Unemployment

Since I've been back in jiu-jitsu, I try to take a long lunch once a week and go to the noon fundamentals class at Dark Horse.  Usually I go on Wednesday, but this week I went on Tuesday.

For whatever reason, there were mostly blue belts on the mat, and the white belts were advanced.  I'm not sure if Tuesday is supposed to be an intermediate class, or if Professor Matt Jubera decided to make it an intermediate class based on the students in attendance.  As we lined up to start class, he said something like, "I guess when you get a blue belt you're unemployed, and you have nothing to do but go to noon class."

Many people think I never laugh, and it's true I don't find a lot of things funny, but for reasons I can't explain, I found Professor's comment hilarious; I couldn't stop laughing during the warm up.  One of my jiu-jitsu idiosyncrasies is that if I'm on the mat, I have a mouth guard in even if I'm just warming up for what I think is a fundamentals class.  And the problem with laughing and warming up and having a mouth guard in is that you get unreal saliva production.  So I'm standing up in base trying not to spray the mat with spit and using my arm that's supposed to be covering my head to cover my mouth so that no one has to see me laughing and ask why which I still can't explain.


Intermediate class was devoted to half guard, and in particular we looked at the Escrima pass from top.  We spent 15 or so minutes drilling half guard at the end of class.

I've been asked what it's like to return to BJJ after such a long lay off.  To me, it seems like this: a blue belt always has one answer to any grappling problem, and I find that's exactly all I have.  Things that I remember working on have deserted me, but my body still knows my go-to move for any position.

On top of half guard, my go to move is what I think we used to call the Gordo pass; I turn my hips into the bottom player, bring my upper body across his pinning his outside arm to his hip and picking up a kimura if it's open.  Then with or without the kimura, I'll try to bring my free knee into his hip flexors and pull out my trapped leg to pass to side control.

During drilling the go-to move was working, but I really wanted to try out what I had just learned and get the Escrima pass to work.  During the last three minutes of class, I got a strong underhook, smashed the bottom player, and finished the Escrima pass.

I felt great, not because I passed half guard, but because I feel I now have two answers to top half.

More importantly, I found that I had been unemployed for an hour, and I wasn't worried about having my claim for benefits denied.

I was still laughing when I rejoined the work force.