Our women's Jiu-Jitsu class is officially no more. Shihan wasn't receptive to the idea of allowing youth students to attend, and since we haven't attracted any new women for awhile, he asked me to take it off of the schedule on the website. However, Amy said as long as I keep showing up with a partner, she will keep teaching me. Since my daughter will be unable to attend for the time being, right now that partner is my husband Joe. Amy decided that our focus for the near future is going to be on preparing me for competition.
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Joe's a black belt in Karate, a yellow belt in Judo,
a green belt in Aikijujitsu, but just a white belt in Jiu-Jitsu! |
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Today she asked me what I thought my greatest weakness was, and after last week's fiasco, I said top side control. So our entire class was devoted to positional grappling drills from side control, with 100% resistance. I became frustrated after awhile, because Joe's innate grappling ability combined with him being extremely strong, as well as flexible, makes him a difficult person for me to either hold down, or to escape from underneath of. The fact that he doesn't really know Jiu-Jitsu only makes it worse, because he does all of these crazy things that I don't expect, which are annoying, and distract me from my goal. Amy described him as "The Ultimate White Belt". I guess my one saving grace is that he only outweighs me by thirty-five pounds.
I do think Joe's a good partner to help prepare me for competition, as long as neither one of us kills each other in the process (his would be on accident, but mine would totally be on purpose! ;). If I can figure out how to work around his strength, flexibility, and tendency to do the unexpected, then I should be able to handle whatever might happen in competition. I have my own personal Jiu-Jitsu teacher, competition class, and a bad-ass grappling dummy, how can I go wrong?
