I Need To Work On My Displays of Gratitude

I went and visited Fabio’s other school last night; the one that I had never been to before. Going over there was nerve wracking for me. I was worried that I wouldn’t do well and people wouldn’t think I deserved my stripes. Fabio is always talking about how you don’t need to prove yourself to people. If he or Ben gives you a stripe or a belt, you’ve earned it. They don’t give them out just because they like people or because people come to class a lot. You don’t need to keep proving that you earned it.

Nevertheless, I fought with myself the whole way not to think like that. Too add to my lack of confidence, I am STILL sick. In the back of my mind, I was using that as an excuse before I even got there. I’m not feeling well, so if I suck, that’s the reason why. Right?

So we get there and everyone was really welcoming and nice. It’s a smaller school, more like Summerlin, the other school I train at with Ben. (Did I mention that Summerlin didn’t close after all?!?! Woohoo for Ben being willing to keep teaching our little group of miscreants!) I started to relax a little bit, but my nerves were still getting to me.

Then we got to the technique.

Usually, I am ok with picking up techniques. I mean, I’m a white belt so I don’t do them awesome. But I can at least mimic what Fabio or Ben do. Apparently I left my brain in Lakeland because I could not for the life of me do the technique tonight. It as a half guard sweep where you swim both legs, trapping one of their legs with both of your legs, then kicking out with one leg and rolling and come up in side control. Yeah...I can’t even explain it properly. I got it by the end, but MAN I felt like a retard through drilling.

Grappling didn’t start much better. I went with a blue belt named Nick, who is a really nice guy, as this story is about to prove. He was rolling really light, being really friendly and letting me work. And how do I repay him you might ask? Oh, I dunno…I only kneed him in the face! We’re not talking about a little graze either. It was a clunker. In fact, I hit him so hard I actually have a welt on my knee.

Spastic white belt for the lose!

He took it in stride and kept grappling. But I’m pretty sure he hates my guts now. It wasn’t just the knee to the face. I also had this problem where my mouth would not stop moving. Sometimes, when I get nervous, I get really quiet. Other times, I talk a lot. This was one of those times that I talked a lot. I talked the whole grapple. I was annoying myself but my mouth kept moving. After all that, Nick was still nice enough not to submit the tar out of me.
The rest of my grapples went a little better. I settled down and did the best that I could. I stopped worrying so much about what people were thinking and just tried to roll. By the end of the night I was starting to feel comfortable. Just in time for me to leave!

I wish I had some deep, thought provoking moral of the story. But all I’ve got is this: Don’t be an overly anxious moron like I was. Relax and do what you do. If people like you, great! If not, submit them...or pay a higher belt to do it for you!! ;)

Also, check out this link about Fabio in another local paper. Well deserved, Fabio!!