Open mat, family style

Kickboxing is a sport I am too spastic to do without injuring myself, but my husband and my friend Jen enjoy.  It is an hour the kids and I endure together between TNT and open mat.  I enjoyed a round of physical therapy stretches and exercises for my neck, shuffled into attending to my kids.  Rosemary rolled her way over to Jen's gloves.  Guess she's going to be a stand-up kind of girl...

I like the white ones, Mom

Building some serious lats

I taught Peter how to do bent-over rows, since he's always picking up the weights and "working out".  His exercises generally involve swinging the weights in a very dangerous manner.  This is better.

John was mostly content with his DSi.

Sharing the joy of Harry Potter Legos with Kevin, our amazingly patient teacher

Finally, it was open mat!  I used to bail if there wasn't a girl available for a training partner.  Now, I just want to roll and I don't really care who it is.  Today at open mat, it was me, my husband and a 14 year old guy (who happens to be about 50 lbs heavier than me).  I felt like I moved well and didn't make too many mistakes that I already know I shouldn't.  I'm guessing I'll still be making mistakes that I don't even know about for the rest of my jiu-jitsu career, so I'm just focusing on the ones I know.  I was hoping to find out if I had an accurate assessment by getting Peter to tape my sparring sessions.  I got some great close-ups of his fingers and the occasional image of me. 

Notice John on the right of the screen, swinging on the rings at about a minute into the video.  Joe was taking it easy on me - it's more fun that way for me, and he gets to play around and see what happens when he does things like roll for no good reason. 

This is some of the worst cinematography ever, but it's so bad it's funny.  Note how much of the screen is empty mat, the camera man's big brother, and the camera man's fingers.  Note the bizarre commentary following the heavy breathing.  Note the loss of sound halfway through. 

Please feel free to comment and tell me what mistakes I'm making!

Luck of the draw

Saturday was a no-jiu-jitsu kind of a day for me - one of our kids' friends from kid-jitsu, child of our friends from jiu-jitsu, had a birthday party.  Monday was un-postable if I go with "If you can't say anything nice, don't post anything at all."  I was totally off my game.  I don't know if it was my diet over the weekend, staying up too late to watch the fights, or what, but I was moving half-heartedly all day.  Rolling half-heartedly really doesn't get you anywhere but mounted and tapped.  We learned scissor sweeps, which I think may be trickier for those of us with short legs, but not as tricky as it felt.  Even just drilling it without resistance, I needed to use my foot instead of my knee to make it work.  When we sparred, I pretty much laid on my back and flailed.  Ugh.



ROCK



PAPER

SCISSOR SWEEP

Wednesday was so much better. We learned a sneaky roll through for holding guard - basically, when someone goes to pass your guard, you turn into them, momentarily in turtle, then kick your legs out to wrap guard again.   I was well rested, had eaten carefully the last few days, AND had daringly drunk a cup of full strength tea.  One of my training partners had spent the last couple of days moving dirt and mulch all over her yard.  I caught her in a triangle twice.  I've NEVER gotten a triangle to work before.  Admittedly, she hadn't ever seen a triangle before, but I've also only had the presence of mind to try a triangle once before, and that was with a purple belt who has 70 lbs on me (Translation: he LET me try it, but he was so big I couldn't get my stumpy legs to do it).  I had some hesitations.  "Well, so much for that armbar.  But look!  A triangle!  Right there!  Oh, but she's never seen a triangle.  I should go back to the armbar.  No, the path clearly shows triangle.  It's right there!  No, don't scare her off.  Oh, just do it!"  I did it.  I admit, it felt good.  Our teacher, Kevin, showed her the defense, we moved on, I did it again.  We rolled for an extra 45 minutes because none of us wanted to stop.  What a great day of jiu-jitsu!

There are so many factors, some under your control and some not, that determine whether you have a "good day."  Whether you have a day of practicing your tapping skills or a day submitting left and right.  Whether you soak up the instruction like a sponge or it glides off of you like water off a duck's back.  Whether you pull out the new tricks you learned in the last few lessons or you can't remember how to tie your belt. 

What is a good day of jiu-jitsu?  Is it a day when you tap people a lot?  Maybe, but what if they're all much bigger and more experienced?  Is that jiu-jitsu's fault?  Is a good day a day when you pick up the new moves easily?  Maybe.  What if the baby got you up three times the night before and you're sleep-deprived stupid?  Is that jiu-jitsu's fault?  Is a good day a day when you move smoothly?  Maybe.  What if you slept in a bad position the night before and can barely look at your toes, much less reach them?  Is that jiu-jitsu's fault? 

I can do my part to increase the odds that I'm better prepared to soak in and exhibit as much quality jiu-jitsu as possible.   I can go to bed early, I can eat well, I can wear my performance clothes and my lucky underwear, I can stretch everything for an hour before I get to the gym.  I can't ask the bigger, more experienced people to stay home.  I can't tell the baby to deal with her own diaper in the middle of the night.  I can't clear a path through traffic from my house to my gym.  I can't make my training partners wear themselves out before coming to class.

Here's my new definition of a good day of jiu-jitsu:  1.  No one gets injured.  2.  I'm there, conscious and in my gi.  Everything else is just the luck of the draw.

I am woman, hear me roar!

I am a fairly quiet woman.  When I get aggravated with my kids, I sigh loudly and then tell them through clenched teeth what they better do right now or the consequence is (fill in the blank).  When I get angry with my husband, I inhale deeply through my nose and clamp my mouth shut.  When I'm happy, I smile and occasionally sing loud enough to be heard over the music. 

Only twice in my life have I actually roared - the births of my son, Peter, and my daughter, Rosemary.  (I had an epidural with John)  I didn't even realize just how loud I was with Rosemary until I got a new nurse who commented on how she knew when I delivered because she heard me all the way down the hall.   With Peter, I remember thinking, in the quiet, still back of my mind, "I should really be quiet, I'm probably freaking the other women out..."  There was no quieting me.  It was as if the only way I was going to gather up the strength and courage I needed to get that baby out of me was to let out the most primal noise I could - no consonants or vowels, no attempts at pitch or tone.  Just a raw sound.

Tambako the Jaguar
Today, I felt like making that sound.  Not because the sound would see me through the trials, but as a celebration of trials overcome. 

I woke up with my own finger marks on my shoulder - I'd been squeezing my arm.  Tense much?  Why yes, I believe I was.  Maybe I felt so anxious because of the wretchedly disturbing dream I had, maybe I was just physically tense because my neck has been acting up again, or maybe I just had that familiar too-many-balls-in-the-air fog hanging over me.  I don't know what the problem was, but I know what the cure was - a double dose of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu! 

In Jane-Jitsu this morning, we went over hip-over sweeps and kimuras.  Again.  You'd think I'd really be rocking those by now, but no.  No matter, practice makes perfect, I'll get there eventually.  During the conditioning part of class, we ran/hip escaped/side shuffled laps with each of us dropping out in turns to do 10 push-ups for each kind of lap we did.  I haven't been able to do a single decent push-up since the day I got pregnant - I didn't even know I was pregnant, but my body was already saying "hey lady, no push-ups for you, you're pregnant!"  Today I busted out all 30 of those push-ups and even got a compliment from my instructor on my good form.  YES!!!!  My body is responding to all this training!

In class tonight, we worked on a guard pass.  There were 10 people in class, and 3 spots on the mat for trying to pass guard or, for your partner, trying to sweep.  This meant there was room for me to go a second time, and I was huffing and puffing from the first round and just couldn't say no to the second.  My awesome training partner, the only other woman that usually shows up at night, also Mom of the Mom & Pop gym I love so much (Fighting Chance Fitness), Christy, is a purple belt.  She is almost exactly my weight (well, now...) and height, plus I don't have to explain to her not to lean on my boobs, making her seem like a perfectly matched training partner, but she is not a white belt.  She usually holds back a lot - basically giving me moves if my technique is good and playing catch and release with her own moves.  I don't know that she went full speed with me tonight, but she certainly cranked it up a few notches from where we usually train.  I LOVED IT!  I didn't pass or sweep worth squat, but I sure had fun trying.

Add to that the part where my scale said the lowest number I've seen since summer of 2009, and you've got one woman ready to let the world know she is victorious - with a roar.

Vida Jiu-Jitsu!

Man Down! Man Down!

I went to class this morning - TNT first, then Jane-Jitsu.  The gym was closed this weekend for our local tournament, so I was jonesing for a good roll, and dying to try out a new side-mount escape I stumbled onto this weekend.  We started with some drills - hip-escapes, forward rolls, and step-throughs, then right into the lesson since we were all warm and stretched from TNT.  Hip-over sweeps, to be followed by kimuras.  Except after the third or fourth time drilling the sweep, one of the girls busted her knee.  Sorry to be so technical, but I don't really know what she did to it.  It looked awful and was clearly painful.  By the time I came back with our knee brace and crutches to loan her, she was sitting propped up, eating a sandwich and cracking jokes, despite still being in a lot of pain!   She is super tough!  We will be missing our training partner for a few weeks at least.  BOO!!!

I'm bummed that she hurt her knee because I don't want her hurt, but also because that was the end of class.  No rolling for Emily.  No getting to try out the new side-mount escape.  Sigh.  Yes, I feel like a schmuck saying that, but you know you'd be sad if you missed your jiu-jitsu fix, too!  I am a complex woman, capable of feeling more than one thing at a time!  Anyway, I will post the side-mount escape AFTER I get a chance to try it. 

We did medicine ball guard during TNT - hold a medicine ball in your guard, bring the ball to your chest, put your legs back down, bring them back up to wrap the ball in your guard, repeat.  I have been having the hardest time with this one.  I don't know if it's because my back was tight or because my butt was so heavy or because my abs were shot, or a combination of all of those, but I just haven't been able to get my butt off the ground since before I was noticeably pregnant.  Not today, though - it was amazing!  It would not have been any more incredible to me to have suddenly found out I could fly.  SuperME!!

New Fenom gi! In BLUE!

I'm getting a new gi!  Actually, I'm getting TWO new gis.  I have lost all of my baby weight, so it is time to retire my beloved post-partum Fenom Classic gi.  The problem is, I love it so much, I can't stand to go back to my Grappler Gear gi (the one I'm wearing in the picture with Kyra Gracie).  This gi was handed down from a brown belt who said he just had it hanging around, could anyone use it?  It wasn't too long, short, tight or loose, but it never fit right.  I always felt like I was fighting my pants to do anything but stand, and I could choke myself with my own collar.  Of course, when I first started BJJ, I didn't know what to look for in fitting a gi.  I'm not sure I know now, but I definitely have a better idea.



Old Faithful, the postpartum gi



When I'm rolling, I never think about my Fenom gi (A2, Classic).  When I want to grab it, it's there.  When I need to move over it, it's not in the way.  When I move, my body is the limiting factor, not my gi.  But when I'm getting dressed, I do curse the pants quite a bit these days.  The waist just wasn't made to go that small.  Time to buy an A1.  The blue is really pretty, and the price ($65!)  is fantastic - definitely getting the blue.  The question is, do I want another black one for my second gi? 

White is hard to keep looking clean, and I would never wash a white gi with my black or blue gi, but I might wash black and blue together (thus saving on laundry).  My only hesitation is that the black pants are a slightly heavier weight than the Lotus (white) and the blue.  Summer is coming, and I don't care how much you crank the AC, rolling in Florida in a gi is HOT.  Might as well give myself the advantage of lighter pants.  Decisions, decisions.

Open mat last night, and I felt much better.  I made myself take a nap in the morning.  I wonder if I just haven't had the energy to escape lately? 

I should explain this.  I never used to get stuck in bottom mount or bottom side mount before, and it's become my obsession to find a way to quit acting like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is all about lying on your back.  I'm trying to figure out what changed.  Did I change something I was doing and create a hole in my game?  Am I just too tired to bother getting them off of me?  Did I lose enough weight that I've given up my size advantage and I never had the technique to begin with?  Was I just never getting stuck there before because I always got submitted quickly once in mount?  Was everyone just letting me out?

I have no answers.  I did get a new tweak on how to get out:  When trying to push my partner down to a lower mount, put one hand on their opposite hip, with my elbow on their other hip.  Then put my other hand on top of the first hand and push.  Surprisingly effective. 

I rolled with one of the high school kids.  He got some ribbing for having a hard time passing guard, as in, "Dude, it's like getting beat by your MOM!"  "I know, it's humiliating!"  I had a moment where I had to do the math to realize that, yes, I am more than old enough to be his mother, not even as a teen mom.  Sigh.  Frankly, if I had the option to be 16 again, I wouldn't do it.  I'm a much better person now, and I think even in better shape. 

On a sad note, we missed the tournament at our parent gym, Jax BJJ today.  We were almost to the on-ramp when we saw that the interstate was backed up as far as we could see in both directions.  It was already going to be a 45 minute drive with 3 kids, with nothing for the kids to do once we got there but sit still and watch, so we bailed.  Boo.  Can't wait to hear how everyone did!

Gravity, Balance and excuses

Class on Wednesday was more armbars, and again I felt better about my armbars.  Yay!  The idea for today's class was to go from armbarring someone who isn't good at jiu-jitsu (i.e., someone who hands you their arm) to armbarring someone who has the clue to keep their arms in when mounted.  Armbars still feel very unnatural to me.  I am trying to work them while sparring, but I am still having trouble with improving my position to the point where I can attempt an armbar. 

Our Jane-Jitsu class rolled for the first time.  I was excited to get to roll with female white belts, and quite impressed with my classmates' abilities.  None of these women are completely new to jiu-jitsu - one is the sister of the owner of my gym, one has a son in the kids' class and one had a husband who trained.  Still, after only a few weeks of training, they were much better than I would have expected.  It was awfully nice to come out of the changing room to hear them talking about how good I was, because I felt like they should be saying how easy this BJJ stuff is and how much I suck at it.  They made some newbie mistakes, but they are aggressive, strong, and working what they know. 

All of this got me thinking about whether I SHOULD be better than I am.  I know, I know, the me of today would kick the butt of the me of a year ago, but I've always been a little too willing to take the laziest route possible in life.  After much thought, I decided that I really ought to cut myself some slack.  I shouldn't slack off, I should work even harder because I have some disadvantages.  However, I think I don't need to beat myself up for not improving as much as I could.  

1.  NO!  SLEEP!  TILL WEANING!!!!  Seriously, I've had about 5 decent nights sleep in the last seven months.  I have always needed at least 8 hours of sleep a night to be fully functional and more like 9 or 10 to be good.  Remembering how to do a move and when to do it is hard even when fully rested.  I'm so tired that I can barely remember what day it is.
2.  Changing Center of Gravity:  I have not been at a stable weight the entire time I've trained jiu-jitsu.  I put on a few holiday pounds when I started, and then gained 35 pounds during the pregnancy, and then lost the baby weight.  I'm still trying to lose the holiday pounds from 2009.  This is a small component of why I might suck more than I otherwise would, but especially for moves like the armbar, it is harder to build coordinated muscle memory when the action keeps changing.
3.  Changing Flexibility:  During pregnancy, ligaments are loosened by an onslaught of the hormone relaxin (yes, as in "relax, ligaments, loosen up!").  I'm not sure where that ties in, but given how important flexibility is to BJJ, I'm sure it plays a part.
4.  Watch Out, She's Knocked Up!  I don't think anyone has been willing to roll full speed with me for a long time, so I didn't really realize how much of an advantage they were giving me.  This is one of the reasons I'm so excited to have female white belts to roll with - they aren't holding back.  Don't get me wrong, I WANT upper belts and bigger guys to hold back sometimes, or else I'd spend all my time mounted and gasping.  Being unable to escape mount is educational at times, but doesn't really allow me to work anything else.    Of course, maybe I shouldn't work anything else until I can really escape? That's another post altogether...
5.  Milk Gets In The Way:  Look, there's no gracious way to say it - when my boobs are full of milk, I protect them more than I protect my neck and arms.  I try to train on 'empty', but it doesn't always work out that way. 

6.  One Eye On Jiu-Jitsu, One Eye On The Baby:  I wouldn't be able to train at all if my gym weren't so incredibly family friendly, and I love that Rosemary is going to grow up in a jiu-jitsu lifestyle.  Buttttttt....  I might remember stuff more if I wasn't always using part of my brain for watching her, and occasionally having to stop what I'm doing to attend to her.  I am not complaining - she is an amazingly good baby who will usually give me an hour and a half of uninterrupted training.  I'm just saying...
7.  Bye, Bye, Abs: Nothing like pregnancy to ruin your abs.  The last time I did sit-ups while pregnant, I had this mountain ridge looking thing going on where my abs had separated.  They're coming back, slowly but surely, but really, how can you do decent jiu-jitsu without decent abs?
8.  Kids vs. Jiu-Jitsu:  I can't get to a class every day.  My husband and I have worked out a schedule where everyone gets to train, but there is homework to be done, I have to feed my kids, they have to take a shower occasionally and they have to get enough sleep.  I don't want them to grow up saying "Mom and Dad loved BJJ more than they loved us."  I want them to say "Mom and Dad loved us so much that they made sure we had this healthy, positive thing we all did together."  

Just to clarify, I am not complaining or giving myself permission to give in to slacker BJJ, just reminding myself and any other pregnant BJJ mamas out there that there are reasons we won't be racing through the belts.  Just putting on the belt - whatever color it is - is impressive in the face of all that!  Jiu-Jitsu is a journey.  I will follow the path of others before me, even though I walk the path slowly.

Vida Jiu-Jitsu!

My baby girl is starting off right!

Yesterday, I had Rosemary with me during TNT - Tone N Tighten, conditioning with a BJJ slant, sometimes known as Tone N Torture - as well as regular jiu-jitsu class.  For the first hour, she sat in her pack & play, quietly playing while the rest of us grunted and sweated.  When jiu-jitsu started, she started fussing, so I put her on the mat with us.


Grappling dummies make great backrests
 for babies who aren't reliable sitters



Baby belt promotions happen fast



She continued playing, and we continued drilling armbars from mount.  I heard a frustrated noise and looked to see if she was okay.  Reaching for a toy, she rolled over for the first time! 

How cool is that?  This child, who has literally been on the mats since before she was born, had her first roll on the mat! 



So, back to actual BJJ...  Monday morning class is Jane-Jitsu - all women, and has only been going a few weeks.  I'm the senior student there, and if you've been paying attention you'll know that this means the other students are brand spanking new.  We've been drilling a lot of basic movements - I think this is the second submission we've drilled in this class, if you count armbar from guard as a separate submission. 

If I was concerned that I hadn't absorbed any jiu-jitsu or improved, this lesson proved otherwise.  The first time I learned this, I couldn't get to my feet without putting my butt way up in the air.  I couldn't switch my foot to the other side of their head without falling over.  This time, I still felt a little awkward but I COULD DO IT!!!  I love learning new, fancy techniques, but when I drill a basic move I already know (or thought I knew) it makes me see that I am progressing.  Even more important, now this is a move that I'm not afraid to try when sparring. 

Vida Jiu-Jitsu!

More About Me

I jumped right into my blog, without really telling about myself. The first thing you should know is that sometimes I get excited and put the cart before the horse! Actually, I wrote the first two posts before I got the blog part together. Anyway, more interesting stuff about me:

I have one beautiful stripe on my white belt that I usually think I don't deserve. Sometimes I think they gave me the stripe with the hope that I would stop training for the rest of my pregnancy once I got it. Sometimes I feel like I've earned it.



Future UFC fighters???



My older son started training in August 2009. My husband started a few weeks later, and that November, my younger son and I joined in. I found out I was pregnant a month later. I kept rolling until I couldn't get my kimono closed (which happened to be about 3 rolls after I got my stripe), right around 6 months. I started rolling again at 8 weeks postpartum. That sounds like a lot of mat time, but I started only going once or twice a week, and am currently attending class twice a week, and open mat twice a week.   What I'm saying here is that I'm quite new at the jiu-jitsu thing...

No, I was not doing any jiu-jitsu
 at 9 months pregnant

By the way, I did ask my OB if it was okay to keep training. “Is it okay for me to keep training jiu-jitsu while I'm pregnant? When should I stop?” I asked.  She said I could keep training as long as I wanted to. I wonder if she actually has any idea what jiu-jitsu is like? I made sure to roll only with the one other woman at my BJJ class, and we didn't do any knee on belly moves.

I did have a life before my days of leisure as a domestic goddess. I earned a B.S. in physics from Georgia Tech, conducted neuroscience research, ran a bed & breakfast with my husband and worked in a resort real estate office. Not all at the same time...

I read a lot, watch very little tv and like to play in the garden. I was once an avid scrapbooker, but find that I no longer have the time. I am frequently amazed at what a slacker I used to be – how was I ever bored? There is so much to do in this life!

Oh, THAT'S what you mean...

Get your own arm position reminder at
 http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/14969

You know when somebody tells you something simple, like don't push with your hands, use your arms, and you know the words, and mostly how they relate to each other, but it still doesn't sink in?  That Grapplearts video totally made it sink in.  I think Jennifer Weintz's arms look like a cross between a shrimp and a dance move from Thriller - I GET IT NOW!  I KNOW WHERE TO PUT MY ARMS!!!  And I kind of know how to use them.  (By the way, I think Jennifer looks nothing at all like a shrimp or Michael Jackson, she's quite pretty; there's just something about her arm usage in this video that speaks to my twisted brain in a twisted way).  It's not just putting one arm on the neck, one arm on the hip, it's using my forearms the way I usually use my hands, and using my whole body to move my arms.  It gives me enough power to move my opponent a few inches so that I have enough room to get out of there.  

I love it when a tiny piece of the puzzle of BJJ falls into place!

Kyra Gracie Seminar/2011 NAGA World Cup



I had a banner weekend – started off with a 4 ½ hour trip to Boca Raton, during which my kids were magnificently well behaved (thank you, Nintendo!), jumped straight into a seminar with Kyra Gracie, got up the next day to fight in my first tournament (against women who were all MUCH better than me), watched my husband fight and the next day watched my kids fight.




 

Fighter toes and my first medal

I'm not sure if these chicks were really in my division... They put me against a couple of beginners (I was in novice) at first, because there were no other novices in my weight class. Then a “novice” showed up, so they put me with her, but still had me fight the beginners. I fought no-gi and gi, which was kind of silly because I've never fought no-gi before. I don't mean I never competed in no-gi before, I mean I'd never been on the mat without a gi on before. They lured me in with the promise of a medal no matter what. Sure enough, I walked away with a silver and a bronze, all for showing up for the ass-kicking.





My beginner opponents were about to go for their blue belts. My “novice” opponent was much better than my beginner opponents. Maybe she just trained every day for those 6 months... Oh well. Here's what I learned at the tournament:

1. Don't hold heavy stuff between matches, like a camera for recording your husband's fights, or your baby and especially both. It wears your arms out. Suck it, baby, Mommy needs those arms for fighting!
2. Position is my weakness. If someone lies back and lets me, I can totally submit them. So far, I have no takers. I need to learn how to get people off of me.
3. I suck at takedowns. We really don't train takedowns at our gym – the occasional lesson, but we almost always start from knees. Considering how much my neck and back hurt now (4 days later), I'm okay with that. We don't have the “crash pads” or even a nice stack of mattresses with or without a pea in the middle.
4. Even when I'm distracted with something important, like getting that woman off of me, I need to keep my elbows in. Yes, I was submitted with a kimura.
5. Obnoxious parents exist in BJJ, too.
6. Listening to the other corner is a good way to know what to defend against.

Now, what I learned at the Kyra Gracie seminar:

1. 
   Cross collar choke – if your second hand won't go in deep enough, push your first hand up a little, away from you, to create some room in the collar. You can defend this choke by looking up and pushing down on their arms/pushing their elbows together. You can counter this defense by scooting your hips up to under their arms (need to put your feet on their hips for this) and lifting your hips against the arms.
2. Omoplata – push the elbow down, lean all your weight on their far hip, raise your hips straight up.
3. Posher – Kyra kept talking about “posher” and how we all learned this one our first day. All I could think was, “WTF??? I've never even HEARD of this move!” Finally figured out that she was saying POSTURE. Right...
4. Posture - Keep your hips directly below your head – don't lean out. When standing from in guard, pull one foot to the floor/knee up. Next, twist your knee so that your foot is beside you, then push off that foot to raise your knee. Now you are on your feet with your knees bent and your hips directly under your head. Stand up, shake off a leg and Gracie pass the other one.

I have a feeling she taught quite a bit more than this. There was definitely something about where to put your hands/elbows when your opponent has their hands on your sleeves. Oh, and some take down advice – don't try the soto gari if you are walking backwards, only when you are walking forwards. When you go for it, take a big enough step that you bend your knee to drop your weight, swing the other leg through and back between their legs, keeping that leg straight. And some posture drills. And some sneaky arm bar thing.

It was all a bit overwhelming for me. Not only had I just come off of a long car trip and was nervous about my first tournament the next day, but I was totally on the mat with KYRA GRACIE!!! Frankly, I'm surprised I can remember anything useful. Normally, I would have said that this was out of my league and I had no business going, but I don't know that I'll ever just happen to be in the same city as a Gracie seminar again...

On a side note, Kyra was extremely friendly and fun. She walked in, got out of her Canada clothes (this was in Boca Raton, FL) and into her gi, sat down with us and started talking about what it was like to grow up as a girl in a family full of … well, Gracies... She had very good English, except push and pull were tricky for her, as were elbow and shoulder; we all enjoyed a good laugh over push vs. pull.

I got a picture and an autograph, of course. I really want to go to her camp, or the Gracie Adventure Camp. One day I'll have enough money and my kids will be old enough to do without me for a week.

So I came home looking for some answers on how to get out of being mounted. This video looks helpful. I can't wait until I can move again and try it out!