Notes from the Heel

Moment: Kelli, a couple days ago, singing along with Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs on... I think it was a cover of the Beach Boys' "Warmth of the Sun."

Beautiful.

***

I'm behind on my reading (already), so I'm diving in, trying to catch up by Saturday. This means I read a whopping two chapters in the ethics textbook today. Tomorrow I need to read three more, as well as an unknown (as I fear the Syllabus Gods are angry) amount of The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. It doesn't exactly read like Dave Barry, lemme tell ya.

***

Moment: Finding pieces of a Halloween window decal in the windowsill a moment ago. THEBOY asked me so many times to fetch it from the Halloween decorations in the attic (and I loathe going up there). Not sure where he found it, or how many times he's asked me to help him put it up. It's made up of several pieces, and when I saw them there I suddenly felt like my sweet young boy has asked me and somehow I've not found the time to do such a simple task.

So at this moment, I feel like a heel.

***

I'll see if we can get it done tomorrow.

***

I hit this house like a tornado today, cleaning the kitchen, the living room, vacuuming... I had a deal for Kelli: I let her take a big nap while I did all that and watched the boys so maybe she'd let me attend a lot of martial arts classes tonight. I threw in supper, which was warm and ready when I woke her up.

I fetched THEGIRL from school, zipped through the grocery store with her, came home for a quick change and was off to Tiger Klay.

***

Moment: THEGIRL in bed tonight, having lost track of her beloved Doggie doll, the one THEBOY gave her when she was an infant. It's emerged as the favorite bedtime toy, and she was calling my name, crying as she felt around in the dark for it. I found it right next to her, and she sniffled and smiled at me. More kisses, more hugs... night night.

***

The first class tonight was kickboxing, and that's always pretty physically demanding. We worked on combinations, which went well for me. Hand speed was good. Since that was triggering so well I made a point of working on my breathing. It's getting there. We had 10 free minutes of bag time at the end, so I worked on a punch/kick combo that befuddled me some weeks ago. I went much better tonight.

***

The second class was Krav Maga. We worked on some new stuff: a combination including a groin kick, hammer fist, and three open-palm strikes. Good stuff, but holding a bag for someone kicking upwards was hard on the hands for sure. We also worked on a cool stick defense/disarm, and wrapped up with 30 seconds of elbows.

We often wrap up with 30 seconds of knees, which is a booger of a drill. This variation was a welcome change of pace. Gotta admit I take some pride in banged up elbows.

***

I think I'll go put that decal on the window in a sec. I suppose that, developmentally speaking, it'd be better if I did it WITH him tomorrow.

But at this point in time I'd like to... feel better.

***

The last class was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). I think I'd had two BJJ classes in my life prior to this. One was at Whit's school quite a while ago, and one occurred by accident at Tiger Klay once, when the schedule was messed up, and I was in the right (?) place at the right time.

But I mean to start mixing some in, seeing if I can get some ground tools to become better-rounded.

Heh heh.

I was lost from the get-go. The shrimping warmups across the mat even took some input. I got the hang of 'em though.

***

We worked on two things: an escape from a standing guillotine (sort of like a headlock or a choke from the front), and a series of ground transitions beginning from side control.

I actually did pretty welll with the guillotine escape. I was startled at how well it rolled out of me. I never did mess it up (yes, that's surprise you're detecting...). I DID get dumped on my head once. I know how to fall better than that... can't get so sloppy.

The side control bit was a disaster though. For simplicity's sake (that is, in consideration of my newbie status) I was only supposed to go to a type of arm lock called a kesa getami (holy CRAP how is that spelled?). I never got it, never did it right. By then class was ending anyway, so to tell the truth I didn't get to work on it much.

***

BB was tiiiiiiiiired after all that, let me tell you.

***

Current music: In Absentia by Porcupine Tree.

***

Ya'll have a terrific Friday.