I took down Andre the Giant

Remember “Timmy,” the guy I compared to Andre the Giant because he’s big, and when he demos Jiu-Jitsu with Instructor, I can barely see Instructor?

We had another one of those classes where Instructor disappeared behind Timmy’s limbs. For the first half of this class, Instructor partnered with me. We started with a standing move where you get the “bad guy” “in the clinch.” In the previous class, we learned that from here you can do a “body fold takedown” and get the person on the ground. I told Instructor that in that class, I had a really hard time doing the takedown on Savage Teen Girl’s Dad. (At that class, Mom was there, too, so, thankfully, those two ladies partnered together, sparing me from teen girl’s savagery. And, yes, super cool that they’re a JJ family.)

Instructor said, “If you have a hard time working with someone again, let me know, and I’ll partner with you. I can be a good bad guy. I’m the best bad guy, and soon you’ll be a good bad guy too.”

#ThingsThatSoundReallyWeirdOutOfContext

Another example of #ThingsSafelyOnlySaidInJiuJitsu, was when, later in that class, still working with Savage Teen Girl’s Dad, he said, “You need to take your knees off the ground.”

“My knees ARE off the ground.”

“Oh,” he said. He’s probably used to his daughter, who, as I know first hand, is much heavier than I am.

Then later, during another iteration of that same move, he said, “That was better. You felt heavy.”

I said, “This is the only situation where I could take that as a compliment.”

Back to the more recent class, I was partnered with Timmy at the end for the “put it all together/free for all” time. I was being Bad Guy, which meant it was Timmy’s job to get me in a rear naked choke while I tried to get away.

As we were rolling, as it’s called, though not strictly with rolls, I suddenly stopped when I realized I had “achieved the mount,” in other words, I was sitting on top of Timmy.

“Wait a minute. How did I get here?” I asked, befuddled. “Did you give that to me?”

He looked just as stunned as I was. “I think I wasn’t holding on tight enough.”

!!!

That’s right, folks, I wiggled, squirmed, and fought my way to the top against my own personal Andre! I really wish I had thought to throw my arms up in the air and shout, “I’m the queen of the world!!!!”

But I didn’t. Instead, I just said, “Sucka!” and he smiled.

Unfortunately, earlier in this class, Timmy/Andre rolled over my foot, bending it backwards. When it happened, I thought, “Ooh, that’s going to be bad.” A second later, I didn’t feel any pain. I made it through the rest of class, driving to and walking around the library after class, and then driving home before I took a step and thought, “Ow.”

Apparently, once I’d gotten home and the adrenaline wore off, I could feel the pain in my foot again. It wasn’t bad, but I was limping for the rest of that day and through the next, walking pretty much fine by day three. Unfortunately, I knew I needed to take a break from JJ in order to let my foot heal.

Here come some nasty pics, so scroll quickly if you don’t want to see my purple foot.

The incident was Monday. Here’s what my foot looked like Tuesday night…

A foot that’s been bent backwards.

This was Thursday. Somehow it looks worse.

And there’s a lovely purple “toe ring” that stretches around the back of my pinky toe.

I can walk normal today, but I still feel it. It’s more of an annoyance than anything. Not being able to go to JJ is the real pain.

By way of some minor vindication, sometime during that same class I accidentally, lightly, hit Timmy in the face. Still, as he said when I did the same in a previous class, (ahem. whoops!) “It’s okay. I have two sisters.”

Apparently this guy is used to being beaten up by girls. Given the state of my foot, however, I think I owe him. When I get back to class, I’ll take him down again. 😉

Another post about the results of your blog name votes is coming soon!