suitcase, laptop, and BJJ gear bag in tow. The guy at the front desk must have thought I was a complete idiot, but I paid my $35 mat fee (ouch! But I guess it is Manhattan) and joined the class. 

I didn’t do as well as I would have liked (you know, you always feel like you need to represent when you show up at another school) but being hungry and dehydrated didn’t help – my hands were shaking after just the second roll. I did, however, manage to pull off an oma plata on a largish blue belt with a setup we’d been working at Dalla’s that week… actually, I couldn’t finish because we rolled into the wall, but I think I would have gotten it.  On the other hand, a white belt was giving me such a hard time I was getting pretty discouraged – until I found out he was a wrestler. I don’t know why, but wrestlers always kick my ass.  

Training with Shaolin was fun – whenever he saw someone about to get a submission, he’d say “make my day! come on!” The guys who trained there were friendly, too – there was only one girl in that class, a white belt, but I didn’t get a chance to roll with her. So where are the pictures of you training at Shaolin’s, you ask? Fail. I’ll do better next time, I promise.

After the class, Nerfy retrieved me, and we commenced our long weekend of eating our way across the city. We started at the UN (drinks at the bar, raiding the cafeteria, and eating chocolate rice krispy treats in the seedy underbelly…er, basement. I hadn’t eaten since 10 AM, so I was slightly wasted on half a Jack and Coke), then followed up the next day with an almost all-day BBQ (thank you Carrie and Liz!), in which one of the guests was bizarrely fascinated with the concept of a triangle choke. I should know better than to try to talk about BJJ in polite company. I ended up sending him this via Nerfy:

I’m sure he’ll never talk to me again.

Sunday started with a visit to the Brazilian Day Festival. We had high hopes for the possibilty of grilled meat products, but we mostly just saw gyro and funnel cake type places. I think there were a few crepe stands and one Japanese stand. Actually, aside from training at Shaolin’s, the most Brazilian thing I saw that weekend was the Sushi-Samba place we passed on our way to the 10k Pro Swim. 

As for the 10k, it was freaking awesome. You know it’s a killer race when an Olympic medalist isn’t able to finish due to the rough conditions. Makes me want to start training for those kinds of races again…

Lets start with the water. I spent last weekend out of town participating in a team triathlon – I did the swim, of course. I was the fastest woman, the seventh fastest overall, and I beat the second place relay swimmer out of the water by about five minutes. As a relay, we finished third out of 20 – sweet! Maybe I should learn to ride a bike with gears and try doing my own triathlon next time. Maybe. Can you do BJJ with a case of road rash? I’m just saying, land sports with wheels aren’t always my strong point.

Now for the smoke. I came home from the triathlon on Sunday and messed around on the computer for a while. Then I went down into the basement to get something and was assailed by the most awful shrieking noise. I realized the room was full of smoke and the dog was looking at me as if to say, “hey, um, something’s happening…” Since I couldn’t find the source of the noise, I threw the breaker to the basement outlets. That stopped the noise, but the smoke was still strong and it smelled like an electrical fire. 

Great, I thought, I suppose I have to call the fire department now, because who knows what’s burning in my walls. Well, I don’t want to say that it was a mistake, because I know it was the right thing to do, but holy crap did they drag out every last fire truck and ambulance and God knows what else. Of course, the neighbors, not having any lives of their own, all came out onto the street to watch the entertainment.

So there I was sitting outside with the dog, getting chewed to bits by our bumper crop of mosquitos, being stared at by neighbors with nothing better to do with their life, and watching men and women in full fire fighting gear clomping in and out of my house. Finally, one of them motioned me inside and told me that the source of the noise and smoke was…the television. It had decided to have a meltdown in a melodramatic fashion and was the source of both the noise and the smoke. There was no fire in the walls. Everything else was fine. So, after taking the TV out to the concrete pad to cool off (“We don’t want to throw it in the dumpster or you’ll have to call us back when the stuff in the dumpster catches on fire,” they said) the trucks and ambulances and fire marshall rolled out, and the neighbors went back to …well, who knows what the hell they do when someone isn’t having an emergency they can stare at.

My impressions of the day:

Firemen/women: awesome, if a bit overenthusiastic. 

Neighbors: Definitely not into BJJ, or they wouldn’t have been dragged away from their video of the 2009 Mundials or their Marcelo Garcia tutorial by a silly little fire truck or five. 

I had my LASIK surgery about a month ago, and…I can see! At least once a day I’ve thought “I should take my contacts off” or “Do I need more contact solution” or “where did I put my glasses” only to do a little happy dance when I remember that I don’t need that crap anymore!

The morning of the surgery I was nervous but trying really hard not to think about it. Punchdunk drove me in, and since we were a bit early, we stopped at La Madeleine for breakfast sandwiches. I didn’t eat mine right away…there’s no telling what will come up if you eat too much before something like this. In the waiting room, I filled out some forms (there are always forms) and they stuck a little name tag on me with my name and procedure on it. Comforting to know they try not to misplace their patients. 

They put me in an exam room, did a few more tests (what letters are those? You can’t see any of them? Wow.) and then let me sit and stew for a few more minutes while the numbing drops and the Xanax they gave me kicked in. Finally, after the doctor came in to chat for a moment, and they lead me through the litany of eye drops I’d be using for the next few weeks, they took me back to the procedure room.

You lie down on a table with two machines that swing over your face alternately. If you’re lucky, you go to a place that provides you with a teddy bear to hold on to while they work. By that time, with my mostly empty stomach, the Xanax was starting to really kick in. I was totally fine with the little suction cup thingy that squeezed my eyes so they could make the flap. When the doctor folded the flap back, I was ok with that too – although it looked like the room was moving as he moved the flap, so it was hard to tell if my eye was holding steady like he told me to. The laser was totally groovy too. I just looked at the light and tried not to notice the weird smell. 

By the time I sat up and they took the teddy bear from me (hey! I need that!) it was obvious that things were much clearer than before. They slapped some shades on me, shook my hand, and pointed me out the door. On the ride home, I was starting to feel the effects as the numbing drops wore off. I sniffled and cried and shoved an egg and bacon croissant into my face. One good nap later, the stinging was mostly gone, the tearing had stopped, and aside from some fuzziness, I could see. In fact, at my post op appointment the next day, I was already 20/20.

So one month and a bazillion eye drops later, I’m about to find out if I’m ok to go back to BJJ. I’m too impatient to sit by the mat while people roll. Thankfully I’ve been able to swim a bit, which helps with the antsyness. But I’ve had no real outlet for my stress (i.e., need to beat on people), so cross your fingers for a go decision on going back to rolling!

I spent the past few weeks agonizing over whether the laser vision correction I was going to get would be Lasik or PRK. I was 100% sure that I would get Lasik until I met with the doctor, who said that PRK was generally recommended for people in combat sports because of the very small chance that the corneal flap would come loose during training or competition. Perhaps due to an accidental elbow to the face, a shoulder to the eye when your opponent is half guard…

Ok, I thought PRK. That’s fine. I can deal with that. Then I read a little more about it and talked with a few people and I became completely undecided. There’s pros and cons to both surgeries; Lasik has the whole corneal flap coming loose thing, but the recovery time is very short and you can see well the very next day. PRK has the extended recovery time – basically a week where your vision goes to crap as the cornea heals, and from what I’ve heard, it can take months for your vision to really clear up – but there’s no risk, however small, of anything coming loose from a knock to the face. 

Ultimately, I decided to go with the Lasik. I’ve heard that there are plenty of people in combat sports (including BJJ and boxing) who have had Lasik and had no problem. 

I am interested in your experiences, though…have you had Lasik or PRK? Has either affected your training? 

I go under the laser next week – I can’t wait to get it done with. I am thoroughly sick of glasses at this point.

Nerfydunk tagged me on her blog a few days ago, so, since I’m It, I guess I have to answer a few nosy questions. 

What is your current obsession? Swimming and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

What is your weirdest obsession?  I think BJJ counts as weirder than swimming. Swimming has it’s moments of weird, don’t get me wrong (especially the open water variety), but BJJ is truly strange. I voluntarily…no, I happily roll around on sweaty wrestling mats with sweaty, smelly dudes and sweaty not so smelly ladies who are trying to rip my arm off while I try to return the favor. 

What is the weirdest sub-obsession of the weird obsession you just described? 

Bruises. Punchdunk (aka, Sister) and I will return from our various training sessions and compare bruises. The really quality ones end up turning fascinating shades of green or purple. 

Coffee or tea? Both. Must have coffee in the morning, though. Must. Have. Coffee.

What was the last really exiting thing you bought and the next exciting thing you plan to buy?  A 2XU wetsuit (see earlier post). My next exciting thing to buy will be two ovens and a cooktop for our new kitchen! Woo! 

What are you listening to right now? Anything from Rob Zombie to Flyleaf to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. 

What is your favorite ice cream flavor?   Ice cream? Yes please!

What do you think of the person(s) who tagged you? Nerfydunk is creative, fun, intelligent, beautiful, and a certified aquabadass.

Which language do you want to learn? Russian, so I can eavesdrop on the translators gossiping in the office kitchen.

What is your favorite color? Depends on the application and the mood…I can’t just pick one!

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe? I have a gorgeous midnight blue cocktail dress that’s cut down to there. I wish I had a place to wear it. 

What is your worst habit? Procrastina…eh, I’ll finish it later.

If you had $1,000 now, what would you spend it on? Getting the 48 inch cooktop instead of the 36 inch, and I’d use the rest to upgrade the fridge.

Describe your personal style? Either simple with killer shoes, if I’m not having to walk half a mile from the parking garage to the office, or swimsuit, or BJJ gi.

What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries.

What inspires you? People who work their ass off and accomplish big things.

Do you collect something? Uh…Bruises?

What are you most proud of? The fact that I can make a guy tap. And that I can swim across the Chesapeake Bay. 

Cats or dogs? Both. I’m a sucker for a furry face.

What’s your biggest fashion mistake? Please don’t make me answer that…

Next victims…well, other than the aforementioned aquabadass, I don’t really know any bloggers that well personally. So I’ll throw a few out here, and see what sticks.

First, I tag Dalla’s newest asskicker, Elyse of Gringa BJJ fame.

I also tag BJJGrrl, who manages to chronicle her BJJ exploits minutely…not a procrastinator, like some of us. 

And finally, I tag Georgette, because you know a redhead’s got something interesting to say!

Ladies, feel free to add, delete, or change the questions however you like!