That…was…AWESOME!!! =) =D
And when was the last time I used that word? 6th grade?

My dad was right; the first thing they teach you in jujitsu is how to fall. That made me a bit nervous because of how sore I was from overtraining last Saturday. The half-hour stretching and warmups to kick off the class totally loosened me up, however, and I was fine. After drills of falling back, falling left, falling right, and getting back up in fighting stance, we learned how to turn a defense move into an offensive one by using the attacker’s own momentum against him. I’m gonna need more exposure to get the “feel” of movement. It makes total logical sense to me about transferring the momentum in an arc, the arm twists and the regaining of control. I’m just gonna need time for it to become second nature. I’m gonna have plenty of chances to do that, because the instructor asked me to go in tomorrow evening for the more advanced class. I think I will, just to expose myself more.

The chemistry of the class was great. We had a mix of levels, altho it was a beginner’s class, and everyone was very nice and helpful and seemed to have good senses of humor. I put on my open-minded outgoing clowny persona and it faired well with the class. I hung out after the class and watched some of the more seasoned students practice grappling with each other. Their throws and combinations look really cool. (I did some “throws” and was “thrown” a bit too, but those were more like controlled rolls.) The instructor was very nice and seemed to take a genuine interest in my learning.

As a social observation, it is endlessly fascinating to me how in a new environment with complete strangers, we (I assume I’m not peculiar in this) instantly cubbyhole people into caste categories we’re familiar with. There are the girls we’d want to hang out with, girls you know are gonna be at the bottom of the skill level, guys whose skills you admire and would want to hang out with, guys who are around your level and would probably end up being the guys you hang out with, and guys who are creepy and you want to stay away from. One creepy guy stood around too close to my personal space and had his top off for way too long while he was changing between T-shirt and the martial art robe top, whatever those are called. One guy in the “guys you admire” category instantly caught my eye because he looks like a (much) better looking version of someone I had once taken a fancy to. I also chatted w/the instructor and 2 other more advanced students after the class and made some new friendships.

Sometimes you’re somewhere you just know you’re supposed to be.