The JudoForum Community lost a member on Thursday. I don't know how. I don't know why. In this day of electronic communication, I feel so much like I'm operating in the dark, but then, without the electronic community, I would never have met SoonerMC, and my life would have been much poorer as a result. The SoonerMC tag belonged to a young man named Matt, who was a judoka, a father, a husband, and a member of the legal community. That made him special - a young judoka who, when I met him on these boards, was going part time to law school while he struggled to support his family. A lot of people can't handle school AND judo, or school AND family, or school AND work, and here was a young man who was ably and adroitly handling all 4. He worked for his family, he went to school for his family, and he played judo to make himself better, for his family. So, with the law thing and the judo thing, there was a natural sharing between the two of us.

Then there was the ankle. Shortly after I broke mine, he broke his. And while I bitched and moaned about my infection, he opted out of surgery, had his leg casted, and worked his way through the broken ankle. For the intervening years, I was soooo jealous: if I'd have said no to the surgery, I'd have been healed before him, back out on the tatami before him, and I wouldn't have been watching from the sideline, waiting for yet another cast as his life progressed, and mine seemed to stagnate under the weight of my bad decision. Then, not that long ago, he broke his ankle again. That was why I'd originally opted for surgery, and was a risk with not having surgery. I didn't envy him, nor did I think he deserved it - it's a broken ankle; it sucks. When you have a young child at home, a wife and a job, and a schedule to keep, nobody needs a broken ankle, let alone that "now you have to have surgery" speech from some orthopod. He made his announcement via Facebook; he was having the surgery, and I treated him like I would a little brother - you'll be fine, it's no big deal, we'll compare scars, you'll become a member of an every growing club of judoka with scars over their fibula who can trade war stories. Turns out that, unlike me, he'd never been on an operating room table before and was naturally nervous. So, I teased him with my experiences - you get moved into a room that's way too cold and about the time you decide you're ready to complain and ask for more warm blankets, some annoying nurse is waking you up in the recovery room, stuff like that. And I crossed my fingers, prayed a little, and kept my eye on my Facebook wall waiting for word about his surgery. Next thing, he's posting photos. 5-7 days later, he's posting photos of the suture removal, and we're comparing the experience and our photos. And I'm breathing a sigh of relief. It's nice to be able to laugh at things after the fact.

The last Facebook post I'm aware Matt made was another ankle post. He'd just gotten his sutures out after the last necessary surgery to remove a large screw. The incision was outlined in the pock marks of stitches, just like mine after my third surgery. He sounded positive and ready to go. So, I commented, congratulating him on getting through his second surgery, the last necessary surgery, and teasing him about turning the screw into a nice Christmas Tree ornament for next year.

Today, I'm playing Mafia Wars and looking at my wall, and there are suddenly quite a number of photos posted under his screen name. It's retro week on Facebook, and people are playing along, posting old photos of themselves as a kid. These were a bit different. Then I noticed, the words were by somebody else, his sister, his wife, and I'm clicking over to his wall, tears in my eyes. This young man who's been through so much, who's now ready to reap the reward of a man with a new law license has died. The pictures are from all times, including the most recent Christmas as he hoists his young son up to hang an ornament, as a young puppy bites his nose while he sleeps, as he kisses his wife whom he so obviously loves. And his dojo just had its grand reopening over the weekend. And this young man, who has so much going for him is no more. I can't help but cry. I cry for his lost potential. I cry for the pain his loss has and will continue to cause his family. I cry for his son who will grow up without his father. I cry for his dojo members who had to perform a grand reopening without him. I cry because this is a true tragedy. It really doesn't matter how he died; it only matters that he died. And while his family suffers the most from this loss, we, as a judo community, are diminished by his silence.

I miss you, Matt.

Let me preface this with where and when I come from. I was born and raised in Iowa, and, in my early 40's I'm not exactly ancient, except maybe to those too young to vote. So, my history is a part, a voice in our recent history.

When I was 11, I eagerly awaited spring so I could get out of the house, into the neighborhood and play. We did Midnight Ghost Time, Kick the Can, Kickball, and just about any day in Spring and Summer, there was a pick up game of baseball in Schmitt's field. In the fall, we shifted over to football, again in Ms. Schmitt's field. It was just where all the neighborhood games were played. Finally, the snow was gone, and the weather was just warm enough and I was heading out the door with my brothers when my dad said, "stacey, where are you going?"
"out to play" duh, I answered. What else would I be doing before the streetlights came on calling everybody home?
"No, you're not" was my mom's answer. What? I thought. I wasn't grounded, I did a quick inventory of my misdeeds and realized that there was no earthly reason that they could want to keep me indoors. So, being a stubborn person, I started to leave. I got grabbed, and told in no uncertain terms that I was no longer allowed to go play baseball, or play with the boys in general. Why? because I was a girl and suddenly, it was no longer appropriate. If I wanted to play, I could only play with girls. Fine, let's move to a neighborhood where there are actual girls around, and I'll play baseball with them. That kind of smart answer got me in a bit of trouble.

That year, I found out only boys play baseball, girls play softball. Never really found the games to be all that comparable, but, whatever. That fall, when wrestling was offered at school for the first time to kids my age, I was told in no uncertain terms, you can't wrestle because you're a girl. No flag football, let alone tackle. No baseball. And while the boys got to play basketball, I was stuck with girl's basketball, again, a game that's not comparable to real basketball.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was play. I was not allowed to do that because I was a girl.

With that background in mind, the passing of Rusty Kanokogi hits hard. To frame it in an historical context, my grandmother played girl's basketball in 1915. Girl's basketball was created to allow women to be involved a healthful exercise that was responsive to the particularities of the female constitution. Back then, excessive exercise was thought to kill women, or at least drive them insane. So, grandmother wanted to play, and society said, sure, you can play, but you have to do it in this low impact, no aggression way, while covered from throat to wrist to ankle in wool. We were very limited and expected to be very thankful for the opportunity to be limited.

50 years ago, Rusty comes along and says, "bunk, I can do this". Society's still saying, no, you can't, you're a woman with a delicate and fragile constitution. Rusty does it anyway, entering a tournament disguised as a man and takes gold. Society finds out that they got beat by a woman, and she's stripped of her medal, so we have Rusty saying, "I want to play, I can play, see?" and society saying, "so what? you're not allowed, get back to your kata practice and your joshi obi and leave real judo to the men. Now we have an example, Rusty, who's not harmed by her activity, doesn't go insane, and this fires things up. She becomes a voice in judo and a driving force in women's judo.

In the 70's, when my parents were imparting the lesson of female inferiority on me, my cousin, Felecia, out in CA, was one of the first girls to join a Little League team. I read the clippings with much joy, and a lot of envy - I could throw a ball better than her. Title IX came along, and to a girl's call of, "I want to play" society was finally beginning to say, "O.k., if you really want to, you can play". Rusty was a driving force behind this in judo. Through Title IX, society also said that if there wasn't a functional equivalent for women in women's sports, we could play with the boys. By the late 80's, girls were making headlines joining wrestling teams, playing on high school football teams (and even college). In the 90's, we had a woman playing goalie in professional hockey. The US's first World Champion in judo was a woman. We could race cars, and do whatever we wanted. Even my high school changed over from Girl's Basketball to regular basketball, but a girl's team. Suddenly, girl's were allowed to bounce a ball more than twice before passing it off.

Then, a couple of months ago, society did something truly wonderful - society applauded as New York reinstated Rusty's gold medal. That was the functional equivalent of society saying, "not only can you play, we were wrong; you should play" The acknowledgment of that wrong is oh so important.

I met Rusty a number of years ago, reffing at a tournament, being as fierce as ever. When you meet a person like her, and you know the stories of incidents in her life, it is a tremendous thing. It's intimidating to have her ref your match, but what can you do? back off and back out? No, the best way to honor her is to play, to keep playing. With her death on Saturday occurring at the same time as the All Women's Judo Championship, I couldn't help but think not only of the loss, but of the ideal concurrence of these two events. The tournament continued on and women from all over competed. We all mourn, but can there really be a better way to honor her than to play on?

... and other costuming mishaps, or my day in CT for the Open Workout and Town Meeting

Now, first and foremost, I want to thank the people at the Norwich Dojo for putting on a wonderful event. It was nice to see USJA Board Elect members wearing, gasp, gi, and getting sweaty, and taking falls, and throwing the author around. I also enjoyed seeing plenty of MA people there, from Boston to Northampton. Really nice to see the people from Northampton. I need to get back up there on a regular basis. I claim personal responsibility for the lack of chocolate chip cookies, because I couldn't get off my sorry ass and make them the night before.

Maggie and I got into the car around 10 a.m., giving us plenty of time to get to the dojo on time, get changed out on time, and spend some quality shmooze time. But, that was not to be. We missed our exit. Yes, I drove past the exit to Norwich, as if I'd never been there before. The next exit after Norwich is some 28 miles later. Well, not really, but it sure felt like that as I watched the clock tick down. Maggie was, of course, fine with everything. She's especially fine with everything when treats are involved. Somewhere after Springfield, I'd tossed Maggie's car toy a bit strange, and it landed where she couldn't get to it. That was her only major complaint.

Finally, we get turned around, find the right exit, get to the dojo, and Maggie gets out and pees while I fill her water dish. She hops back in the car, accepts a treat, and settles in for the wait. I grab my gear bag and head in. Once I have permission to join, I go to the changing room and start pulling out gi jackets, 1, 2, 3. I've got 2 plain white t-shirts. I've got knee pads. I've got the pad I use on my ankle. I've got tape. I've got a mouthpiece. I've got everything I need - except pants. Crap. I could have sworn I'd packed everything, including pants the night before. I check again - no pants. I go out to the car. No pants. I go back into the dojo and take out my camera, because, damnit! this is not going to be a wasted trip. There are no spare pants to be had. While snapping a few pics, another woman, around my age and size comes off the tatami, and I'm thinking maybe she has a spare pair of pants. No such luck - her pants have ripped, at least at the tie level, making them difficult to keep up. Yes, a wardrobe malfunction. She changes out, but then somebody loans her a pair of pants. Good for her, but lousey luck for me - I'm still without pants.

I'm snapping pictures mentally kicking myself for failing to check to see if I had pants. I'm usually the person who has extras of everything, but this time, I was caught without even one pair of pants. This was despicable, deplorable, irresponsible, and any other negative adjective I can throw at myself. I was beginning to seriously wonder how badly I'd pissed off the judo gods, how bad my judo karma was when I decided that, if I was truly meant to miss this entire event and sit along the sidelines just snapping pictures, I'd have less than $60 in my pocket and be unable to purchase a noob dojo variety single weave. I checked my pockets. I had more than $60. Maybe the judo gods weren't totally pissed at me. A local dojo guy sitting out because of a recent non judo related surgery helped me buy a new gi, and I went off to my car to get the rest of my gear and change out. Finally, I'm wearing my full judo kit, complete with a brand new pair of pant. Pants! I finally have pants! I swear, I'll keep these pants in my car as my emergency pants from here on out; scouts honor (not that I was a scout, but you get the idea).

So, I missed the warm-up, and most of the drills. Got in on the juji drill, which was great - I got to loosen up my arms by arm bar. I got to ease into it. Worked in with a couple from Boston who were around my size. And all was good. Suddenly, I felt like a judoka again, instead of a pant-less spectator. Then, just as my joints were finding themselves again, randori. I played. I haven't randoried in I don't know how long, but, hey, there I was, thinking I could throw my tai otoshi. Yes, I did mostly old guy judo, but it was good. We rotated out the next round. The following round? Joan. Let me tell you, folks, she's a scrapper. And her grip fighting reminded me that there's this thing called "grip fighting" and it makes a substantial difference to your throws. I threw her, she threw me, we moved around, and after about 15 seconds, I was shot. But, I hung in there. I actually managed to work up a sweat. Another first in I don't know how long. Oh, and Joan got a good clean throw on me just as they called, "matte" - perfect timing.

That being said, as soon as I tried to catch my breath, I knew I was in trouble. I sat out a few rounds. Switch to newaza randori. I snapped a few pictures while I wondered if my heart was going to give me substantial grief. But, amazingly, I started feeling better. So, I joined in. I went up against a woman from Middleton CT who coaches a high school program who's amazingly, around my age, and amazingly, around my size, but in a helluva lot better shape than me (well, admittedly, I'm in a very good generally round squishy shape - very few could beat me at that shape). So, I took it slow and deliberate. Every time I went to stack her, she grabbed my ankle for a sweep. Sprawl out. Try something different. Slow and steady, and my partner didn't seem to mind. Just as we were getting somewhere, matte. Sheesh.

By then, the open workout was over - 2 hours for everybody else, 45 minutes of workout for me, 1:15 of searching for pants. Damned, the pants! Next up, town meeting. People changed out, except for me - I paid for those pants, I was damned well going to wear them. Did take off my jacket and obi. Anyway, Ann Marie finally arrived, sans the promised mini-me who had been shanghaied into babysitting. I was promised a good story about what had happened to make her that late, and I'm still waiting for the story. It's gotta be better than forgetting your pants.

Anyway, most of the people who were there for the practice were there for the town meeting. Elect members Joan Love, Bill Montgomery, and Marc Cohen spoke, along with AM who even managed to shadow demo an uke otoshi that demonstrated, hey, she's one tough lady, and gee, her knee is coming along - something everybody knew, but it's nice to have that object lesson every once in a while. Half way through, people came in to make the announcement about Rusty Kanokogi. I'll do a blog entry about her later, but there were some Rusty stories as we all tried to take in the news. The implications of her loss won't be felt until we can digest the idea that she's gone.

BOD elect members took questions from the peanut gallery, which included yours truly. The overall message of the BOD elect members is exactly what we heard during the campaign: judo needs to be inclusive, we need to actually do things, and modify things, and make them work. Asked about the USA Judo/USJA tensions, the perspective became apparent - USJA is interested in grassroots judo - creating good people, good communities and lastly, good athletes. In other words, the emphasis is not on elite athletes, but what's been happening at least a little since AM took the presidency.

Me? I found out something really cool. When you're trying to start a club, the last thing you want to do is spend a mess of money you don't have incorporating and becoming a 501©(3) non-profit entity so that you can obtain funds from grants and whatnot to get things like tatami. The choice, before this conversation, to me, has been - do you spend the money and take the 501©(3) non profit status to be eligible for grants and whatnot, or do you muddle through, spending money on what you can when you can before you decide whether you need to be a non profit and a corporation. Mostly, it doesn't make sense to spend thousands and have the correlative paperwork headache on the idea that you can be eligible for money, that whole bird in the hand v. 2 in the bush, perspective. Anyway, for those of you running clubs wishing you could try to access money from your local gaming commission or a grant from your local Wal-Mart, you don't have to become a non profit and you can still be eligible. Yes, that's right folks, you can have McDonald's or granny Smith for that matter, make a tax deductible donation to the USJA for the purpose of purchasing tatami or whatever for your new dojo. The USJA will then make those funds available to you. Cool! Now, we can get donations and still have them be tax deductible without paperwork hassel and financial expenditure of becoming a non-profit. So, your New Dojo creates a New Tatami fund, solicits targeted donations from local businesses or people, they get the tax write off, you get the funds. Talk with USJA if you're interested in this.

Oh, a word of warning to all the complainers out there; be ready to put your time and energy where your mouth is. The new BOD is looking to get help from anybody interested in helping - whatever your talent is, they'll find a use for you. So, don't b!tch if you don't want to be a part of the remedy. (and as somebody pointed out to me - don't answer the phone if AM is on the other end, unless you have plenty of time to dedicate to some aspect of the USJA and judo). Personally, I like this. This means that more voices are heard, management is spread out across the country, and, if you want a problem addressed, you can be a part of addressing that problem. Pretty cool.

So, if you've read this far, let's get to the good stuff, the pictures. As the person with the camera, you won't pictures of me sporting my new pants, but hopefully these will do:














ah, it must be a meeting - he's got coffee


oh, AM, I hope you repeat this as you cross the country. I think the more judoka who hear this, and can ask questions, the greater the pool of judoka willing to help, and the more connected we all will feel. Personally, while the workout was nice, especially for the recalcitrant me, the really good vibes came from the give and take of the town meeting - both you all talking and answering questions, and from the rest of us, sticking around and being encouraged to ask the questions we needed to ask. Kudos to all for participating. The atmosphere of interest and change is a good thing, especially when it comes from the area judoka as well as the BOD elect.

So, after much slothfulness on my part, I went down to Norwich, CT for the Norwich Judo Dojo Grand Opening. This is the home of Bill Montgomery and JudoLady, and they recently moved and expanded their digs. To celebrate, they got Jim Bregman and Alex, oh, hell, I can't spell his name off the top of my head and if I try, I'll embarass myself and him, but the -66 US rep to the Atlanta Olympics. Yeah, you know the one. Anyway, they had two special practices with these two fine gentlemen. The first was for the kids, and, while I do tend towards the juvenile, I skipped that. The second was 3 hours for the adults in the crowd. I faked adult and drove down for that.

Let's talk digs for a few. The new location is nice. It's in a strip mall type thing, right next to a gym. THey've apparently worked out a deal with the gym, and we get to walk through to their changing rooms and showers and whatnot. Nice. Bring your own hair dryer, but nice... (Sorry, had to dig at the English survey on what women in judo want...). The dojo itself is new construction, and there's that new paint, new floor, bit of construction feel to it. It's long, deep, enough for two full competition surfaces, a section for chairs, and all the accouterments for administration - extra gi, extra belts, obligatory portrait of Prof. Kano. It's got a pretty good vibe to the place.

Anyway, it was a pretty good turnout. The space was pretty crowded with a good range of age, ranks, and gender. There were also a range of gi - from the traditional white with nothing on it to black to gi with large patches on the back. A few were tournament patches, but a few sported things like, "Gracie Jui Jitsu" and related clubs on the back. That's such a rarity. It's a nice rarity that shouldn't be so rare. In another world, the presence of such things would be adversarial, but not at Norwich. This was reiterated at line up when Bill Montgomery stated that Norwich's goal was to be inclusive. Yes, we're doing judo, so no heel hooks, neck cranks, etc, but we should include all interested in judo, no matter what the background. This is a good thing, at least in theory, and at the Norwich club, it's a good thing in practice.

Oh, and because pictures make this blog much more interesting, the start looked a bit like this:



After warm-ups, the two clinicians took over starting with tachi waza. It became apparent that Atlanta Alex (forgive me, I'm going to call him that - I can actually spell Atlanta, I think...) would show a throw, and Jim Bregman would show counters. It was wonderful to hear that Mr. Bregman's world hasn't changed as he said, "in my world, everything ends in uchi mata". So, the first hour was taken with throws and counters, and this is what it looked like:

After a water break, newaza was served up, with particular attention paid to juji gatame. This of course reminded me that a certain president of the USJA disagrees with Mr. Bregman - all things don't end in uchi mata, they end in juji gatame. On variation taught by Atlanta Alex was described by Mr. Bregman by its Japanese name: Pretzel Juji Gatame. anyway, here are a few photos:





















and I have to throw these two images up here - mother and son:

back to the regular photos:













Then, another water break followed by randori - newaza and standing. There were so many people there that they had to rotate in and out for safety.

















afterwards, line up, bow out, and shake hands:



Anyway, I took something like over 200 photos. If you want to see more, including the blurry shots, you can go here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/knapp.stacey/N...feat=directlink

I want to congratulate Norwich Judo Club on a fine Grand Opening event, welcoming everybody to their new diggs. Seems to me like a great way of inaugurating a new dojo. Here's to many years of fun!

So, I had a bit of a problem a few months ago, and I was stupid about it and, well, I let my thyroid disorder get the best of me. Arguably, I'm still doing that, but to a lesser degree. Anyway, it seems I'm not as healthy as I thought I was, or something.

So, here's my personal experience with the Norwich Judo Dojo Opening, complete with my stupidity detailed. Have fun.

I get up, and my gi are packed, and my cameras are ready, but my dog sitter has crapped out. It's in the 60's, and it really isn't that long a time in the car, so I figure, what the hell, I'll take the dog, and we head out, me and judo puppie (she's been smuggled into more judo events than I care to remember... yeah, that wiggling bag? that was her). Now, I haven't worked out in around 4 months or so, but I've done this before - take it easy, try not to over do it, take aspirin with you. It'll be cool, you'll meet some great people, some great Judo Forum people, and this might get you off your a55 and back into the dojo. Yeah, that's what I told myself. Another little niggling part of me was, I'll admit, telling me I was a fool.

So, we head out, and it's overcast. In the mountains, it's raining. Coming into CT? overcast. Driving in CT reminded me of driving from Indy to Bloomington, but with more cops. No, I didn't get hit by a cop, knock wood. The instructions from Google Maps are right on, at least until we get to Norwich. Then, they have me taking a right into a dead end. Hmmm, I know I'm on the right street, so if I turn around and keep going, I'll inevitably find the dojo, I reassure myself as I turn around in an overgrown dead end. I mean, this area doesn't look like an area where there's a strip mall with a gym. Oh, hell, I'm already here, turn around. And I'm meandering around, thinking that I drove all that way for nothing. Fortunately, I was on the right road, and I did find the dojo, and I even got there with time to spare. Imagine that! Note to self; cross reference Google Maps with Map Quest to verify addresses. Better yet, send an email to somebody who's been there before... That would be too logical.

So, I get there. I let Maggie out, and she pees in the weeds. I fill her water dish, put her food dish with kibbles over on the passenger's seat. The parking lot is beginning to fill up. The first thing I see is a family with two kids. Well, in all fairness, they're probably 13 year old boys, and I'm thinking, did I get here at the wrong time? It's supposed to be adults only at 2. But, I grab my bag and mosey in. There's a table with a bald guy sitting there, and a woman who looks a bit like JudoLady standing there. Apparently, there aren't that many travelling old lady judoka around, so I was immediately identified. Waivers were signed, a warm handshake from Bill Montgomery (the bald guy) and a hug from Joan and I'm in.

Glancing into the dojo, a lot of adults - I'm there at the right time, whew! I'm directed through the health club to their changing room, where I of course, change. Grab my roll of tape, my volleyball knee pad, and I'm ready, or so I think. I go into the dojo, take off my shoes, sit in a chair and tape up. It's been a while, so I'm trying to remember what I have to tape besides taping the volleyball knee pad to the ankle. Oh, yeah, the left little finger - buddied to the ring finger. Then, bow onto the mat, pop my neck and start moving and stretching. I meet JF member rberry and a few others. Nice crop and cross section of ranks. I'm not the oldest woman, I'm not the youngest. I'm not the highest ranking, I'm not the lowest. That in and of itself is very cool.

Line up, and Montgomery, JudoLady, Jim Bregman, Alex Ottiano are at the front. We other black belts are wandering down the mat. The BB start peeling off, gesturing each one to take the start of the line. I'm not playing that, I fit into the middle of the line, somewhere. I figure the first one in the line should be a member of the host club, so that things can start off in the tradition of the dojo. That doesn't happen. The call goes out, "rei" we bow, then announcements. Gotta laugh, at least a little.... Anyway, we go from there to warm ups, lead by JudoLady. Start with one of my most favoritist activities - running. There are so many of us there that we make an entire circuit of the dojo, head to tail, no break. Pretty sweet! And I run. We run backwards, side ways, other side ways, footwork drill, etc. And, amazingly, I keep up. Maybe I'm not in as bad of shape as I thought. We then do some leg lift type stuff, blah, blah, stuff I generally like. I'm doing pretty good. We do rollouts. Ah, the test. I throw myself into left, right, left, right. Pretty sweet - that volleyball knee pad continues to work. I'm going easy, but still popping up. No more need to do the akido roll on the one side. Everything is feeling pretty good. We do more falling drills, some shrimping, some crawling. I get through the entire warm up o.k.. I'm almost pleased with myself - maybe I'll survive, at least until I have to wake up tomorrow. Everything's feeling, smelling, looking like judo. It's, well, it's nice.

First drill, ouchi gari from a left hand grip, but throwing to the right. No, no, not the ken-ken version. JudoLady and I pair up, and start working. Me? I take that left grip and naturally try to throw a left ouchi gari. Guess I've got that one in muscle memory or something. Anyway, have to think about it to take a left grip and throw right. It works. JudoLady throws me a few times. Everything is cool, until I start seeing spots in front of my eyes and my tiny little heart goes ker-thunk ker-thunk ker-thunk. I'm thinking, ah, just a bit of a heart palpitation, big deal. Been through them before, will have to endure them again. Take a short breather until the ticker gets back in rhythm, and jump right back in. So, I step out. It's not getting better, so I go down into a crouch. My chest feels all crampy and I'm feeling like I'm going to pass out. At the same time, squatting on my damned ankle is painful. So, I stand, bent at the middle. Nope, that doesn't work, back down to a squat. Nope, that's not working. My heart doesn't seem to want to get back into the right beat. It's becoming more than incidental. So, while they're demonstrating the next drill, I shift over to the chairs. I really need to sit down.

I sit. O.k. things are getting worse. My hands are shaking. I've got little spots in front of my eyes, feel faint, and my chest is really uncomfortable. Sort of a cross between indigestion and a muscle cramp. I figure, can't be indigestion, I haven't had that much to eat today. Hey, maybe that's part of the problem, not enough to eat. Well, that usually doesn't cause chest cramps. O.k. how about anxiety? O.k. I'll bite - it's been too long since I've been to a dojo, maybe I'm being anxious or something. I'll grab a camera out of my bag and use that to distract myself. If it's anxiety, that should alleviate it pretty quickly. I move 3 feet to my bag, but standing up almost takes me out. I grab my camera, but I feel like hell. Part of me is trying to think of the appropriate etiquette in this situation. Can't die here - bad for an opening. Well, I can leave? Sh!t, I can't really move. Ambulance? Over my dead body. Sh!t, just wait it out, it's bound to get better. I try to take some pictures, but I really feel like crap. They go through a few more drills. They take a break. They start in with more drills. I'm taking pictures, but I still suck. My damned bra is too tight, or so it feels. But, hey, it's not getting worse. That's a start. About 45 minutes in the second session, my chest starts to loosen up. I take a deep breath, and I'm actually able to take a deep breath. I can move.

Next session is randori. I wish. I just sit on the sidelines and snap pictures. That's all I seem to be good for. But, at least things are getting better. I feel like I'll actually be able to move, get to my car, drive home. The session ends, the class ends. I beg off dinner and head home. 2 hours later, I'm back, and I'm feeling better. I can move. I can breathe. I still feel like I have a brick on my chest, but that's a helluva lot better than it was. I'm really really tired, so I'm going to bail on the more important blog entry for the night and go to bed. Ah, well.

Finally, after all this time, Sam the cat finally allowed me to take his picture. He even posed. So, I'm including the pictures here for a collective, "Awwww!", shmaltzy as that may seem. Yes, your teeth will itch with the sweetness.





and finally, the best and sweetest of them all:

I think this says it all:

Back to Northampton for more Saturday judo. Again we ran, and I started as the guys were changing. They caught up to me about 200 yards from the end of the run. I think I really need that head start and hope to narrow that gap week by week. Running, however, is a distinct weakness of mine. Until today, I've been running a loop that's a little over a mile in distance. Today, I have a head cold or something weird going on with my sinuses, so am sleeping a lot.

Back to Saturday. We went over a few other juji gatame variations before doing some stand up. We worked this technique:















I love my camera sometimes.

The big news, at least for me, is I did stand up randori with somebody other than a black belt. Keith was nice enough to go with me and after a little jostling, I threw my tai otoshi to the side. He felt it coming and could do nothing. It was sweet. Makes me think I'll get back to an acceptable level of judo for me. Thanks, Keith.