Yeah, I know...

Went to watch the fights tonight. Enjoyed seeing G.S.P. pick Koscheck apart, though I did feel a little bit bad for Koschock with his eye so messed up like it was. I was there with a few BJJ buddies of mine and we were talking about tournaments and one of them asked me why I hadn't been competing lately. I told him that one reason is my neck. It still bothers me and I am having to learn how to grapple differently so that I don't put so much of a strain on it all the time and the learning has been slow. But also, I said I still don't feel like I am ready to fight at blue belt level yet. I wasn't being negative. I was just being honest about how I think I would measure up against other seasoned blue belt girls.

He told me the same thing everyone tells me. I have the wrong attitude. I am putting too much pressure on myself. I need to go out there and have fun.

His comments really bothered me. Not because he was being a jerk--my friend didn't mean anything negative by his comments and he probably had no idea how much they bothered me--but because this is something I have been mulling over for a while.

A lot of people tell me I shouldn't take competitions so seriously. But that is not my personality. To be honest, I wish it was. I envy people who can just go to competitions and have fun. Whether it is BJJ, my job, some random task at home, I have some kind of drive inside of me to want to excel. I don't want to just kind of do good. I want to do the best that I possibly can. And, yes, sometimes that means I put undue pressure on myself, but it also means that I usually accomplish my goals.

In my job, I deal with the same type of thing. I am acutely aware of where I need to improve. I probably focus too much on it. I could do with some mellowing out. But at least that means I am always striving to do better. Could I learn to direct my drive in a more positive way? Absolutely.

But I don't think the solution is for me to force myself to care less.

My husband is my exact opposite. He rarely stresses over things like I do. He's an easy-ghoing guy who laughs off a lot of the things that keep me up at night. But he is also not as easily motivated to go out and achieve his dreams. He envies my drive. I envy his ability to relax. It's why we make a good couple, I think. We balance each other out.

My point is, not caring about whether I win or lose a tournament or not caring about the fact that I am struggling to pick up a certain set of skills is not in my nature anymore that not caring about whether or not I am actually reaching any of the kids in my youth group.

I told my friend that, if I really like something, I usually become very passionate about it. He then said that I take BJJ too seriously, that it's just a hobby. He could be right. Maybe I do take BJJ too seriously. I am not a professional fighter nor do I intend to become one. I don't make any money off of BJJ and I probably never will.

My friend was just trying to encourage me. You know, give me a boost. But it still bothers me when people say I take BJJ too seriously. It makes me feel like I am doing something wrong because I care as much as I do.

If I am honest, it is more than just a hobby. It's not a job, so I can't really justify all the time that I spend on it to anyone. Maybe I let it be too much a part of my life. Maybe when I'm three or four or five years in, I won't be as obsessed as I am now. I doubt it, but we'll see.Truth be told, I think it would be wise for me to cut out one class a week. With the added "classes" in my barn, I am training every day except Wednesday and Saturday.

Either way, I am getting to the point where I want to just tell people that this is how I am and that they can take it or leave it. When I set my sights on something, I am intense. I am driven. I will keep pushing myself because I DO care. Sometimes I will be on cloud 9 and sometimes I will swear to you that I have discovered a new level of fail. Should I be this way? I don't know. But that is how I am.

I dunno. I'm committing the blogging sin of late-night-grumpy-rambling. I promise I am not as much of a jerk as I sound like, right now. I will probably read this in the morning and decide it is too melodramatic and end up taking it down. But I had to get this off my chest. Good night.

Welcome Back?

We're back from our trip to Winston Salem, North Carolina. Great time with all the kids, though I really missed being able to roll. I missed exercise in general. The food was really good and the only thing that kept me from completely porking out were all of the stairs we had to climb between buildings and in our dorms on the campus of Wake Forest University.

I couldn't wait to get back to BJJ. But tonight didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. I sort of wanted to take it easy, you know. Just roll light. But that didn't end up happening.

On the upside, we worked an x-guard sweep from half-guard that I really like. Ben has shown us this move at Summerlin a few times, but I had kind of forgotten about it. The person is in half guard. You swim their leg, hip out, get one ankle over their thigh. Then you lift up their body and get your other ankle over their thigh to make the "X". Then you can take them over one whatever side they're off balance. I tried to use this move in grappling tonight. Didn't get the sweep, but it did make enough space for me to return to full guard, which is ok in my book.

Trying to find more things to do from inverted guard. I get there and then kind of flail around trying to find and attack or a sweep. I need to figure out to points of control there, how to use my feet to push and pull at the right places to get someone off balance. Also, I am working on no sitting in inverted guard. In one of my grapples, I found myself stalled there with the other person trying to pass. I was basically grabbing at things--sleeves, lapels, knees, whatever--trying to gain some points of control to sweep or get into position for a choke. But I was really feeling around blind, not exactly sure how to set the stuff up. It's coming though....hopefully.