Deborah's Brazilian Jiu Jitsu & Arnis-Eskrima Training

or my lack thereof... There was a time I would have never thought to take up a martial art.  I did.  There was a time I never thought I would be good at it.  I practiced.  Now I have skill.  And I love it. There was a time I was a terrible shot.  I hated shooting practice.  I dreaded it in fact.  Then I got frustrated with being frustrated.  I switched to a better, smaller, more comfortable gun.  I practiced.  Now I have skill.  And I love shooting. There was a time I said, "I'll never be able to do one pull-up."  I challenged myself, "BUT, what if I tried..."  I practiced.  Now I have strength, and I can do weighted pull-ups.  I love doing them.  Once, during work, I saw a guy doing pull-ups on the bar of a traffic light.  I moxied up, walked over, and did 4  pull-ups with my 30 pound gun belt. Right now, I hate take downs.  I have always hated them. I suck at them.  Well, ...

WELL, I suppose I need to write. I have been back to consistent training since June.  The last couple of months have been fairly exhilarating.  The months I was absent from training were like a slow winding of a rubber band, and when I started up again, the band snapped into a lovely, slow perpetual motion.  I have had more good training days than frustrating ones, my movement is becoming sharper and cleaner.  I am beginning to dominate more sparring sessions than ever before.  Now, I am about a million miles from being a frightful threat, but there was a time when everything was...just...it just felt like a LOT of work.  Not that it's all easy (Ha! right, uh, no), but the vision of the fight is becoming clearer, thus, I use less energy, thus, occasionally, I surprise myself with the occasional moment of, gosh,   flight, is the word that just popped in my head.  Flow.   Clarity.  Submissions that are planned and that work.  ...