JuJitsu Seminar

Over the weekend I attended the Australian JuJitsu Association national seminar in Sydney.

The dojo wasn't what I was expecting - it was like a giant igloo shaped marquee had landed in the carpark at the Sydney Olympic complex at Homebush.  There was one big mat inside - I was expecting different rooms or something.  We were split into 3 groups depending on belt level - there were over 140 participants on the first day - so it got quite crowded on the mat at times when people were doing throws etc :)  Our Defendo group had about 40 people there (adults and kids over 12) so we made the numbers swell!

On both days, we had 6 x 45 minute sessions with instructors from different clubs all around Australia.  The brain hurt by the end of it - so did the body!  We did a lot of wrist locks and arm locks, some grappling work, knife defense work, nerve control (I have the most spectacular bruise on my inner thigh from that!).  I honestly can't remember what else - hopefully it will come back to me when I'm at training again!

This was at the end of day 1 - I'm at the back somewhere.

As well as the seminar itself, it was a valuable weekend spending social time with members of our Defendo group.  We had shared apartments, so got to know our roomies a bit better in the down time.  We also went out for dinner on both Friday and Saturday nights which let us chat and 'bond' outside of class.

It was a great weekend and I'm hoping to do it all again next year :)

Orange Belt Grading

Saturday was Defendo grading day for me.  I went into it feeling focused and reasonably confident, but for some reason, once we got to the techniques part, it was as if everything I knew flew out the window.  You know that feeling when you sit down for an exam and nothing looks remotely familiar?  I was completely blank.  My training partner seemed to be suffering from the same problem, and I think our nerves were feeding off each other.  It didn't help that we were the only two going for the higher belt.

Afterwards my sensei said that by half way through the grading, he had decided to only award us black tips (kind of like a half-way mark to the next belt).

But we rallied, somehow, and dug deep enough to scrape through to our orange belt!

So I have a mixture of pride that I did it, and disappointment because I know I could have done better - but regardless, I have my orange belt!!

I have at least 12 months to prepare for my next belt - so I need to practice enough to transfer the knowledge from my head to my muscle memory.  Obviously it doesn't stay in the head under pressure :)

I love this photo - this was before round 3 of 4 of 'back-to-back' ground fighting, with about 5 minutes to go of our hour long grading.  We all look completely and utterly exhausted!

I did it!!

Quick 'me' update

I'll do a more in-depth homeschooling one soon (hopefully over the weekend) but just a quick one about me.  Since it *is* my blog and all :)

February was a very busy month - I had commitments with RWA, I was doing an online writing course that was very full-on, homeschooling and cub activities, defendo, work, family stuff (oh and hubby was away for a week and a bit during that time).

So I am particularly proud of myself that my 'progress' calendar looks like this -

Each day I put a sticker on the square if I write on my work-in-progress (it can be as little as 100 words, but I have to make genuine forward progress), and I write the exercise that I've done in the top of the square.  Look closely - every single day has been marked off!!  That now makes about 45 consecutive days that I have written and exercised!  (I have some cute 'teacher reward' stickers that I bought somewhere, so it gives me a lift to give myself a 'Great Work' or 'Super' sticker lol).

It's really working for me - if I feel like skipping a day, I think of how sad that empty spot will look and dig deep to find the energy to do it!  Even if it is 11pm!

My exercise has ranged from walking, running (I'm still making slow progress on my running goal), trampoline (I bought myself a mini-tramp or rebounder), defendo, yoga, pushups (I've started the Hundred Pushups Training challenge) or light weights work, wii fit, pilates and cardio workouts on YouTube.  Most are 20-30 minutes, up to 1.5 hrs for my defendo class.

I just wanted to share one of the lovely spots I walk on the days I drop Billy at drama - there are ducks and swans in this wetlands and its so nice to walk past!

My writing is also going well - I'm up to 27,000 words on my work-in-progress.  Unfortunately I couldn't keep up the pace in the online writing course I was doing, and got a bit left behind - I still have the lecture notes to read through though, so I'll still get value out of it.

I was just about to hit post when a fellow Defendo person posted a photo on Facebook of a seminar I went to on Wednesday night - on knife, gun, stick and hand defence with expert Hock Hochheim.  Hopefully I'll never need to use the knowledge, but it was very interesting.

Defendo Grading

Today I had my much anticipated defendo grading - time to finally try to get off that horrible white belt :)

The grading lasted a bit over an hour and was quite full on.  We were moving for pretty much that whole hour - we were instructed to be jogging on the spot while we were waiting.  We had to demonstrate our rolls (not my strong point lol), falls, kicks, punches, checks & blocks, a couple of routines / patterns / kata, and basic escape techniques (ie from grabs like bear hugs, head locks etc).  We had light contact sparring, ground fighting, and heaps of push ups and sit ups.

And we did it!  I graded up to yellow belt!  Sensei even said I went better than he expected - I'm not sure if that meant he had really low expectations though :)

I'm sore and bruised, but very proud of myself!

 

In the one in the white shoes towards the front.

 

This is me getting my face gouged :)

 

Getting presented with my yellow belt!

Out of my comfort zone

Doing the form of martial arts that I'm doing is pushing me so far out of my comfort zone, its not even in the same universe :)

When I did karate before (way before), we focused mainly on 'kata' (patterns) and kicking, punching etc.  We didn't do a lot of contact stuff and when we did, it was mostly light contact sparring.  I should've realised that something called Defendo Close Quarters Combat would be different lol.  Especially with the motto "KISS - Keep it simple and savage"!

I've never been in a fight.  I don't have brothers.  My sister and I were far more effective with words than fists :)  So its quite confronting to be placed in situations where you have to fight and be savage - where hair pulling, eye gouging and nose hooks are perfectly valid techniques (no eye gouging in training though!)

At training on Saturday, we were doing a technique where one person had to lay down, and three - get that, three - people lay across them - one across the head, one across the stomach, one across the legs.  The person underneath had to then fight their way free.  Unlike a real fight though, the people laying on top weren't trying to fight back in this instance.

I was training with three lovely young men, but my sensei reckoned they were being too soft on me.  So he put me in the middle of the room, put three high level belts on me (including one big, solid guy) and made everyone stop to watch.

My first reaction was panic.  I felt like I couldn't move - was being crushed, couldn't breathe.  They were too big for me to push - I had to use elbows, grabs etc to get them off me.  It was quite scary until the adrenaline kicked in and as Sensei put it - I unleased my inner mongrel :)  Boy was I exhausted afterwards though - it was probably only 30 seconds - it felt like 10 minutes.

Apart from the physical, its also mentally out of my comfort zone.  I'm a perfectionist.  I hate doing anything in public that I haven't practiced umpteen times by myself until I know I can do it.  I hate looking inadequate and think people will laugh at me.  Unfortunately this leads me to sitting on the sidelines a lot, watching.  People will invite me to do something - even as simple as playing a game of pool - and I turn it down, meanwhile thinking "Oooh that looks like fun.  But I can't do it, people would laugh at me.  Maybe if they ask me again, I might try it.  Or maybe not.  Oh damn, they're stopping."  *sigh*

Sensei Bill also made me demonstrate another leg sweep technique in the middle that we'd just learnt.  I sucked at it.  I get left & right confused when I'm under pressure.  I pretty much stuffed it completely up.

But guess what - no-one laughed at me.  They were all wonderfully supportive and encouraging. So its quite good for me (I think!) to be forced into demonstrating something in the middle and not knowing what I'm doing, getting it wrong.  

This could be the start of a more confident me...  (maybe)

Proof..

I very rarely post photos of myself, so this is special :)

Now to get rid of that white belt!