All I want for Christmas is...

Just because your arm is in an ugly brace,
it doesn't mean you can't still be stylish!

Yay, it's December!  My brace comes off in December!  Well, not until towards the end...the 25th to be exact.  I know which present I am most looking forward to unwrapping...my arm!  Of course, it's not like I'll be able to go full-steam right away, but I really can't wait to take this thing off.  Since it's not a cast, I can take it off myself (which I'm not supposed to do until the 25th, but which I have threatened to do about sixty times so far).  I'll probably cave on Christmas Eve, and then I will most likely need some Skyrim physical therapy before I return to the dojo.

Since I'll get back to Jiu-Jitsu around The New Year, I've decided to approach my training as if I'm starting all over.  I want to go back to the basics and try to pick up some of the details I missed the first time around.  I would like to let go of some of my old bad habits, and reexamine my entire strategy.  I hope to develop more patience; both with my training and my grappling.  I think I've spent too much time looking ahead in Jiu-Jitsu, and I've missed some of what was happening along the way.

My desire, but inability, to learn some of the cool, crazy, advanced Jiu-Jitsu techniques has sometimes made me feel like a remedial student, but the truth is I've just been reaching beyond my grasp.  At this point in my training, I shouldn't be able to do those "black belt" things yet, nor should I even be trying to.  I should be working my basics, over and over again, until they become second nature.  As Shihan says "There is no such thing as an advanced technique, only a basic one done well."