Vacation

Took a week off of everything. Stayed at a friend's cabin in the woods near a lake. Did a lot of hiking, eating and sleeping.

Back to Friday morning class, then off to Seattle for a two day Gui Mendes seminar.

Worked with Opal and Anjela for technique, which was ok. I wanted to work with someone who was more experienced, but the numbers of the class dictated a group of three. I wanted someone with more experience as we were doing fairly advanced cross guard techniques. Selfish of me to not want to work with people who were newer, but there it is.

Rolls were ok. Rolled with Kelly first, who has decided to stop cranking my neck. He did several rolling back attacks, to which I had a decent defense. He came out on top most of the time and apparently wasn't looking hard for submissions.

Rolled with Opal, and I gave her some tips on the knee cut pass.

Rolled with Chuck and was doing fairly well until I paused at a dicey top position. He came up on top and very nearly got to mount.

Roll with Chris N. He pretty much kicked my ass. He was going pretty hard, getting a kimura from bottom side-control, a choke from top turtle and maybe something else. I got pissed near the end and started rolling more aggressively. Once again I got my ass handed to me by a blue belt, and once again rolling was no fun. I'd like to think it's a continuation of runaway hormones. I'm going through that phase where I'm sick and tired of being the worst performing purple belt on the mat. The fact that I have two stripes seems like a kindof joke. I know I need to disregard the belt color and blah blah blah, but I'm caught up in it for some reason.

Looking forward to the seminar and hoping it shakes me out of my rut.